Homily Year C Week 20

 Thanksgiving Day Homily October 10 , 2016

Happy Thanksgiving !!!!

Now someone may ask why would we keep Thanksgiving in church. Why, that is, we would observe Thanksgiving in a church? After all the holiday as celebrated is a public secular holiday. That’s one of the best things about Thanksgiving in my mind–that everyone can celebrate the feast. It’s not specific to any religious tradition.

But still the question might remain: why celebrate it in a church?

Well “thanksgiving” (giving thanks) is built into the very fabric of the Christian tradition. Today provides us the opportunity to observe how we are (or are not) giving thanks in our lives. I think it may take a public, secular holiday to remind us of religious commitments and practices.

We are here in this church to celebrate The mystery of our faith in the sharing of the eucharist . The word Eucharist means “Thanksgiving”. We are here to celebrate Thanksgiving. Every Sunday in this church is Eucharist (Thanksgiving) Sunday. As a matter of fact, Christians have been observing Thanksgiving for more than a thousand years prior to the arrival of our contemporary feasts of Thanksgiving.

Thanks is an overriding theme of our worship. Gratitude, graciousness, generosity, these should be primary values brought about by the practice of Eucharistic public worship. Just listen for all the times phrases like giving thanks, thanks, offering thanks shows up in the liturgy.

For example, we just had the readings at the conclusion of which everyone said:vThanks Be to God. In other words, “Thanks Be Given to God.”

During the mass we enter into the Great Thanksgiving. We hear the priest say “Let us give thanks to the Lord” and the people will respond, “It is right and just ”

Notice by the way that the liturgical prompt to “give thanks to the Lord ” is a command not a descriptive statement. Responding to “Let us give thanks to the Lord ” with “It is right and just ” without actually giving God thanks and praise would be like if you were standing next to a door and someone said to you, “Please open the door.” And you responded immediately with “It is right to open doors” but then didn’t actually go about you know, opening the door. How helpful would that be?

The point is this: Giving thanks is an actual thing to do. It is a practice of the Christian life.

I’m going to invite us to quickly undertake the practice of giving thanks to God.

Take a breath and inwardly say thanks from the heart. Let your feeling and your attention articulate thanks. Let your body express thanks.

Now you may have noticed a tangible shift in your state of being. Observe if you feel differently now as a result of giving thanks. “It is right to give our thanks and praise.” Does it feel right to have given thanks? For me it did. If it didn’t then feel free not to say the words, “It is right to give our thanks and praise.

The word Eucharist comes from the root meaning “graced or blessed”. If a person feels blessed or graced, then the natural movement is to give thanks.

All of life arises in God. We are now in God’s heart and mind. To feel into that truth is to feel graced. From there we may give thanks. The continual practice of thanksgiving cultivates wisdom, compassion, and humility.

Thanks-giving says there is enough. The practice of thanksgiving relieves much anxiety, it dissipates craving and selfish motivation. It opens up space for another. And it recognizes that not everyone has enough and therefore becomes a source of the desire for justice in this world.

First feel the blessedness, the grace of existence. Then be moved to give thanks for that grace. Then feel moved to respond out of that generosity and grace.

Since this is a paraliturgy and not the mass we will not pray the creed today or have a full offertory. So after we share our communal prayers of the faithful, I am going to sit down and ask that you bring up for those of you who have done so you contributions for the food bank, in gratitude and for justice and then we will sit quietly for a moment to give our thanks to God for all that we have in the knowledge that every thing that we have ultimately is his gift to humanity and to us.