Thanksgiving with the Family.

It's a great gift to hear new words pop out at you while listening to time-honored liturgy. My experience this week was really hearing this phrase (the part in bold), for, I think, the first time:

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:37-40

Have you ever caught that before? Here, Christ is explicitly identifying himself with the poor and marginalized. My family, he calls them.

(For some reason the reference to family makes the Godfather's voice pop up in my head...)

I am at times stymied by some of my radical views, in that at times they keep me from engaging joyfully in some of the simple pleasures of life that others happily enjoy without any further thought - and this is especially true at Thanksgiving. I think I have a harder time with Thanksgiving than just about any other holiday.

All over America, families will gather at table and thank God, many of them using these exact words, "for the great feast before us". Some families will list off their great blessings of the past year - jobs attained, health achieved, obstacles avoided, objects acquired. They will gather and thank God for these things, when just a short ways down the road, another family will be unable to put food on the table, or name half as many blessings from the year gone by. The first family, by invoking the name of God as the provider for all that they have, are simultaneously asserting a very strange hermeneutic - that God wanted them to have all of these things, and that God also somehow did not want those same blessings for the neighbors.

So I squirm to be part of it. In the days surrounding the holiday, the term "thankful" will be tossed around until it is rendered nearly meaningless. But each time it's invoked, the person saying it will be saying, by their "thankfulness" that they have God to thank for whatever item or blessing they name. This in a world walked by hundreds of millions of desperately poor.

So my attitude most Thanksgiving Days is to have some turkey, but hold the thanks. I just try to enjoy the time to relax and be with family.

And then along comes Jesus and says "the least of these... are members of my family" - and suddenly I'm taken by an entirely new vision - who is my family? And the answer, it seems, is the family down the street - and them every bit as much as my actual flesh and blood. Jesus reminds me that I am joined to the whole world as a family. I'm struck by this question: "How do I go about spending the holiday with my whole family?"

And I'm struck, oddly enough, by thankfulness. Thankfulness for this radical, lifechanging teaching we have from Christ - thankful for a country bursting with progressives who are breaking down so many barriers, building new communities, new economies, and electing new leaders - so many of them spurred on by true compassion and the call to look after the least of these. The Kingdom, it seems, is indeed at hand, the hour drawing closer. And for that, this year, I am thankful to God.