No One Asked Me But… (November 23, 2022)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… Thanksgiving is coming and, for many of us, Thanksgiving has a religious connotation. For others, it is a day to feast and watch football. And for some, it is both.

As a child, I remember going to church on Thanksgiving morning. We took canned goods and left them at the entry to the sanctuary of the church. They were later delivered to the poor. We sang songs like, “We gather to Together To Ask The Lords Blessings” and “Come Ye Thankful People, Come.” Those songs still sound out of place sung any other time of year.

I was not aware that Lydia Maria Child’s song “Over the River and Through the Wood” depicted her trip to her grandmother’s on Thanksgiving Day.

When I was a child, Thanksgiving, like all holidays in the Moses house, was time when we kids had to stay home. We had the traditional turkey but it was Mom, Dad, and us kids only.

I have come to learn that Thanksgiving is a day of gathering for the extended family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas and grandpas come from miles around to eat turkey and watch football. I suppose that with seven kids in the family, my mother felt we had a large enough crowd for dinner.

While historians trace Thanksgiving back to the Old Testament ritual of fall harvest, the Thanksgiving Americans celebrate had its origin at the Berkeley Plantation near what is now Charles City, Virginia. English settlers landed in the New World under the leadership of Capt. John Woodlief. They had sailed the Atlantic Ocean in the good ship Margaret and, upon landing, gave thanks for the fact they survived the trip. They celebrated a day of thanksgiving each year until 1622, when most of them were killed in Indian raids. For that, I am sure they were not thankful.

Most people accept the origin is to be found with the Pilgrims who arrived in America two years after those in Virginia. Their feast included all of the plantations inhabitants as well as 90 of King Massasoit’s Native Americans. It is believed that after the dinner, King Massasoit fired his homeland security chief due to his open border policies.

On a quest for religious freedom, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The first winter was devastating. By the following fall, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. However, the harvest of 1621 had been a bountiful one, and the colonists in the midst of many hardships stopped to give thanks to God.

It wasn’t until June of 1676 that another day of thanksgiving was recorded. On June 20 of that year, the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks to God for the good fortune their community was enjoying. Edward Rawson, the town clerk, proclaimed June 29 as a day to give thanks to God.

A hundred years later, in October of 1777, all 13 colonies joined in a day to thank God for their victory over the British at Saratoga. When George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, Thomas Jefferson was among those who opposed the idea of having a day of thanksgiving. Could this be the beginning of the ACLU?

Sarah Hale, a magazine editor, led the fight for what we recognize as Thanksgiving Day. After a 40-year campaign of writing editorials and letters to governors and presidents, Hale’s obsession became a reality in 1863. President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. Many southern states refused to celebrate what they considered a Yankee holiday.

From that time on, a day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every American President. The date was changed a number of times, most recently by Franklin Roosevelt who moved it back one week to the next-to-last Thursday in November. He hoped to stimulate the economy by creating a longer Christmas shopping season. Public uproar against this decision caused the President to move Thanksgiving back to its original date.

In 1941, Thanksgiving was finally sanctioned by Congress as a legal holiday, as the fourth Thursday in November.

This outlines where we get the idea for a day of thanksgiving, but where did the people of Plymouth get the idea for a Thanksgiving celebration? Secular historians cite several earlier traditions leading to a day of thanksgiving. They suggest the influence of the Old English holiday of Harvest Home, in which the villagers joined to gather at the conclusion of the harvest to celebrate their good fortune, a pagan custom that predated Christianity.

However, the Pilgrim’s thanksgiving was most likely a response to God’s instruction summed up in 1Thessalonians 5:18: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

This is merely one of the nearly one hundred reverences to thanks and thanksgiving found throughout the Bible.

Pilgrims recognized such a day was called for in Old Testament times as the annual Feast of the Tabernacles (the Feast of the Ingathering). More specifically, this holiday was the outgrowth of individual Pilgrim congregations declaring days of prayers thanking God.

Eons ago when I was a child, there was a much greater religious emphasis on this holiday. It was a time when people still gave thanks to God for their wellbeing. God was the center of thanksgiving, not the turkey on the table.

I am aware that any American centering his thanksgiving on a beneficent God rankles the souls of the atheist and the ACLU. But I believe it is fitting that God’s people stop and take a day of thanksgiving for all that the Lord has done for them.

The American government has declared a day of thanksgiving, which is based in the belief of the God that has blessed this nation. If that bothers you, you can take the day and worship the gods of football, or rocks, or whatever. But as for my family and me, we will thank God.

If you don’t believe your good fortune is due to a loving God, so be it. You can begin your Christmas shopping early. However, if you don’t believe in Jesus, I am not sure why you are shopping for Christmas.

Thought of the week… “A new survey found that 80 percent of men claim they help cook Thanksgiving dinner. Which makes sense, when you hear them consider saying ‘that smells good’ to be helping.”
– Jimmy Fallon