Thanksgiving is all about prepositions

Theology, the science of thinking God, we might say, is really all about prepositions. They are those little words which position words and ideas in relation to one another. Little words like ‘to’, and ‘for’ and ‘with’ are particularly important in what was once known as the Queen of the Sciences, Theology as Metaphysics, which itself points us to another preposition. One of the meanings of meta is after; our thinking after and upon the things of God in creation or nature and beyond, even our thinking with God.

What does this have to do with Thanksgiving? Simply everything. Thanksgiving is the Head of School’s favorite festival because it seems to be the one event which is the most free from commercial hype and fuss of busyness. That is true, I think. More importantly, it is profoundly spiritual and as such belongs to all of the great spiritual festivals that belong to the Christian Church and to many other religious traditions. Voltaire, who was a deist, a kind of enlightenment, quasi-Christian viewpoint, argues in his novel, Candide, that thanksgiving is the universal religion of our humanity.

Thanksgiving is not about getting but giving. It is primarily about returning and giving thanks as the classical thanksgiving story from Luke read in Chapel this week shows us. It is thanksgiving to God and for what we have received. Not the least of its importance, it suggests that whatever good things we enjoy we enjoy not because we are owed them; rather because they are a gift, something freely given. We can only work with what is given to us. It is the counter to the culture of entitlement. Thanksgiving cannot be forced. It is properly speaking a free motion from the heart. That you should be thankful for what you have received - all the things that are provided for you - is true but that truism cannot be forced.

This is the point of the Gospel reading where ten lepers - outcasts of society - are cleansed by Jesus but only one returns to give thanks. He does so in a most extravagant and heart-felt manner. All ten lepers were healed but only one “turned back” and “with a loud voice glorified God”, and “fell down on his face at [Jesus’s] feet, giving him thanks”. Luke tells us he was a Samaritan; an outsider in the Jewish culture of the time, but Jesus calls him a stranger. Somehow the stranger shows us what it means to be the neighbour! Meaning near to one another as belonging to our common humanity and so with one another as companions. The word companion, literally, means with bread, com panis. There is a profound social dimension to thanksgiving. We give thanks to God for what we have received, and we do so with one another and, most profoundly, in the breaking of the bread, in the sharing of fellowship and food.

Alan Jacobs’ lovely book, ‘Breaking bread with the dead’ seeks to show us how we can learn from the wisdom of the past. Breaking bread is a lovely image of our lives together in the community of learning, a school.

Thanksgiving is to God as the source of all good things and all blessings. Thanksgiving is our acknowledgement of the gifts of life and love, a thanksgiving for the blessings of creation in which we labour and for the many other blessings that belong to our lives together as rational and spiritual creatures. In this sense, Thanksgiving calls us to account as the spiritual and rational creatures who recognise the truth of the world in which we find ourselves and our dignity and freedom. The freedom of thanksgiving..

Central to Christian worship, and as picking up on a number of themes in other spiritual traditions, is the Eucharist, a Greek word meaning thanksgiving. It is the meaning of Mass, the Lord’s Supper, and Holy Communion, to use other terms. It is the greater thanksgiving of God giving himself to us for our salvation and wholeness. Thus, as the Gospel reading for thanksgiving suggests, it is in thanksgiving that we are made whole and complete. In some sense it is about our awareness of one another and thus extends as well to our concerns for those facing the threatening dangers of storm and hurricane such as in Florida this week.

Thanksgiving is to God, for God’s blessings, and with God and with one another. All such prepositions lift us beyond ourselves in our immediate concerns and into the life of God (oops, another preposition, a double preposition!). They place us with one another in the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Be ye thankful and so shall ye be blessed.