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Thanksgiving Sunday

Deuteronomy 26
1When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.


It appears that homes are back. Not that homes every left, but it seems we live in a time when homes are getting more attention than ever. First came the big box retailers, and the news that more people were choosing to renovate rather than sell. Then came the mavens: Martha Stewart, Mike Holmes, and entire networks dedicated to decoration and repair. Finally, came the voyeurs: we get to look inside the “cribs” of various celebrities, entering closets and refrigerators and wondering why anyone would care.

On a more legitimate level, we hear about “housing starts” and “average resale values” and the market for homes in various places. We hear about escalating prices and “bidding wars” and we either give thanks that we got in when we did or mourn the fact that we may never be able to get in at all. The papers report on the crazy prices at the top of the market, and then the equally crazy ones at the bottom. The smallest house in the city, a mere 7 feet wide, sold for $140K in the spring and was back on the market for $190K last month. The seller described it as cozy and a good alternative to renting.

Every once and a while, a voice will slip through the din and suggest that maybe it makes more sense to rent rather than buy. Just yesterday someone on the paper suggested that rising wages and a renters market made renting more attractive than ever. This, of course, is considered blasphemy. With 70% of Canadians owning rather than renting, the majority has spoken. But it’s more than just mob rule, it’s a worldview.

In the iconic book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz , it’s Duddy’s grandfather who utters the most important phrase in the book, when he says: “A man without land is nobody.” If film is more your speed, then remember the character Delmar O’Donnel from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. In the scene where the boys are describing how they will spend the fortune they will soon get it’s Delmar who longs to reclaim the family farm. His summary: “You ain’t no kinda man, if you ain’t got land.”

We could conclude from all of this that having land is more than simply possessing something. It is different in nature from having a nice car or a good set of mutual funds. It has deeper meaning and is tied to self-understanding and a sense of place more than all the other things we have or hope to have. And none of this is new:

“A wandering Aramean was my father; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Thanksgiving, Jewish-style, centres on the holiday Shavuot, also called the Feast of Weeks. It is customary to too eat much and read the Book of Ruth along with several other passages, including the “wandering Aramean” from Deuteronomy 26. It contains, on a few short verses, the nub of the salvation history of Israel and the way in which the faithful are to respond. This is one of those “bible inside the bible” passages, where the summary transmits the whole meaning of the story.

The short passage relates that there are three types of people, three modes of being that Israel experienced. They went from the experience of wanderers to sojourners to landed people. I’ll say a few words about each: Wanderers are on the way somewhere. Compelled to leave any kind of settled existence, the wanderer is dependent on God for direction and sustenance. Danger surrounds the wanderer, moving from place to place without the protection settlement can offer.

The second type is sojourner: sojourners decide to stop wandering and set down some roots, but never for long. They choose to pause in a place that is not home, and enjoy some of the benefits of being somewhat settled, but they are not home. As “resident aliens” there are constant reminders that these sojourners are trying to make a home in a foreign place. They never cease to be outsiders even when power and wealth might suggest other wise. Joseph, prime minister to Pharaoh, defines this: insider and outsider at the same time, enjoying a moment of privilege that cannot last.

The last type is the landed, those who have arrived to enjoy the security and the fruits of the land. They are instructed to bring their first fruits to the temple, to give thanks for the bountiful harvest and the saving acts of God. They are to recount the story, and celebrate with everyone, particularly the resident aliens who live among them now. The implied meaning is “never forget”: never forget that you too were once wanderer, and then sojourner, and only now a person of the land.

When we try to enter the story we most often imagine we are people of the land. We enjoy this holiday of flightless birds and autumn colours and we give thanks for the “land flowing with milk and honey.” A few might ponder the myth of pilgrims and friendly natives and the injustice that shatters this mythmaking. But, through it all we recognize that the harvest is a gift from God and for this we must give thanks.

All of this, of course, assumes that we are the landed. It assumes that we have arrived, and that we made the transition from wanderers to sojourners to landholders and now we can celebrate. But is it true? Perhaps this is myth too, and demands a closer look.

The first myth is economic. It is sadly ironic that hampers and gifts of turkey are give to the poor at Christmas and never Thanksgiving. The message seems to be “enjoy our generous gift in the season of gifts” (Christmas) but not “come and be thankful with us” because we can rightly assume that Thanksgiving seems rather hollow for the disadvantaged in our midst. I’m not suggesting that the poor are not thankful. I’m simply suggesting that the original command to celebrate the harvest with everyone in society has been forgotten and privatized in the family traditions of the holiday.

The second myth involves meaning. Look around at the people we know and ask, do they act as landed people or sojourners? We seem to be surrounded by people who seem settled, but they’re not. They set down some roots, but soon they’ll move on. They appear to belong to the community, but they are not. People may say “hello” to a neighbour, but then duck inside just before the neighbourly chit-chat begins. They may have the rights of citizens, but when they avoid community meetings or neglect to vote, they act more like resident aliens. Homeowners move, on average, every five years and renters more often than that. Every indicator that would say “landed” or “settled” is in decline, from community groups to volunteering to getting out to vote.

The third myth is religious. We pause this morning to give thanks for the harvest and remember the promises of God. It is one of those rare moments when the civic and the religious come together, as both society and church are drawing on powerful traditions. But if we look inside our churches, we find they belong, almost exclusively, to the landed. This is economic, with United Church people owning homes at a rate higher than the general population, but also spiritual.

We are a tribe of insiders. At some point in our history we “grew” more than we “drew.” We went from drawing new people to mostly giving birth to new people, and seldom looking beyond our own families for new members. When we did go out to find new people, they tended to be our friends and neighbours, and therefore just like us. We become the denomination for middle and upper-middle class, mostly educated, mostly white Canadians. When we close our eyes and imagine new people coming through our doors, we still imagine young families: mom, dad and a couple of kids that look just like most of the rest of us. There would be few of us who would close our eyes and imagine tattoos or piercing or gay couples or anything too far from the ordinary.

Someone did a study and found that the first people I described, upper-middle class, mostly educated, mostly white describes about 15 percent of the population. So why don’t we fantasize about drawing the other 85 percent. In a modern-day (and somewhat twisted) version of the lost sheep, we are leaving the very people Jesus would seek to go after in favour of that rare sheep that looks just like us.

I’ve talked long. I don’t usually have this much to say, but I’ve been reading some good books lately, and you have to suffer the consequences.

Thanksgiving is more than an opportunity to give thanks, it is also an opportunity to recall the saving acts of God. The Israelites couldn’t give thanks without remembering release from bondage and the gift of the law and all the miracles that happened on the way. It was and is always about grace. It was and is always about the unconditional love of a God for a people, and the unending desire to settle them in a land of plenty and mercy and justice.

On Wednesday I will vote in our province’s first “fixed date” election, a new innovation that tries to bring some order and a vote every four years. It falls very close to Thanksgiving, and while by accident or design, voting will be one more opportunity to give thanks, to express gratitude for the good land we possess, and the freedom we enjoy. May we continue to give thanks for all the blessings and grace we receive, now and always, amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:23 AM