We Have a Plateful to be Thankful For

Anyone hungry yet? If not, it’s time to run a few extra laps around the block to work up that appetite because it’s almost Thanksgiving. The big meal has been a tradition on this soil for nearly 400 years. The Pilgrims and the Native Americans started it back in 1621 and we have been giving thanks and eating ever since. Those early settlers thanked God for rain and celebrated the harvest. The blessings we claim around the table today probably have very little to do with the growth of corn and beans. We still have very meaningful things to thank God for in 2014, they’re just different.

It was another 240 years after that first Thanksgiving before it was officially declared an American holiday. I suppose that means that in the early years, not everyone celebrated it on the same day. There wasn’t a designated day off. They were thankful whenever their crops came in, they ate a big meal, and they went back to work. 

It didn’t become an official American holiday until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln made that declaration. You know what else was happening in 1863? The American Civil War. The images that come to mind at the mention of the Civil War era are, well, of war. The loud bang of muskets being fired. The bloody sight of makeshift hospitals and wounds dressed with improvised bandages. The sour sense of disease and dysentery. Horseback riding soldiers wearing long uniform coats threadbare and festooned with rows of brass buttons, often with holes from where some the tarnished buttons had long gone missing. The smell of entire towns burning. 

It’s not exactly the atmosphere we find ourselves in on Thanksgiving today. We have the aroma of basted turkey to tease us and the taste of macaroni and cheese to comfort us. We laugh and clap at jumbo sized helium-filled balloon characters floating by Central Park followed by the Radio City Rockettes kick line at Herald Square. And football. We can’t forget all the football. We have a lot to be thankful for.

What do you think Lincoln was thinking when in the midst of war he declared a national holiday for the purpose of being thankful? For what exactly was he thankful? What do you think he wanted to encourage the nation that was at war with itself to be thankful for? I can understand the need for a holiday in the middle of a war. A holiday could be a tactic to rally the troops and bolster support on the home front. But a thanksgiving one?

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation reads, “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy…”   It closes with, “…fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it…”  

It seems to me that Lincoln was thankful that there would be survivors of people and land, and thankful that God deals not only in judgment, but also in mercy with regard to war. His words also seem to bear confidence and thankfulness in the power of the Almighty God to make it right in the end. Could Lincoln have been thankful that God didn’t stop the war from ever happening in the first place and allowed it to go on for a greater purpose, acknowledging God’s ultimate power and control?

I don’t suppose we can know the answer to that this side of heaven, but here’s what I do know. If we measure our blessings from God based only on the good things we do and the things we get right, then we miss the whole point of Jesus’ life and death on the cross. All of us are still going to mess up, get it wrong, start wars with neighbors, support the wrong cause, hurt other people, and maybe even leave a few things smoldering in our wake. Jesus accepted God’s anger and judgment for what we do wrong and it killed him. God’s greater purpose and ultimate power brought Jesus back to life, and in mercy gives us the blessings for what Jesus did right. The Almighty God will make it right if we let Him. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). That’s more than a plateful to be thankful for and it’s what I’ll be feasting on this Thanksgiving. Care to join me?

This was originally posted November 27, 2014 on The Press and Standard's website:

www.colletontoday.com

Read Before You Swim

Reading is a favorite pastime of mine. I have a stack of “to be read” books on my nightstand and a list of them in my head. The stack is high and the list is long because it takes me a while to finish a book. I am deliberate about my reading, which is just a fancy way of saying I am a slow reader. 

I read and reread paragraphs and pages because I want to be absolutely sure I understand what the author is trying to communicate. I hate to get to the last couple of chapters and find a reference to something earlier in the book that I can’t connect with the storyline. I don’t want to miss anything so I read and reread. 

It’s a wonder I got through college reading like that. I took a religion class because it was a graduation requirement for every single student at the university I attended. The school was financially supported by a religious denomination at the time, and that requirement was one of the concessions for accepting the money. I did a lot of reading and rereading in that Religion 101 textbook. Thankfully I passed and went back to the classes that were more relative to my major.

Every student also had to pass a swimming test before they could graduate. I have no idea what was behind that requirement other than it was Florida and there’s a lot of water there. I wasn’t a very good swimmer so I took Swimming 101 for credit. I swam laps for an entire semester because I didn’t want to take the test without ever having been in the pool. It was the aquatic version of reading and rereading.

I could tell more stories about my college days, but really, it’s one of those things where you just had to be there. There’s nothing like being an eyewitness to make it more meaningful.

I don’t think the disciple Peter was anything like me. He never seemed to hesitate. He didn’t feel the need to reread anything. He didn’t always get it right, but that didn’t stop him. He spoke up. He stepped up. He stepped out of the boat and sank. Perhaps that was one time he could have benefited from rereading the disciple handbook, or at least a Swimming 101 course. 

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, one of the first sermons came from Peter. In Acts 2 he starts by telling them, “listen carefully to what I say.” New Christians then were not just the first ones in their family or in their circle of friends, they were the first Christians ever. Peter had been an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry which gave him credibility in telling them what would be required of them as Christians. He also knew there were people like me there who needed to be reminded to pay attention because they might not get a chance to reread it. 

In that sermon Peter talked about Jesus. He quoted scriptures. Those are the things he wanted them to think about over and over. What he didn’t talk about was his unsuccessful water-walking adventure. We can read and reread the Bible and never find a record of Peter talking about it. Matthew is the one who told that story earlier. Peter probably wanted to forget, but he likely was reminded over and over by the other disciples who never got out of the boat. Isn’t that how it usually goes? We don’t like to talk about the things we don’t get quite right, but everyone else does. All the more reason to be reminded of what we should be thinking and talking about. 

Just a few years after that sermon, Peter knew his days were numbered. In the last letter he wrote to new Christians he says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (2 Peter 5:6). Those sound like words that come from someone with firsthand experience of sinking in the sea. When he recalled it, all he really remembered was who it was that saved him. Keep thinking about Jesus.

The was originally posted October 26, 2014 on The Press and Standard's website:

www.colletontoday.com

Wedding Plans

My husband was at the bank when he discovered there was an issue with the transaction he wanted to make. He called me at work to ask what I thought was the best way to handle it. I gave him my advice, said goodbye, and hung up the phone. Before I could focus on my work again, the young man in the office next to mine piped up and asked me how long I’ve been married. He had heard my end of the phone conversation with my husband. Maybe he was struck by how much I sounded like an old married women, but I’d like to believe he thought I still sounded like a newlywed. 

At this point, I’ve been married longer than I was single. I come from a long line of long marriages. I remember attending the reception celebrating my maternal grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. My parents celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary just four months prior to my father’s death. Both of my older sisters have each been married for more than thirty years. All together that’s nearly two-hundred years of wedded bliss. And blisters.

Planning a wedding now is probably more stressful than it’s ever been thanks to Pinterest inspired details. Video recorded flash mob proposals, professionally choreographed first dances, save the date cards and invitations, chalkboard message photographs, it goes on and on. The bar has been set really, really high. I can only hope that the expectations for marriage itself are a separate emotional and financial investment for today’s newlyweds. While marriage is the most wonderful and beneficial human relationship I’ve ever had, some days it is hard and it doesn’t live up to Pinterest perfection.

Some days it feels like we’re newlyweds. We laugh and play like children. Those days go by way too quickly. Some days are long and hard and I wonder who that stranger is eating the food in my refrigerator. Those are the days I don’t feel it at all. That’s when I just have to do it even though I don’t feel like it. And I do. I keep doing it, and eventually I feel it again. I have a much greater appreciation for “I do” now.  I’ve come to understand that it means I do the laundry. I do the cooking. I do whatever he doesn’t. He does what I don’t. That’s why it works. 

First Corinthians Chapter 13 is identified as the love chapter and is often used in wedding ceremonies. It says, “Love is patient. Love is kind.” It also says, “Love never fails,” and closes with, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” However, it wasn’t written for a wedding ceremony. It’s a letter Paul wrote to encourage the church at Corinth. As new believers and a new church, they were having difficulty adjusting to the responsibilities of their new status and relationships, sort of like newlyweds learning to live together. It was exciting and hopeful, but it wasn’t what they were used to. Paul felt the need to remind them that even though they enjoyed those playful days when they felt like kids, it was time to grow up in their faith. That meant that there were things they just needed to do even if they didn’t quite feel it yet. As contradictory as it sounds, growth is what would give them stability and longevity in their new roles. You can’t outgrow the love that never fails.

Prior to that, in Chapter 11 Paul talks about communion, or the Lord’s Supper. Communion is sometimes included in wedding ceremonies. It is an ordinance that calls us to remember what Jesus has done for us and to look forward to the next time we as Christians will share a meal with him, which just so happens, is a wedding supper (Revelation 19). It’s a celebration in heaven where Christians will finally and eternally be joined with Christ.

Immediately before and after the words on love, in Chapters 12 and 14, Paul talks about spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are the things God has given us to help us be better at inviting other people to that final wedding supper. In a sense, those we bring with us will be gifts in return. It will be such a grand event that not even the top Pinterest plan will measure up, so wonderful that we should probably invite everyone we know. The bridegroom, Jesus, did the work that made it possible for us to be there. That work was on the cross was in no way a honeymoon for him, but he did it anyway. The best part is that this marriage will never end. It will last for eternity. That’s the love that never fails.

The was originally posted October 12, 2014 on The Press and Standard's website:

www.colletontoday.com