Preached this morning, Thanksgiving day, at St. Kateri parish, St. Margaret Mary site:

(Gospel Luke 17:11-19) -

            One of the few hopeful things that came out of the 9/11 attack eleven years ago was the fact that standing in the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center towers was a cross – a cross of steel girders, all that was left of two I-beams.  That cross was symbolic to millions that we as a nation would recover from that awful         day, a symbol that even in the midst of death and pain and destruction, God was present.  Fast forward eleven years to this past July.  A group calling themselves American Atheists filed a lawsuit to prevent this I-beam cross from being displayed in the 9/11 museum.  Never mind that this cross was found in the Ground Zero wreckage, they say.  No, they believe they are being injured by having a religious tradition not their own imposed upon them.

            And if you follow the news, you probably know that the City of Santa Monica, California decided this week to end a tradition that dates back to 1953 and will no longer allow a Nativity scene to be erected in the City’s Palisades Park there.  It seems that atheist groups applied for a large number of permits to put up their atheist displays in the same park, so the City Council decided not to allow any displays for the “holidays” this year.  Never mind that there is a needle exchange for drug users only one park over – they’ve averted real danger and gotten rid of the Christmas display!

            So Shhh!  Let’s nobody tell them about the real meaning of today’s celebration.  For truth be told, “Thanksgiving” is meaningless unless we acknowledge that there is someone to thank!  I’m not sure how atheists spend Thanksgiving, for I’m not sure to whom they’re thankful.  You see, inherent in the whole concept of giving thanks is that there’s a relationship – the person who is giving thanks and the One to whom thanks are given.  And of course, that person is God Almighty!  Creator of all that is good and giver of all good gifts.  Now this is not news to you – after all each of you has chosen to begin your celebration today in Church.  But I think this is largely lost in our increasingly secular society – that  we are in a relationship with the God who created the universe and each of our very lives!

            But Thanksgiving is more than just any relationship – it has to be a properly ordered relationship.  One in which I recognize how indebted I am to God, how unbalanced the relationship is, if you will.  Recognition that I neither deserve nor can adequately repay God for all that He has given me.  This relationship is different than a contract or a transaction, where I get something in exchange for something I give up.  The other night my wife sent me to Wegmans to buy some fruit and milk.  At the checkout counter I gave the cashier my money, I picked up my groceries and went on my way.  I politely told her “thanks” but really – what for?  It was an even-up exchange – milk and fruit for money.  In our relationship with God, where everything we have and everything we are comes from God, what do we have to offer?  There’s nothing really that we can offer to “compensate” God for what He’s done for us.

            And so the attitude that prevails in the properly ordered relationship with God is an attitude of humility.  Where I humbly recognize that God is God and I am not.  Recognize that God is the creator and I am but a creature.  I realize that God didn’t have to, but freely chose, to create me.  My parents may have wanted a baby, but they didn’t choose me, God did.  From all eternity.  And not only did God create me, but God loves me.  More than I can possibly fathom.  When that really hits us, often like a ton of bricks, how much God really loves us, we feel nothing but humility.  And thankfulness.  True gratitude.   This feeling of indebtedness, of utter gratitude.

            This is so different from the attitude of the secular world – an attitude of “I deserve this” or “I am entitled to that.”  It’s a realization that I didn’t deserve to be created and I don’t deserve to be loved by God (especially when I think of the ways I’ve failed to love Him).  And yet He did create me.  And He does love me!   That so humbles me.  And I feel profoundly thankful.

            In today’s Gospel, it must be that nine out of ten lepers somehow must have thought they deserved to be healed.  I mean, they had gotten a bum deal, an incurable disease, and were separated from society.  I guess I can understand how they might have thought “I didn’t deserve to get this disease and now I deserve to be healed.”  And I can relate to the nine lepers, I suppose.  In our own difficulties, in our own illnesses, in our grief and our losses, it’s easy to be resentful and think we deserve better.  Only one of the lepers recognized the free gift Jesus had given them, the undeserved gift, and came back to give Our Lord thanks and homage.   Only one recognized his profound indebtedness to the Lord and returned. 

            But here’s the funny thing about today’s celebration.  It occurs to me that if we have this proper relationship, and if we have an attitude of humility and gratitude, it’s sort of ludicrous to celebrate Thanksgiving for one day!  It’s almost like – let’s pick one day to give thanks so we can go about our lives the other 364!  No.  If our relationship with God is all about thankfulness, it is or should be, of course, a 365-day, 24/7 kind of thing.  To be thankful for one day only simply doesn’t make any sense.  We will soon pray “it is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Father most holy.”

            But if you’re like me, you know you’re not always thankful, not always mindful of the gifts you have.  If you’re like me, you tend to take things, and people and relationships for granted.  So it does help to have this one day to remind us of all we have to be thankful for, all God has given to us, and of how much God loves us.  G.K. Chesterton wrote “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”  Isn’t that the truth.

            So as we now proceed to celebrate our Sacrament of Thankfulness, the Holy Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving, let us ask God for truly humble and thankful hearts.  That we may be mindful of God’s love for us and mindful of all that God has done for us, on this day, and every day.  Through His Son, Christ Our Lord. Amen.