Thanksgiving...Gratitude for a Great God

"But thanks be to God,

who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

(1 Corinthians 15:57)

What does thanksgiving mean to you? Is it a turkey dinner and a football game? Is it a long anticipated family gathering? Is it all of the above wrapped up in a time of celebratory gratitude to God for his blessings?

For what were the Pilgrims thankful to God?

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States that looks back to the when the Pilgrims first came to this continent seeking religious liberty.  Despite a very difficult first year at Plymouth at harvest time the Pilgrims gave thanks abundantly in and for all things. That first thanksgiving was after a year in which 47 out of 102 Pilgrims died (3 months at sea + a cold winter with poor shelters). As their ranks thinned, they drew closer together and prayed even harder—never giving in to despair. In October 1621, 90 Native Americans showed up and brought additional food with them to add to the celebration. However, in November 1621 another ship arrived and dropped off 35 more people with no supplies of any kind. This severely taxed their food supply until the next harvest. That second winter the daily ration was ultimately reduced to 5 kernels of dried corn, yet no one died of starvation. They never despaired but always gave thanks and during really bad times they gave thanks even more. So when the time came for the second thanksgiving celebration the first course was five kernels of corn lest anyone should forget. --

In comparison, Jamestown settlement did not give thanks and as things grew worse they suffered almost an almost 90% death rate including acts of murder and cannibalism.

In 2001, after going through the national turmoil of 9/11, I wrote a poem where I attempted to capture the emotion involved in that Thanksgiving, and perhaps by extension that of Christians around the world throughout the ages.

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

Survived

We’ve made it through

Anno Domini past.

Too many of our company did not.

Persecution and promise driven

Through water (stormy Atlantic),

And fire (raging fevers).

Amalgamated by the fellowship

Suffering . . .

Disease, exposure, exhaustion,

Seeking . . .

Thy face in desperate prayer,

Singing . . .

Praises for Thy tender mercies,

Sowing . . .

In hope we planted what remained!

Surrendered

Our ways, wills, wisdom

At the end of ourselves

Thy Word hast not returned void.

Strengthened

Providential purposes accomplished,

Righteousness’ fruit!

Thy harvest now we thankfully receive.

© Greg K. Dueker

 

In addition to this poem, and the Thanksgiving Day history, here is a pastoral potpourri on thankfulness.

When and how should we give thanks to God?

·         In everything… for it is God's will. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

·         Always... for everything (Ephesians 5:17-20)

·         Abounding in it as our regular habit (Colossians 2:6-7; 3:17)

·         By faith as part of our prayers. (Philippians 4:6-7)

·         Great or Abundant thanks (Psalm 109:30)

Three Characteristics of Biblical Thanksgiving

·       It is not based on Possessions but on Praise. (1 Chronicles 29:13,16) The Hebrew word indicates “to use or hold out the open hand,” which means that we acknowledge that which we have received from God is still God's. We offer it back with the open hand of gratitude. It also has the aspect of “making confession,” for in thanksgiving we confess our dependence on the Lord and praise him for his goodness.

·       It is not based on the Product but the Person. In the Bible there is one reference to being thankful for the Word of God (Psalm 119:62), two references to thanksgiving for salvation, and more than 30 examples of gratitude for God's person and character, his goodness, his loving-kindness, and his Holy Name. They thanked God for Who and What he was, as seen in the things He did.

·       It is Agreeing with the Process & Plan not just the "Pay." The terms used for thankfulness in the New Testament signify “to acknowledge or agree fully” in essence to confess not only thanks for God doing something but for the way God did it. Our gratitude to the Lord ought to be not so much for the end result as it is an agreement with God and His process and plan for getting there.

Outside of the Box...Behind the Curtain

Two of the things that I am thankful for this year are the interactions that I have had with the men and women in my doctoral cohort and the assigned reading I have been laboring to complete. I haven’t always agreed with them, but I have grown either by enlarging my understanding to include new ways of thinking about culture, ethnicity, and ambassadorship or by understanding my position more clearly.

But this process got me thinking about how often we read books and articles that are written from outside our own cultural/religious/political comfort zone. We generally don’t like to read or listen to those that disagree with us or can see through our façade.

Behind the Curtain

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Recently I was reading a book by Vinoth Ramachandra a nuclear scientist and Christian theologian from Sri Lanka, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World. His book reminded me of Dorothy’s little dog Toto in the Wizard of Oz when he pulls back the curtain to reveal the “Wizard” pulling levers in a frantic effort to intimidate Dorothy her and friends. I loved looking at what Ramachandra calls the “Global Myths” (i.e., Terrorism, Religious Violence, Human Rights, Multiculturalism, Science, and Post-colonialism) from an articulate voice outside Western culture. Despite the difficult language used, the point was powerfully delivered. As we say in my family, “That will leave a bruise!” 

While I don’t agree with some of the theological and political positions taken in this book, I have enjoyed the wake-up call. Books like this one have gone a long way toward pulling back the curtain of my own cultural blindness. Christianity is not equivalent to Western/American evangelical culture and our faith can only be strengthened and purified as we read the works of Christians from around the world. So what do I do when I find that the man behind the curtain is me (the dominant culture I am a part of)?

Outside the Box

Creative Commons, Public Domain

Another way of making sure our contemporary faith is balanced is by studying historical theology. It sounds silly, but I was pleasantly surprised by the writings of church fathers like Irenaeus (d. 202), Athanasius (d. 373), and Latin fathers like Augustine (d. 430), as well as believers from the Medieval and Reformation periods. 

There is something confirming in the realization that our faith is not new but has its roots stretching back to the early church. Their words, written in a different era can be very beneficial to us today. Some time ago, I stumbled across these insightful words, written by C.S. Lewis, in an introduction to an English translation of St. Athanasius’ book, On the Incarnation (available for free on Kindle), urging us to read books from outside our contemporary context.

“A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light…

Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it…

Where [modern books] are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us…

     To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately, we cannot get at them…”[1]

While reading voices that speak from outside my own chrono-cultural context is not a new idea to me, this program has made it a new practice. They have both worked to help me see behind the curtain of my Western dominant culture biases, and get me out of my contemporary box. For that I am thankful. Though honestly, I am even more thankful that I am almost done with this year’s assigned reading!

---

[1] Athanasius, St. (2010-03-01). On The Incarnation (Kindle Location 56-80).  . Kindle Edition.

 

Who Do We Represent?

Are we Tourists, Businessmen, or Ambassadors (Part 4)

The term “representing” has come to be used in a much more marketing focused way in recent years. You hear the phrase, “way to represent” used is reference to the things we wear, say, and do to show our support for an apparel company, Alma mater, music group, sports team, political perspective, or even a church program. So who are we representing today? 

By way of review, last week we discussed the “how” characteristics of the Ambassador model for cultural engagement for Christ as opposed to the tourist and businessmen models.

·         Ambassadors are invited guests who have a posture of humility and graciousness. They are not in it for their own interests but represent the one who sent them.

·         Ambassadors don’t expect people of “other lands”—different sub-cultures and faith traditions both here and abroad—to learn our “Christian-ese” insider lingo. Instead, they learn how to contextualize Christian concepts to the other person’s ways of speaking.

·         Good ambassadors come to stay until removed by the one who sent them. They listen, are soft-spoken, and literate both linguistically and culturally. What does it mean to be literate in their culture? We must be willing to learn

·         Good ambassadors are compassionate, conciliatory, communicators of God’s grace…without compromise. They bring added value to all they engage.

Where in that post my focus was on how we are representing Christ, this week I would like to focus on the “who” that we represent. This question is huge. An ambassador should be an accurate and approachable representative of the community that has commissioned him/her to go. This is problematic if the ambassador is representing a country or group known for duplicity, injustice, and a desire for power. An ambassador is only as good as who he represents.

Is the Christ that we are striving to represent the Jesus Christ of the Bible, some personally shaped lesser deity, or is he a construct of our western socio-cultural environment? Everyone on the street has an opinion about who Jesus Christ is and what he is like. These opinions have been formed, shaped, and influenced by various sources both good and bad. We who aspire to be ambassadors are no different. Our view of who it is we are representing will shape the how.

I am a strong believer that we are not at liberty to shape idols in our own image and call them “Jesus” any more than the ancient Israelites were at liberty to make a golden calf or two and call it Yahweh (Exodus 32; 1 Kings 12:25-33)…yet we do it all too often. The Jesus of the Bible created all cultures, and works within them but is not constricted by their constructs. If we want to know who we represent we need to read the Bible through regularly, or rather allow the Bible to read us regularly. What does God say about himself in the words of the Old Testament? What does God say about himself in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, in the four gospel accounts? What does it mean to live as ambassadors of Christ as the New Testament letters encourage us?

To answer the first question, regarding what God says about himself in the Old Testament I submit Exodus 34:5-7, where God came and proclaimed his name (i.e., stated his essential character) to Moses,

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷ keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

This same idea is repeated throughout the Bible (See also à Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; 4:2; Nahum 1:3). Most people today would probably not realize this truth about God in the OT. Might we have misjudged Jesus as well? I will leave the second and third questions for you to answer for yourselves.

If we are to get past our lesser views of Christ, we must acknowledge that we have them. Our understanding of who Jesus is can be colored by our own fallen desires and the biases of the culture we are part of. It is important that we subject all of our views of Jesus to the witness of the Scriptures themselves, looking to that “Original Communication Context” (OCC) for interpretive clues instead of assuming it was written within a Western/American cultural filter (because it wasn’t).

If we are ambassadors for Christ, what is it about him that we should be communicating? I would like to go further, but will stop here and ask three serious questions:

“In reading the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)…

1.    What two or three emotions do we see most often in Jesus?

2.    What three to five character qualities do we see used most often to describe Jesus?

3.    What are the four most common verbs describe Jesus’ actions?

Having answered the three questions above, try one more… 

       So as Ambassadors for Christ, are we representing the right Jesus?