One of the reasons I love Thanksgiving is because of the classic Thanksgiving hymns that are part of the Presbyterian Hymnal, and I suspect many other Protestant hymnals as well. They are very old hymns, and I’ve been singing them since I was a child. My favorites:
“We Gather Together” (the Netherlands, 1626, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqOXEf-DVkU)
“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” (English, mid 19th century, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8wCwv4NPU)
“Let All Things Now Living” (American, 1939, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpMCE1G3N7Q)
and “Now Thank We All Our God” (German, 1636, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g0BSC7eNXQ).

I was revisiting these hymns because I’m serving as a guest preacher this Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I’ll be preaching about gratitude (naturally) and usually I get to select or at least suggest the hymns when I’m a guest preacher. I started with “We Gather Together,” which I genuinely love, but when I looked over the lyrics, I noticed something. This is the first verse:
“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessings.
He chastens and hastens his will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.”

He forgets not his own. Yikes. I asked myself, “Just who is included in ‘God’s own’”?

I don’t think the person who wrote the lyrics of “We Gather Together” way back in 1626 had a clue about the damage done to human life and spirit when we think of ourselves as God’s own, and think of others as somehow not God’s own. When we think in terms of Us and Them. Sadly, this is not ancient history. Political and cultural commentator David Brooks calls the current movement away from a focus on our common humanity a “retreat to tribalism,” and it is tearing our diverse nation apart. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “‘God bless America’ is often heard on the lips of American presidents. But whether God blesses America will become apparent when it emerges whether America is a blessing for the peoples of the world, or their burden and curse; for one is blessed only in order to be a blessing oneself.”

When the blessing stops with “us,” it’s called privilege. Look at it this way: A few autumns ago, we suffered some abysmal air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area because of nearby wildfires. There was one day that San Francisco had an Air Quality Index or “AQI” of 274, which was the worst of any major city in the world that day. But that same day, Delhi had an AQI of 268; Lahore, Pakistan had 251; Kolcotta, India had 215; and Dhaka, Bangladesh was at 203. These cities weren’t downwind of major fires. It’s just what they live with, every day. And that’s just the cities with an AQI over 200, the “very unhealthy” purple zone. There are loads more cities perpetually in the red zone, merely “unhealthy.” When we focus on the calamity of our own air quality without paying attention to the fact that this is routine for other human beings on God’s precious planet every single day, that is privilege; that is a blessing that stops with us.

I heard an interview a while back with Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who’s dedicated his life to working with former gang members in Los Angeles. “I’m lucky,” Father Boyle said. “I won all the lotteries – the parent lottery, the sibling lottery, the zip code lottery, the educational lottery.” It was the word “lucky” that stopped me short. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a person of faith call himself lucky instead of blessed. I’ve even hesitated to wish someone “good luck,” because I was afraid it sounds superstitious and un-Christian.

But the more I think about it, the more I understand Father Boyle’s word choice. Naming our material circumstances – the home we live in, the food on our table, the vacations we enjoy, our health and the health of our family, the status of our bank account – as evidence of our blessedness implies that, at the same time God has chosen to bless us with these gifts, God has chosen not to bless others in the same way. If I say I’m blessed because I own a lovely home in a safe neighborhood, or blessed because I have a good job with health insurance, or blessed because I have a bountiful feast spread out on my dining room table, what does that say about the single mother living in the one room apartment in an unsafe neighborhood, or the man with the change cup on the corner, or the family huddled in a makeshift camp in Tijuana or fleeing missile fire in Ukraine?

Are they not blessed? Has God decided to bless me, but not them?

Jesus describes blessings entirely differently. Jesus defines the blessed as those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who are meek and those who are poor in spirit. I wonder whether some verses were omitted from the Beatitudes. Maybe they deleted the verses where the disciples responded by saying, “Waitest thou for one second, Lord. What about ‘blessed art the comfortable,’ or ‘blessed art thou who havest good jobs, a modest house in the suburbs, and a yearly vacation’? And Jesus said unto them, ‘Apologies, my brothers, but those did not maketh the cut.’”

The truth is, I have no idea why I was born where I was or why I have the opportunities I’ve had. It’s beyond comprehension, and I am profoundly grateful. But I don’t believe God chose me above others because of the veracity of my prayers or the depth of my faith, or the tribe or the denomination or even the faith in which I’ve landed. If I take advantage of the opportunities set before me, a comfortable life may come my way. It’s not guaranteed. But if it does happen, I still don’t believe Jesus will call me blessed.

I believe he will ask, “What will you do with it?”

“Will you use it for yourself?”

“Will you use it to help?”

“Will you share it?”

Tough questions with few easy answers.

This Thursday, when we gather around our tables, of course we will give thanks and pray for our loved ones, even for ourselves, because we must; it is honest; it is coming before God with our hopes and fears. But my prayer for all of us this week is that when we do so, we understand our true blessing. It’s not turkey-laden tables, or our houses, our jobs, or our standard of living. It’s not even that we are Americans, or Christians.

Our blessing is this: We know a God who gives hope to the hopeless. We know a God who loves the unlovable. We know a God who comforts the sorrowful. We know a God who always welcomes the outcast and the stranger. And we know a God who has planted this same power within us. Within every one of us.

And for this blessing, may our prayer always be,

“Use me.”

© Joanne Whitt 2022