Today is
not only Thanksgiving Day; it’s also November 22, and nobody my age can hear
the words “November 22” without thinking of the day in 1963 when President
Kennedy was assassinated. That event
happened just before Thanksgiving that year, and I remember even as a 9th
grader the painful irony of reading the late president’s Thanksgiving
Proclamation in the newspaper a mere six days after he had been killed. As he gave voice to the many reasons Americans
have to be thankful, President Kennedy also articulated the many challenges
confronting the nation. And then he said
this: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words but to live by them. [“Proclamation 3560 - Thanksgiving Day, 1963”, November 5, 1963]
“The highest
appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” In framing the Thanksgiving holiday as a
dialogue between words and deeds, President Kennedy was expressing one of the
great creative tensions faced by all people of faith. As Christians, we are the custodians of
inspiring words about hope, peace, love, and compassion. As Americans, we are the inheritors of a
national vision encompassing liberty, justice, and opportunity. On both sacred and national holidays, we tend
to talk in large beautiful abstractions.
But President Kennedy’s Thanksgiving remarks call us back to our central
task as both followers of Jesus and citizens of the United States: not only to
proclaim ideals but to enact them. “The highest appreciation is not to utter
words but to live by them.”
As Christians, as Americans, we face these creative
tensions anew in 2012. What does it mean not only to give thanks but to live
thankfully in the 21st century?
Last week, WAMU, the local NPR station, ran an
extraordinary series on homelessness in the District of Columbia. One episode described the surprising number
of homeless college students who find themselves back on the street during
school holidays. Another noted how on
any given night there are 67,000 homeless veterans in America. The story that arrested my attention, though,
told of a 22 year-old mother of four named Ebony who walks or (on cold nights
rides the bus) endlessly with her two month-old son, Khyla. According to the story [“Homeless Mother Waits In The Cold For Spot In Shelter”,
WAMU, November 14, 2012] there has been a 73 percent increase in demand for
emergency shelter since the onset of the recession. Ebony
and Khyla are one of about 600 families on the waiting list for shelter in the
District.
Ebony is both
hopeful about her prospects and realistic about her plight. "I'm hoping
I'll find something within the night," she says. "A lot of times me
and him will just walk around late, just pass time at night. I don't trust
sleeping out there, 'cause there's a lot going on. You hear gunshots, you know,
people running red lights." As I
listened to this story, I felt at once moved and ashamed. How can I live in a country that lets its
veterans and young mothers and children go without shelter? How can I give thanks for the abundant and
comfortable life I enjoy while Ebony and Khyla and 599 other local families
spend their nights looking for someplace to stay?
My
dilemma is probably your dilemma. I’m thankful, and I’m also chagrined. I
continue to hear President Kennedy’s admonition: “The
highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” The most authentic way for a Christian person
to give thanks goes beyond the eloquent prayers we will utter at our
tables. The most authentic way for a
Christian person to give thanks involves standing for and with those who do not
share in the abundance for which we are so understandably grateful.
This morning we have heard two passages of scripture
that can help us face into this dilemma.
One is Psalm 126; the other is from the sixth chapter of Matthew’s
Gospel.
Psalm 126 is my favorite of all the Psalms. It comes from the time when Israel’s leaders
were held in captivity in Babylon. They
were in exile, cut off from home and land and culture. And yet they fashioned a remarkable song of
thanksgiving and trust.
When
the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.
then were we like those who dream.
The
LORD has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.
and we are glad indeed.
On first hearing Psalm 126,
you might say, what’s the big deal here?
It’s a typical song of thanksgiving.
But when you read it carefully and mull it over for a while, you realize
that the psalm gives thanks for something that hasn’t even happened yet. It treats a hoped-for reality as an
accomplished fact. Only after the initial proclamation that “the Lord has done
great things for us and we are glad indeed” does Israel then go on to ask God to
do the great things they’re already thankful for: “Restore our fortunes, O
LORD, like the watercourses of the Negev. “
What I take from Pslam 126
is a clue about how to live in the tension between what I know to be true and
what I hope will be true. The life of
faith is ultimately about what we all, together and individually, hope
for. As Christians, as Americans, we
organize our lives around a vision of life that we hope will be true, a vision
symbolized by the abundance of the table to which Jesus gathers us, a vision
symbolized by the cornucopia of our harvest celebrations. God offers us an abundant future, even in
moments of personal and social deprivation.
They key to abundant living, to living on Jesus’s terms, is to choose to
live as if what you hope for is already true now. If you’re a Jew in Babylonian exile, live as
though you’re already free. If you’re a
person of faith in 21st century America, live as if the abundant,
mutual, generous society you hope for were already here. Even though the
blessings of material prosperity are not available to all, we can work to make
them so, we can start by extending the circumference of our own family tables
and strive to widen the circle of abundance. “The
highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” We give thanks by working to make our tables
and our society hospitable to the Ebonys and Khylas of this world and all those
whom God wants to draw inside that circle of abundance and plenty with us now.
So one way to give thanks this year is to live as though the
world we hope for was already here.
Another way is to remember what Jesus says to us in the sixth chapter of
Matthew:
"I tell you, do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than
clothing? . . .Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither
toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed
like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive
today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you .
. .?” [Matthew 6:25, 28b-29]
“Do
not worry about your life,” says Jesus.
God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. God will feed and clothe you. The key to abundant living is not only to
live thankfully in advance. The key is
also to remember that the source of our ultimate security is not ourselves. The source of that security is God, who even
now is looking out for you in ways you can’t even begin to know about. God cares about Ebony and Khyla and the
homeless veterans and all those who are hungry or homeless or cold this
night. God cares about you and your
household and the fears and challenges you face. Don’t let those fears and challenges control
your life. Let Jesus’s hopeful vision of
shared mutual abundance, of a world where not only lilies and birds but human beings
are lovingly provided for—let that be the truth that gives shape to your life.
Let us all live as if everything we hope for and believe about God and America
were true. And once we’re living in that truth ourselves, we can act
together to make it real for everyone.
When
the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.
then were we like those who dream.
The
LORD has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.
and we are glad indeed.
“The highest appreciation is not to utter words but to
live by them.” Happy Thanksgiving. Amen.
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