Thanksgiving Sunday (Canada)
TEXTS: Joel 2:21-27; Matthew 6:25-33
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matt. 6:31-33)
The celebration of Thanksgiving (at least, as we know it) seems to be an exclusively North American tradition—one which predates both Canada and the United States, having its roots in New France and in the British colonies of this continent’s eastern seaboard.
In Canada, of course, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October, while our American cousins observe the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. South of the border, the emphasis seems to be upon remembering the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock; in Canada, our emphasis is more upon giving thanks for a successful harvest. But we hear about the Pilgrims, too! And that’s appropriate, since historically—through our British heritage, and also because we are both nations of immigrants—we are linked very closely with the U.S.A.
But did you know that the first and original Thanksgiving was celebrated in what is now Canada?
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed in that. However, in September of the year 1578, Frobisher held a formal ceremony—in what is today the territory of Nunavut—to give thanks for surviving the long journey across the Atlantic. When the voyagers finally assembled at their anchorage in Frobisher Bay, an Anglican Eucharist was celebrated by the ship’s chaplain, Robert Wolfall. This is considered the first Thanksgiving service to have taken place in North America.
As other settlers arrived, they continued the tradition that Frobisher had begun.
After French settlers arrived in North America in 1608 with the explorer Samuel de Champlain, they also held huge feasts of thanks. They formed L’Ordre de Bon Temps (“The Order of Good Cheer”) and gladly celebrated along with some of their First Nations neighbours.
As for the Pilgrims … after the first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists in 1621, they held their first Thanksgiving as a three-day-long “thank you” celebration for the members of the Wampanoag indigenous community, who had come to the rescue of the English aliens when they were threatened by starvation and disease.
And the newcomers certainly had needed rescuing! Of the 102 pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower, six died in the first two weeks. Eight more died during the next month, 17 more in February, 13 more in March. By April, just 54 out of the original 102 were left to sustain the colony—and half of those were children.
In New France, the situation was no better; of the 32 original colonists who accompanied Champlain to Quebec, only nine survived the first winter! Of course, more settlers arrived the following summer, to take the places of those who had perished, and take up the challenges and hardships of life in this new frontier.
When we consider the difficulties of those early settlers, we can understand why they wanted to give thanks. And, while we don’t know what Scriptures were read aloud at those gatherings, it’s not hard to imagine that today’s reading from the Book of Joel could have expressed their relief and their gratitude:
O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain . . . The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. (Joel 2:23a, 24, 26a)
Yes, we can understand the kind of thanksgiving that one offers when a harvest of plenty relieves a time of want; but what does that have to do with us? After all, how many of us still grow our own food? How many of us have had to hunt wild game to put meat on our tables? How many of us till the soil, and tend the crops? There are some who still do, but most of us don’t. Most of us feel inconvenienced when the supermarket is out of our favourite brand of breakfast cereal.
How many of us have to make our own clothing? Or worry about how we would survive in a climate different than the one we came from? Most of us these days can go online and order clothing, and it will be delivered promptly—that is, if we don’t go to the mall first, and buy clothes from one of the dozens of stores there.
But the ease with which we can get these things shouldn’t make us less thankful than our pioneering ancestors; it should make us more thankful. It should make us realize how much we depend upon others—and upon God—for the things we need.
I have heard it said that, at any given time, western civilization is just three days away from total collapse. I believe it. Just imagine three days—world wide—without electrical power. No radio. No television. No telephones or internet with which to share information or transact business. Imagine the highways and rail systems interrupted. Food supplies could not be shipped from one part of the country to another. What then? If something were to go horribly wrong, we would discover soon enough how fortunate we had been.
But it shouldn’t have to come to that, and I pray that it doesn’t. For there are plenty of things we should be grateful for—even in the midst of material plenty that dulls our senses.
For example, how many of us were instrumental in our own birth? None of us. We did not do anything to earn the greatest gift we have been given: life itself! Yet we sometimes behave as though our lives are an entitlement, and we forget to give thanks for the gift.
Those of us here today did not construct the system of laws that protects our rights. Nor did we build the system of commerce that puts food on our tables. We benefit so much from things we did not cause or create—and yet we so often forget to be thankful.
Maybe that’s because we’ve conned ourselves into believing that our success and our blessings are things which we have created. We tend to take great pride in our accomplishments and in our achievements, but we don’t very often think about our dependence upon God. This is something about which Jesus reminds us in his words from the Sermon on the Mount:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these . . .” (Matt. 6:25-26a, 28b-29)
Now, Jesus is not telling us that we should not work hard, or that we need not prepare. He is telling us not to be anxious—and to remember that it is God who provides for our needs. God feeds the birds of the air, God clothes the lilies, and God provides for us, too. It is a comfort against anxiety, and a reminder of God’s providence. Listen to the first verse of this familiar Thanksgiving hymn:
Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God’s own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.*
Some have suggested that we ought to update this language. Instead of harvesting, we might speak of interest accrued, or wages earned; of benefits received, or goods acquired. We could speak in terms of “market share” and “dividends.” It is the 21st century, after all—and this “thanks-giving” language is so 18th-century! But maybe there’s something else at work here. Listen to how that hymn continues:
All the world is God’s own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.*
Do you get it? We are the harvest of plenty! We are the fruits of God’s grace and providence. We exist as individuals by God’s grace. And by God’s grace—and through Christ’s Spirit—we exist as this community called the Church.
Unlike our forebears, we do not have to scratch out a living from the untilled soil. We do not have to labour to build our own shelters. We do not face a wild and hostile continent. Yet there is still a harvest we can reap. We can lead lives of grace and mercy. We can reach out to those in need. We can tend the sick, feed the poor, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, visit the prisoners, free the oppressed, speak up for the voiceless. We can make our lives into the fruit of the gospel!
Through God’s providence, we can become a harvest of plenty for the whole world. And for that opportunity, we ought certainly to give thanks. Amen.
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* “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” (Henry Alford, 1844)