Readings

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, / for his mercy endures for ever” (Ps 136:1 BCP). That’s the point of this feast, starting from God’s generosity and our gratitude. Let’s notice together, briefly, four themes from the readings.

First, gratitude is a habit that, like all habits, needs nurturing. Luke’s story of the ten lepers: Jesus heals all ten; only one returns to “give praise to God.” And gratitude can be problematic. I like Miss Cattermole’s line in Dorothy Sayers’ novel Gaudy Night: “She’s awfully kind. But I’m always having to be grateful to her. It’s very depressing. It makes me want to bite.” Generosity can be—or be perceived as—a way of injuring, a form of manipulation. When it comes to God’s generosity, that’s a perception the Tempter is happy to encourage. But if “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good” means anything, it means that we can trust God to have our best interests at heart.

Second, this divine generosity is risky. That’s the problem Moses is trying to address in our first reading. “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God.” If the Lord were less generous that would be less of a problem. The Lord thinks it’s worth the risk, and that’s something about the Lord’s character worth noticing.

By the way, what of that line “You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you”? Can today’s nations, e.g., ours, appropriate those words? Given our checkered histories, only very carefully.

Third, all the psalm’s celebration of God’s action in our world: as heirs of the Enlightenment, do we believe that? Up through the 19^th Century that was a hard question: it looked like we should describe the world as a complex machine. No room for God. But then came quantum mechanics and chaos theory: the world is a stranger place than we imagined. Coming at it from another angle, if we still can’t give an adequate account of the connection between the mental decision to raise the hand and the corresponding muscle movement, why do we think we must rule out—in principle—the psalm’s picture of God’s ongoing generous involvement in our world? Maybe the psalmist is on to something.

Fourth, God’s generosity and our gratitude: it starts there; it doesn’t stop there. That’s what’s driving Paul’s appeal in the letter to the Corinthians re the collection for the poor in Jerusalem. In the center of the part we heard there’s that bit from another of the psalms:

“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”

That’s not, as we might assume, a description of the Lord, but of the righteous person. It’s from that pair of psalms we looked at earlier in the year: Ps 111 a celebration of the Lord’s character, Ps 112 a celebration of the corresponding character of the righteous person. So now in Corinth—or now in North Lake—as recipients of the Lord’s generosity, let us be likewise generous.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, / for his mercy endures for ever” (Ps 136:1 BCP).

Happy Thanksgiving.