From the Pastor: Saying Grace

Dear friends,

Some years ago in the New Yorker there was a cartoon depicting a well-dressed, obviously affluent family, sitting around a Thanksgiving table almost groaning from the weight of food spread upon it. The father looked uncertainly and timidly at his wife. "Do you think we should say grace?" he wondered.

This month all across the nation people will gather around the dinner table with those they love, and for many, part of the ritual will be "saying grace." It’s an odd phrase, isn’t it? Saying grace. We know "grace" in this case is thanksgiving for blessings received. Indeed, the words "grace" and "gratitude" come from the same root. When we "say grace," when we express gratitude to God, we are really simply acknowledging the grace of God which has showered us with blessings. To "say grace" is shorthand which means All this grace! All this is from God! Perhaps instead of "saying grace" we should be saying "GRACE!!"

During this month, I hope we are all thanking God for many things. But let’s get beyond the material stuff. Let’s think about "saying grace" about a whole range of things.

Start by thanking God for you, for who you are, for the rather peculiar, sometimes ordinary, often confused person that you are. Consider the miracle that is you. We recently saw a fascinating exhibit about the wonders of the human body in a museum in Vancouver. One of the captions on the wall was a verse from Psalm 8: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" All the wondrous, miraculous things there are in the universe–but none is more miraculous than you. You are, in yourself, a picture of God’s grace!

"Say grace" about a wider range of things. G. K. Chesterton once wrote, "I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play . . . and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in ink." All these things, all the pleasure and joys of life, they are from God’s grace.

"Say grace" if things are difficult. Maybe times are tough for you right now. Maybe you are disappointed, disillusioned, angry, frustrated. But "say grace." Remember that grace means knowing and seeing the presence of God, not just when things are easy, but when things are rocky. St. Paul speaks of giving thanks in abundance and in want. Can you take stock of all the elements of your life, the trials as well as the triumphs, and still see God’s hand in them? Can you survey it all and "say grace?”

"Say grace" for the greatest of all blessings: that Jesus Christ came among us, suffered, died, rose from the grave–and all for what? So that I may be his own! To think that God loves us so much! So give thanks for the blessings, for the challenges, for all of life–but especially for the Giver, the One who created you, the One to whom you belong. For the gifts, and for the Giver–say grace!

Peace to you,

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Classic Prayers

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

e. e. cummings, American poet

Liturgy Notes: Thanksgiving Day

Many American Lutheran congregations, ours included, look forward each year to a festive service on Thanksgiving Day (or sometimes on the evening before). This year our service here at Peace will be at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, November 23.

Thanksgiving Day, of course, is not a part of the traditional church year. It is a uniquely American institution, proclaimed not by the church but by the civil authorities. Most of us know its history well, at least in outline. First celebrated by the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621 in gratitude for their first harvest in the new world, Thanksgiving had become an annual festival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by 1680. In 1789 our first President, George Washington, proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving. Presidents continued to do that on occasion; at the same time, the custom arose among state governors of proclaiming such days in their own states. In 1863, President Lincoln once again called for a national day of Thanksgiving, and since that time Thanksgiving has been an annual American institution.

American churches were quick to jump on the Thanksgiving bandwagon. By 1868, the Lutheran Church Book (one of the predecessors to the Lutheran Book of Worship) included a special collect (prayer) for use on a day of thanksgiving, though without any specific reference to the American holiday. Apparently this collect was translated from a German prayer published by Wilhelm Loehe, and perhaps composed by him. The collect provided in the Lutheran Book of Worship for Thanksgiving Day is a briefer version of this same prayer: “Almighty God our Father, your generous goodness comes to us new every day. By the work of your Spirit lead us to acknowledge your goodness, give thanks for your benefits, and see you in willing obedience; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Beyond this prayer, however, Lutherans have never had a standard liturgy for Thanksgiving Day. Lutheran services thus are generally created by the pastors and congregations for the occasion. They may be very traditional, following one of the ordinary liturgies of the church; or they may be a bit more relaxed. It would be hard to imagine a Lutheran service on Thanksgiving that did not include one of the great Lutheran hymns, “Now Thank We All Our God.”

While Lutherans in Europe often celebrate a kind of harvest festival, the American Thanksgiving Day goes beyond that. While it began as thanksgiving for harvest, even among the Pilgrims there was a deeper sense of the need to give thanks, even in the midst of adversity and difficulty. That can be seen clearly if we reflect on the circumstances of President Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863. It was the middle of a terrible Civil War! In that year, the day of thanksgiving was not so much related to the harvest, but to a sense of humble gratitude to God, even in the midst of terrible tragedy. The hymn mentioned above, “Now Thank We All Our God,” was written in similar circumstances--in the midst of the Thirty Years War, when the population of central Europe was absolutely decimated by violence and disease.

Yet these are just the times when Christians need most to give thanks! St. Paul knew it--”I give thanks in all circumstances,” he wrote. We are grateful, not just for a successful harvest, but for all the wonderful blessings of God, and most of all for Jesus Christ. Lutherans in America join with their fellow citizens in singing songs of praise and thanksgiving in late November--but we always remember that the thanksgiving is for so much more than material blessings.