...give thanks...

The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving, for thanksgiving is another way to express our mercy and forgiveness, because in both thanksgiving and mercy we give ourselves.  Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.  At his Last Supper, Jesus gave us an action, a sacred, communal ritual that would summarize His core and lasting message for the world — one to keep repeating until His return. It’s significant that the meal and the metaphor are based the incarnation continued in the bread and wine of the universe.   Good stuff, and yet it has always been a scandal to overly spiritual people, starting at the very beginning: “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it’” John 6:60?

The Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving,” calls for our conscious participation where we become more like the One we follow.  We take our whole life in our hands, as Jesus did.  In very physical and scandalously incarnational language, table bread is daringly called “My Body” and wine is called “My Blood.”   We are saying a radical “yes” to both the physical universe itself and the bloody suffering of our own lives and all the world.

We also join in thanking God (eucharisteo in Greek), who is the Origin of all that life and who allows even His own death.  Here we are making a choice for gratitude, for abundance, and for appreciation for Another, who has the power to radically center us in Himself. Our lives and deaths are pure gift, and must be given away in trust, just as they were given to us as gift.

In this meal of thanksgiving we too are broken when we allow our lives to be broken and given away.   We don’t need to protect our life.  The sharing of our small self will be the discovery of the True Self in God. Jesus said that “Unless the single grain of wheat dies, it remains just a grain of wheat” John 12:24; the crushed grain buried in the ground becomes the broken bread, the whole and newly connected “Body of Christ.”

And then finally, we chew on this mystery!   This truth is known by participation and practice, not by more thinking or discussing. “26 While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it He broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ 27 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom’”  Mathew 26:26-29.  Here lies the heart of the message, a “new covenant” of indwelling love that is not grounded in worthiness in any form, but merely in a willingness to participate and trust.  Our drinking and eating is our willingness to join Paul who is “now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” Colossians 1:24.

So giving thanks, like the Eucharist, is a risky and demanding act of radical gratitude for, solidarity with, and responsibility to the work of God — much more than a reward for good behavior or any prize for the perfect.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

From the Bible:

“Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” Colossians 3:17.

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever”

Psalm 107:1!

“Give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” Ephesians 5:20.