Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day

Thursday brought us Thanksgiving Day; a day known primarily for the excess consumption of food in the company of all available family members.  Sometimes we forget the origin of the thanksgiving in Thanksgiving Day.  While we are, or certainly should be, grateful to God every day for the wonderful world, country and family He has given us, this is the day our country has set aside to give thanks to God.  Not thanks in general, but thanks to God.  If you look at other countries and other times, you cannot be but thankful to God we live here and now.  The list of things to be thankful to God is endless.  If nothing else, give thanks you are here now and able to praise Him.   Here is the start of our family list of things for which we are fortunate and give thanks for:

·      God's love for us;

·      God sent His Son that we might have eternal life with Him;

·      Our great country;

·      Our families;

·      Our military who protect our freedom at great cost to themselves and their families;

·      Our church;

·      Our friends (that would be each of you)

·      Our health;

·      Our earthly great fortune;

Surely your list is similar.

The propers for Thanksgiving Day are found on pages 265-266:

Thanksgiving Day

The Collect.

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 MOST merciful Father, who hast blessed the labours of the husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth; We give thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching thee to continue thy loving-kindness to us, that our land may still yield her increase, to thy glory and our comfort; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle for Thanksgiving Day uses one of our favorite phrases “superfluity of naughtiness” and comes from the Epistle of St. James, the First Chapter, beginning at the Sixteenth Verse.  James counsels us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”  God is the perfect source of good.  What is good is of God.  Through His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, we have been given instructions on how to act.  Many of us have listened and claim to be followers of Christ.  But James warns us, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man be-holding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”  With so much about us, we need ask, what is it to do the work of the Lord?  The answer is simple, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

Being able to fluently and glibly talk the talk is meaningless, if you will not walk the walk.  Your body must fulfill the promises your mouth made.

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o not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man be-holding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The Thanksgiving Day Holy Gospel came from the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew beginning at the Twenty-Fifth Verse.  Jesus tell us to “Trust in God and Dread Naught”.  He reminds us that by worrying, none of us can add even one cubit, or one second for that matter, to the span of our life here on earth.  In a very graphic example He points out that not even the raiment of Solomon, the most glorious of all kings, could approach the beauty of a lily, who toiled not at all. Do as God asks, put your faith in Him and all you need will come to you.  Understand, this means doing as He asks, not just sitting by and watching the world go by.  Note the words of James in the Epistle.

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esus said, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.