Two years ago a pastor shared with me what his church in Austin did on Thanksgiving Day. He said that in a tradition that had developed over the years, the whole staff and a large group of laypersons arrived at the church on that holiday Thursday morning to put the finishing touches on a Thanksgiving feast that they served to persons who came to the church that day in need of a welcome and a warm holiday meal. The staff and members then began putting together individual Thanksgiving meals in carry-out boxes, which were then loaded into church vans and delivered to identified homebound persons and other persons in need who were outside of the church’s membership and unable to come in person. Finally, after delivering the last boxed meal, the staff and members of the church gathered back at the church and shared a Thanksgiving meal together with their families – grateful for the opportunity to give.
I listened to him tell the story - dumbfounded. I was stunned at the magnitude of this collaborative effort on one of the biggest holidays of the year, and I was stunned that it would not have occurred to me to initiate an effort like this. In part this was because I had never pastored a church which had the facilities to stage an effort like this. But it was also in part because my paradigm said that Thanksgiving was a holiday to be shared in my home (or my parents or my grandparents) with my family and friends – watching parades and football games, eating and then eating again, and spending precious time with persons I did not see often enough as it was. It was vacation time, not work time. The longer-than-usual mealtime prayer always thanked God for this time together as family. It is a good paradigm and one I have enjoyed for nearly 50 years. But this pastor and his church upset my lifelong model for Thanksgiving by suggesting that the emphasis go first in giving before we sit down to offer thanks.
Humbly, I was reminded of Jesus’ disciples — James and John — asking if they could sit at Jesus’ right and left when he came into his kingdom . . . and heavenly banquet table. Jesus’ words to them are convicting to me:
This however is not the way it is among you. If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest; and if one you wants to be first, he must be the servant of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve. Mark 10:43-45,TEV
Our culture only reinforces through marketing that the holidays are all about me, my family and my friends. It is a very comfortable model for us all – one we put much energy and money into enjoying to the fullest. The problem for Christians is that it is not Jesus’ model. He would likely remind us that for $20 billion dollars we could feed every hungry person in the world – half of the planet — for a year, and that Americans will spend over $400 billion dollars this year on Christmas alone.
I now pastor a large church with ample facilities dedicated to carrying out the mandates of a Lord who calls us to be servants – giving first and then offering thanks for the opportunity. I am running out of excuses for not living the holidays differently this year. Thanks be to God!