These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the Lord: If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offernig he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast. He is to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the Lord; it belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the fellowship offerings. The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning. (Leviticus 7:11-15)

     There's going to be a lot of food eaten in Canada over the next couple of days! All the major holidays have certain secular customs associated with them. There's gift giving at Christmas and chocolate bunnies at Easter. Thanksgiving is interesting, because although food is a part of the other major holidays, it seems that food is the tradition for Thanksgiving. There will be a lot of big meals eaten this weekend, and many tables will be looking extra-special. For many families, of course, the most important part of the traditional Thanksgiving meal is the turkey. Please don't gasp but I confess that turkey isn't especially my thing. Give me chicken or roast beef or ham over turkey any day of the week – even on Thanksgiving – and I'll be a happy man indeed. But my feelings notwithstanding, for many families and in many homes, the central part of the whole Thanksgiving meal is that turkey – stuffed and roasted golden brown. It will be carried out of the kitchen and carved in full view of all the family and various and assorted guests who are all gathered around the dinner table. In some houses, there might be a quick grace said, and then we'll get to the real purpose of Thanksgiving – we'll eat until we're more stuffed than the turkey! It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, but how many will actually stop to consider the spiritual heritage and purpose of Thanksgiving.

     Canadian society today is so Americanized that when we think of Thanksgiving we probably have a picture of the Pilgrims come into our minds. They usually get the credit for having started the whole concept of celebrating a festival known as Thanksgiving Day. They arrived in what's now Massachussetts in 1620 and immediately suffered a dreadful winter in which about half of them died from the bitter cold and the other half faced starvation. That other half survived, and the following summer the Pilgrims had a bumper harvest of corn and the community had settled down and established themselves and had built shelter for the coming winter. They declared a three day thanksgiving festival to thank God for having brought them to their version of the promised land and apparently 53 Europeans and 90 native Americans sat together and enjoyed a huge feast. For all that histoiry, though, it actually wasn't until 1941 that the fourth Thursday in November was officially named Thanksgiving Day and declared a national holiday in the United States. Here in Canada, the history isn't as well known. Apparently “our” first “Thanksgiving Day” was celebrated to mark the return of Martin Frobisher after a long search for the Northwest Passage across the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. That was held in 1578 in Newfoundland (more than 40 years before the Pilgrims – so we are number one!) and although there were various days of thanksgiving marked across Canada after that, it wasn't actually until 1957 that Parliament declared the second Monday in October as Thanksgiving Day. But while it might have taken a while for our modern nations to officially declare days of thanksgiving, I would hope that thanksgiving has always been going on, because the truth is that there was never anything unique about having special days set aside for giving thanks. For thousands of years, people of many countries all over the world have held harvest festivals as a way of offering thanks for the year's crop.

     The thanks, of course, is always directed to God. In fact, the Act of Parliament passed in 1957 says that the second Monday of October is to be “a day of thanks to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.” Considering that those words designate the formal, legal meaning of Thanksgiving Day, it's truly tragic that for the most part the spiritual heritage and the spiritual truth of Thanksgiving have been crowded out. Now, it's mostly a feast day on which family and friends gather to eat. Perhaps that's because – unlike our forebears who often did work the land and grow their own food – we get a lot of our food at supermarkets, and we have to pay for it! What's to give thanks for? Sure there's a quick prayer in some homes but that's quickly followed by “Let's dig in!” So, like Christmas, like Easter, Thanksgiving has been secularized. The highlight is often a grand turkey dinner. We'll sit back and visit with our guests, maybe we'll take a nap, some people might watch the Calgary Stampeders play the Montreal Alouettes or the BC Lions take on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers – but our ancestors in faith wouldn't understand any of these rituals we take part in to mark Thanksgiving. They'd simply wonder why we're not spending more of our time actually giving thanks! They'd see our version of thanksgiving as something that's lost its purpose, its meaning and its roots. So let's think about the roots of thanksgiving: our calling and one could even say our need to give thanks.

     Thanksgiving is deeply rooted in Scripture. The first real reference to a thanksgiving festival that was to be regularly observed was in the passage we read today. One of the sacrifices the people would make was for a thanksgiving offering to God. If we read on in the Book of Leviticus (which few Christians really enjoy doing!) we would eventually come to the Feast of Tabernacles in ch.23. It was a seven day festival to celebrate the crops of the land. In the New Testament, Paul argued not for a day or a festival of thanksgiving, but for a permanent spirit of thanksgiving to be the very mark of a Christian life: “give thanks in all circumstances,” he wrote. God's people have always been people of thanksgiving. Giving thanks to God should be a normal part of that intimate relationship that exists between humanity and God. Jesus taught us to give thanks as He gave thanks when He broke the loaves and fishes to feed the multitude. He thanked God when He broke the bread and lifted the cup for His disciples the night before He was crucified. At Lazarus' grave, Jesus said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.” Jesus understood the need to give thanks.

     Long before the birth of Jesus, thanksgiving was one of the characteristics of the people of God. Today we read of a special thanksgiving offering. There are a variety of other calls to the people of God to set aside special occasions to have a time of thanksgiving. When Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, the people were called upon to give thanks to God. When, under Nehemiah, the broken walls of the city were rebuilt, the people were called upon to give thanks to God. One of the kings mentioned in the Old Testament - named Hezekiah - proclaimed an official day of thanksgiving in which the people brought sacrifices and thank offerings into the House of the Lord. In the Psalms there are many, many references to thanksgiving: Psalm 7 says “... give thanks to the Lord because of His righteousness and ... sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High,” Psalm 100 tells us that we should never come to worship with anything other than a spirit of thankfulness: “enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.” Psalm 118 tells us very clearly why we should be a people of thanksgiving: “give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.” And – Bob – Psalm 75 puts a special burden on you, because it's personally addressed to “the director of music”: “We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks, for your Name is near.” I'm sure glad God singled you out and not me!

     This weekend, all across Canada, people will use Thanksgiving as a time for festivity and sports – and that's fine, because those things are a part of how we celebrate. Some people will bow their heads in public and give thanks for the food in front of them, but a lot of people - even a lot of Christians – will forget to thank God. A lot of people – even Christians – won't take even a moment to thank God for the food they eat, for the water they drink or for the air they breathe. Not a lot of people will deliberately take time to humble themselves before God and thank Him for the material and spiritual blessings we enjoy.

     Sometimes it's hard to be thankful. Sometimes it's hard to see the blessings. Sometimes the circumstances make it tough. I know that. I find myself saddened this weekend by the death of a dear member of our congregation just a couple of nights ago, and my thanksgiving joy is tempered by having to go through the process of planning her funeral. But even in the midst of such sadness, I can give thanks – because all the food aside I know that as God's people we have the greatest blessing of all to be thankful for: as Paul wrote, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God has blessed us with so much – maybe too much. Maybe we have so much that it's easy to forget God in the midst of it. Maybe – knowing that we can never be separated from God – it becomes too easy to take God for granted. But God has blessed us so richly. God has blessed us with abundant reason to “give thanks in all circumstances.”

     To all who claim the name of Christ, I pray that you'll have a happy Thanksgiving – one that will cause you to humble yourselves and to sincerely thank God for all the blessings the Lord has poured upon us.