"I thank my God," says the Apostle. That is what we are asked to do, and our national tradition designates one day each year for this purpose. For Christians, however, giving thanks to God is not confined to a single day or to a special Thanksgiving service of worship. It is the keynote of all our worship. This was known already to the worshipers in Old Testament times. They said, "Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving" (Psalm 95:2) and "I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving" (Psalm 116:17). Paul describes the worship in the New Testament church as "always and for everything giving thanks ... to God" (Ephesians 5:20). The early Christians named their sublimest act of worship, the reception of the body and blood of their Lord, Eucharist, which means thanksgiving. And when they envisioned worship as it was to be in heaven, it was to give "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving ... to our God forever and ever" (Revelation 7:12).

Since the foundation of our nation was laid by Christian men and women, Thanksgiving Day has been from the beginning an important national as well as religious holiday. All citizens, Christians and nonChristians alike, are asked to remember the giver of every good and perfect gift. Surely we have reason to be grateful for our precious national heritage, for the privileges we enjoy as Americans, our freedom, our high standard of living, our opportunity to make the most of our capacities.

In the 1962 Thanksgiving Day proclamation, President John F. Kennedy summarized well the meaning of Thanksgiving both for our nation’s past and for its future: "Over three centuries ago in Plymouth, on Massachusetts Bay, the Pilgrims established the custom of gathering together each year to express their gratitude to God for the preservation of their community and for the harvests their labors brought forth in the new land. Joining with their neighbors, they shared together and worshiped together in a common giving of thanks. Thanksgiving Day has ever since been part of the fabric which has united Americans with their past, with each other, and with the future of all mankind ... It is fitting that we give our thanks for the safety of our land, for the fertility of our harvests, for the strength of our liberties, for the health of our people ... I urge that all observe this day with reverence and with humility. Let us renew the spirit of the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, lonely in an inscrutable wilderness, facing the dark unknown with a faith born of their dedication to God and a fortitude drawn from their sense that all men were brothers. Let us renew that spirit by offering our thanks for uncovenanted mercies, beyond our desert or merit, and by resolving to meet the responsibilities placed upon us. Let us renew that spirit by sharing the abundance of this day with those less fortunate, in our own land and abroad. Let us renew that spirit by seeking always to establish larger communities of brotherhood."

In thanking God for our heritage as a nation, we should not forget to thank him for the ordinary everyday blessings, the little things that still count for so much in making life rich. A contemporary poet, Eleanor Frey, has expressed this aspect of Thanksgiving in beautiful words:

"Thank you, God, for all the simple things
That each day brings -
From sunshine in the morning,
That pushes back the dark as day is dawning,
Till twilight falls.
Help us, God, to see thy love that crowds each busy day,
And thank thee more for simple things we find along the way:
For little children romping round,
For birdsong, gay and happy sound,
Through sun and rain.
Friends to greet you, loved ones near,
Songs to share - perchance a tear,
For strength to work, for gift to play,
For fireside at the close of day,
And candlelight again."

But let us now turn from these lovely little things to the big things which only Christians can appreciate and for which they give thanks to God not only on Thanksgiving Day but every day.

Paul states the first of these in the words, "I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace." The grace of God is the main reason for Christian thanksgiving. What do we mean when we speak about grace? Grace is undeserved love. This key word portrays God in the full sovereignty of his love. It stands for the remarkable fact that God has it in his heart to love us as we are, that his love is not determined by our worth or worthlessness. It is love that finds weakness and creates strength, love that finds sin and creates salvation. Here is the living center of the entire "good news." We are delivered from our sinful preoccupation with ourselves by a love that seeks us while we are still careless or hostile, embraces us in the midst of our sin, lifts us up into fellowship with God. It is revealed, above all, in the death of Christ for sinners. "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). That is why the New Testament benediction stresses first of all "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This grace contains all that we need. When Paul prayed for relief from his burden, God answered, "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Grace transformed the "thorn in the flesh" into a handle for getting a firmer grip on the power of God. In the hour of despair, when all other help fails, and in the hour of death, when everything we trusted in is taken away from us, only God’s grace is adequate to our need. Paul had an unforgettable experience of this when he first came to Philippi, and I am sure that he could not help having it in mind as he was writing to the Christians in that city. A despairing man, the warden of the prison into which Paul had been thrown, cries out from the verge of suicide, "What must I do to be saved?" And Paul assures him, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." It is for this "good news" of grace that we are eternally grateful.

Paul states the second reason for Christian thanksgiving in the words: "I am thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now." The Apostle recalls that first day when he arrived in the imperial city of Philippi in Macedonia, now part of Greece. In response to a vision in which a voice called out to him, "Come to Macedonia and help us," he had abandoned his original travel plans and crossed over into Europe. He came to Philippi not knowing a single soul there. He learned that a little group of God-fearing Jews and some Greeks who were interested in the Jewish religion had a meeting place outdoors on a riverbank. There he went and brought his message of the Messiah who had come and whose kingdom was open to all, both Jews and Greeks. His first convert was Lydia, a Greek businesswoman, whom Paul baptized together with her whole household. "The Lord opened her heart," Luke tells us, so that she not only received Christ but also opened the door of her house to Paul and his companion Silas. Lydia’s home became Paul’s headquarters in Philippi as he taught the new Christians to bear witness to others of the Savior whom they had found. Thus was established the first Christian congregation in Europe, from which the word of the gospel was spread throughout the continent.

The Philippian Christians not only received the gospel but they were partners in the spreading of the gospel from the very beginning. Each one was a missionary at home and at work. And with their gifts they assisted in the mission work beyond their own city. They gave, says Paul, not according to their means but beyond their means, begging for the privilege of sharing in the Lord’s work. And they kept it up. Beside Paul, as he was writing from a Roman prison, was Epaphroditus who had just come from Philippi and brought to him their newest gift. For this missionary spirit the apostle is grateful. "I thank my God," he says, "for your partnership in the gospel." Thank God that the missionary spirit still lives in our churches. Thank God that there are dedicated men and women whose outlook extends beyond their own congregations, who seek earnestly to do their part as partners in the gospel in the world mission of the Church of Christ.

Paul states the third reason for Christian thanksgiving in the words, "God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment." The response to the grace of God and the ensuing partnership in the gospel are motivated by intelligent and responsible love. Paul remembers in his prayer all the members of the congregation in Philippi, without omitting a single one. He remembers them all and thanks God for them all. This is the "new life in Christ" of the early church. Paul was a Jew, the Philippians were mostly Greeks. He had not known them long and his stay with them was short. But the love of Christ bound them together into one family of God. National and racial differences were wiped out in this community of love.

So it should be with the church of today. Our thanksgiving is Christian thanksgiving only when it is prompted by love and expresses itself in works of love. Amid the suspicions and the hatreds of the world the church is the community where burdens are lifted, where cares and sorrows are shared, where wounded hearts are healed, where distress is alleviated. And from this community of love, healing, and helping love radiates into the world. We do not give thanks in the spirit of the Pharisee, "I thank thee that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). Franklin D. Elmer in a little poem "On Giving Thanks" expresses the true spirit:

"Shall I thank God
For bread,
And for the safety
Of the place I lay my head?
In the din of crashing worlds
Shot through with screams of pain,
I will do better, far,
To thank my God
That I am strong enough
To share my bread,
Alert enough to tell
Those blinded by their woe
That I still see a star.
When hungry children
Shake with fright,
What can it mean to God
That I am safe at night?"

Both within the church and in reaching out to care for all suffering and needy people we have reason to pray with the apostle that "love may abound more and more." A living congregation is a loving congregation, and the more it shoulders the responsibilities of love, the more it becomes a source of gratitude.

The fourth and final reason for Christian thanksgiving is contained in Paul’s words, "that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." While others give thanks for the fruits of the earth, Christians give thanks for the fruits that grow from the soil of the heart. Thus we thank God above all for our Savior Jesus Christ. For it is Christ who purifies our hearts of selfishness and fills our lives with the fruits of righteousness. It is thus that God receives true glory and praise. The song of praise that God loves to hear is a life that shows Christ at work, a life of self-forgetting obedience and service. As one man of God expressed it long ago, "What I have done is worthy of nothing but silence and forgetfulness, but what God has done for me is worthy of everlasting and thankful memory."

God help us to celebrate Thanksgiving in this spirit!