Eucharist and Grace
This week Christ Church joins with our nation in celebrating Thanksgiving. As much as it is a civic holiday and a paid day off for most Americans and a commercial holiday which kicks off in earnest the shopping season, it is in origin a religious observance for giving thanks to God for his providence.
We all know by heart the story of the Pilgrims and the Indians sharing a feast at Plymouth in the 1600s in thanksgiving to God for survival of that first harsh winter. That story is deeply ingrained in Americans from preschool on: think back to construction paper bonnets and feather headdresses and turkeys made from cut outs of little hanks. (Texans claim an alternate first Thanksgiving in El Paso, but let's not mess with Texas.)
This Thursday, nearly all of us (Americans) will play out that story on the table with a centerpiece turkey and local additions to the feast which are nearly as sacrosanct: greenbean casserole containing cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions back in Kansas, hushweh a Lebanese dish of rice and ground lamb at the Ledbetter-Jacobs celebration and kimchi and bulghooghi at my old parish dinner. I bet that each of us has our own family tradition of the feast.
While Thanksgiving is a family-centered holiday in America, it is also a feast which is ideally open to outsiders. Wherever I have lived around the country and around the world we Americans tend to invite others to join us in Thanksgiving. As a sailor stationed in Italy for years I invited other servicemen and women to join me and my roommates for dinner and we instinctively invited locals to join us as well. You know, that old Pilgrim and Indian thing of sharing with others. San Pelligrino - coincidentally meaning holy pilgrim - joined Coca Cola on the table and panetone joined pumpkin pie for dessert.
Other times, I have been alone in a new place and was invited in to share the day and meal with a family or group of friends. Are you gathering this week with others to share a meal and give thanks?
At the heart of our faith is thanksgiving to God for his grace shared so abundantly with us. Each week we join together around a table to tell the story that unites us and share in a meal of bread and wine. That celebration is the Eucharist which means thanksgiving. Like at our family gatherings this Thursday this is a gathering where there is hopefully always someone new who is joining the tribe and who is welcome just because they are loved.
In my family many things are predictable. During the year there will have been spats between siblings and there are spats dating from years ago which no one can quite remember how or when they got started: they just are. Yet at Thanksgiving there is a sense of calm that descends over the gathering, a sense that this is the time for forgiveness and the time to reach out and be generous and loving. Thanksgiving is a time of grace in my family when there is a chance to put old things away and start anew.
On Sundays at the Eucharist we receive communion, that is we receive the body and blood of Christ and we receive the grace of knowing that God is Father of us all and that all of us gathered together are truly brothers and sisters. It is a wonderful blessing to know that we are not alone and that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. We are each and everyone part of the body of Christ.
As a student of Romance languages, I remember making the connection that to express thanks one says gracias or grazie: Grace. Grace, the unearned favor and love of God, is what we receive in our Eucharist/thanksgiving and grace is what we can take away from the table and pass on to the world. Let this Thursday and this Sunday, too, be a time of thanksgiving, fellowship, grace received and grace shared. Enjoy your turkey with green bean casserole and hushweh and kim chi and greens and Pelligrino - and tamales if you are truly blessed. Remember, too, to say grace, to receive grace, say Hallelujah and pass the mashed potatoes - and the grace - along.
ACE Quiz
Thanksgiving is a translation of
A) Baptism
B) Confirmation
C) Eucharist
D) Extreme Unction
Grace is
A) an Extension of a Deadline
B) Forgiveness of a Debt
C) Unmerited Favor
D) a Tax Credit
The answers are the initials of Christ Church
This week Christ Church joins with our nation in celebrating Thanksgiving. As much as it is a civic holiday and a paid day off for most Americans and a commercial holiday which kicks off in earnest the shopping season, it is in origin a religious observance for giving thanks to God for his providence.
We all know by heart the story of the Pilgrims and the Indians sharing a feast at Plymouth in the 1600s in thanksgiving to God for survival of that first harsh winter. That story is deeply ingrained in Americans from preschool on: think back to construction paper bonnets and feather headdresses and turkeys made from cut outs of little hanks. (Texans claim an alternate first Thanksgiving in El Paso, but let's not mess with Texas.)
This Thursday, nearly all of us (Americans) will play out that story on the table with a centerpiece turkey and local additions to the feast which are nearly as sacrosanct: greenbean casserole containing cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions back in Kansas, hushweh a Lebanese dish of rice and ground lamb at the Ledbetter-Jacobs celebration and kimchi and bulghooghi at my old parish dinner. I bet that each of us has our own family tradition of the feast.
While Thanksgiving is a family-centered holiday in America, it is also a feast which is ideally open to outsiders. Wherever I have lived around the country and around the world we Americans tend to invite others to join us in Thanksgiving. As a sailor stationed in Italy for years I invited other servicemen and women to join me and my roommates for dinner and we instinctively invited locals to join us as well. You know, that old Pilgrim and Indian thing of sharing with others. San Pelligrino - coincidentally meaning holy pilgrim - joined Coca Cola on the table and panetone joined pumpkin pie for dessert.
Other times, I have been alone in a new place and was invited in to share the day and meal with a family or group of friends. Are you gathering this week with others to share a meal and give thanks?
At the heart of our faith is thanksgiving to God for his grace shared so abundantly with us. Each week we join together around a table to tell the story that unites us and share in a meal of bread and wine. That celebration is the Eucharist which means thanksgiving. Like at our family gatherings this Thursday this is a gathering where there is hopefully always someone new who is joining the tribe and who is welcome just because they are loved.
In my family many things are predictable. During the year there will have been spats between siblings and there are spats dating from years ago which no one can quite remember how or when they got started: they just are. Yet at Thanksgiving there is a sense of calm that descends over the gathering, a sense that this is the time for forgiveness and the time to reach out and be generous and loving. Thanksgiving is a time of grace in my family when there is a chance to put old things away and start anew.
On Sundays at the Eucharist we receive communion, that is we receive the body and blood of Christ and we receive the grace of knowing that God is Father of us all and that all of us gathered together are truly brothers and sisters. It is a wonderful blessing to know that we are not alone and that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. We are each and everyone part of the body of Christ.
As a student of Romance languages, I remember making the connection that to express thanks one says gracias or grazie: Grace. Grace, the unearned favor and love of God, is what we receive in our Eucharist/thanksgiving and grace is what we can take away from the table and pass on to the world. Let this Thursday and this Sunday, too, be a time of thanksgiving, fellowship, grace received and grace shared. Enjoy your turkey with green bean casserole and hushweh and kim chi and greens and Pelligrino - and tamales if you are truly blessed. Remember, too, to say grace, to receive grace, say Hallelujah and pass the mashed potatoes - and the grace - along.
ACE Quiz
Thanksgiving is a translation of
A) Baptism
B) Confirmation
C) Eucharist
D) Extreme Unction
Grace is
A) an Extension of a Deadline
B) Forgiveness of a Debt
C) Unmerited Favor
D) a Tax Credit
The answers are the initials of Christ Church
posted by Adult Christian Education of the heart at 2:40 PM
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