Day of Thanksgiving: November 22, 2007.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 100

Philippians 4:4-9

John 6:25-35

Thanksgiving too often degenerates into a self-congratulatory celebration of national prosperity. It is easy and natural to recognize the freedom from want and the material abundance most Americans enjoy. We look at the rest of the globe and correctly recognize that we do not share the suffering that dooms hundreds of millions to malnutrition and early death.

Awareness of global suffering can quickly move us to gratitude for having escaped this fate. But if thanksgiving celebrations penetrate no deeper than this, they remain sub-Christian, ignoring the true source of lasting gratitude and our own deepest needs.

John 6:26 moves us in a more fruitful direction: "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves." Exactly. This is what moves much Thanksgiving Day gratitude. We have eaten many loaves from God's good garden. Jesus' words reject a shallow faith based on material benefits that we have received from God's goodness. Jesus wants us to see and understand the sign he just worked in the miracle of the loaves (6:1-15).

In the synoptic Gospels, seeking a sign carries a pejorative connotation. Skeptics and nonbelievers seek a sign, a miracle or wondrous act, as proof that Jesus' authority comes from God (Matt 12:38-39; 16:1-4; Luke 23:8). Typically, Jesus refuses to perform such proofs, rejecting the request as the mark of an evil and faithless people. Faith based on such signs is shallow and fails to penetrate to the truth of Jesus' identity (John 2:23-25; 4:48; 6:26, 30).

But John's Gospel also includes a unique and positive understanding of signs. Signs are works or acts of wonder Jesus does not as apologetic proofs but as revelations of his identity as the Word made flesh. They reveal his oneness with the Father. Signs disclose the salvation that he brings. They are filled with spiritual symbolism that brings to light that nature of the salvation God offers in the Son. If Jesus restores Lazarus to life, his teaching quickly shows that this restoration of physical life is a sign of the gift of eternal life (11:24-26). The sign is not an external proof intended to overwhelm doubt but an expression of Jesus' identity that can be seen only by faith.

Today's reading comes at the front door of the bread of life discourse (6:25-71), following Jesus' multiplication of the loaves (6:1-15). Jesus contrasts the physical bread with which he fed the crowds--and even the bread from heaven God gave to Israel in the wilderness--with the "true bread ... the bread of God" (vv. 31-33), which "endures for eternal life" (v. 27). The bread that Jesus gives--indeed, the bread he is--satisfies a need deeper than the bread that sent the crowd running to find him.

The crowds fail to understand Jesus' words and ask for a sign as proof of his credentials as one sent by God (vv. 29-31). Their questions reveal that they continue to grasp only the surface and material meanings of Jesus' words (vv. 25, 28, 30, 34). They cannot see that Jesus' revelation is true bread that lasts, abides (menein) in John's characteristic vocabulary (6:27, 33; 15:1-7). True bread gives the abundant life God intends for the human beings (10: 10).

In the first of seven "I am" declarations in John, Jesus identifies himself as "the bread of life" (6:35). Each of the "I am" sayings expresses what Jesus does for humanity (I am the light of the world, 8:12; 9:15; the door of the sheep, 10:7, 9; the good shepherd, 10:11, 14; the resurrection and the life, 11:15; the way, truth and life, 14:6; the true vine, 15:6).

As bread of life, Jesus satisfies the deep hunger of the human heart for divine revelation. We are hungry to see and know the One who is eternal. We want to taste and savor eternal life, enjoying an intimacy with God that satisfies a longing no Thanksgiving turkey can touch. This bread moves lasting gratitude far beyond the material and nationalistic pieties so common on this day. Jesus invites us beyond the celebration of a prosperity that perishes to an enduring joy and gratitude for the eternal life we experience as we eat and drink all that Jesus is and brings. This joy is not dimmed by the presence of hardship or struggle, for it is rooted in the presence of Christ who is near (Phil 4:4-5). The second reading reflects the pervasive joy evident from the beginning of Paul's letter to the Philippian church (1:3-11, 18, 25, 2:2, 17, 18, 29; 3:1; 4:1, 4, 10).

Joy is a mark of the eschatological age of salvation which God has initiated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Christ reigns, exalted above (2:9-11). Nothing truly matters except knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection (3:7-11). The Lord is near (4:5), and the power at work in the resurrection and glorification of Christ is at work in believers, enabling us to will and work the fruits of salvation, which are pleasing to God (2:12-13).

The joy of this letter is not appreciated unless one realizes that the Philippian church was experiencing antagonism and suffering for their faith in Christ (1:28-30). Paul is concerned that internal divisions had weakened their ability to withstand external pressures. There was also internal conflict. Today's reading comes on the heels of Paul's guidance to two faithful community members who are at odds with each other (4:2-3).

From this we see that God's joy and surpassing peace (4:7) do not arrive when conflict or struggle cease but as we live in the intimacy of prayer (4:6), aware of the Lord's nearness among and in us. The joy of Christ's nearness endures and strengthens amid human struggle. This is a testimony Christians in many troubled lands can offer their North American sisters and brothers.

The first-fruits offering (Deut 26:1-11) is an ancient practice not confined to Israel (Gen 14:20; 28:22; Amos 4:4). In Israel, one-tenth of the grain and fruit was to be given to support the sanctuary (Deut 14:22-29; Num 15:17-21). The offering signified Yahweh's ownership of the land. God has a right to the sacrifice, which expressed both human dependence upon God and the desire for union with God's presence and will.

In today's reading, the offering of the first fruits is connected with an identity story. The worshiper brings an offering in remembrance of God's deliverance of the people from Egyptian bondage. Participation in this act of gratitude bound one to a people, a history, and the God who in power and mercy brings deliverance to the oppressed, keeping the ancient promise to the patriarchs (26:3).

Deliverance was not celebrated as ancient remembrance but as current reality, an historical deliverance operating in the present. "I have come into the land," the worshiper says bearing the offering (26:3). The Egyptians "treated us harshly" (v. 6). "We cried to the Lord" (v. 7). "The Lord brought us out of Egypt" (v. 8); "he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey" (v. 9).

Each worshiper is to think of himself as the oppressed who would have no land, no bounty, no peace had God not delivered him personally. God's mighty act of deliverance happened not just for the ancestors but for the present generation. Without it there would be no freedom, no good land, no first-fruits offering in gratitude to God who gives this bounty. The celebration deepened worshipers' identity as those known, delivered, and blessed by God. And their joy was to be celebrated not as personal privilege but as a gift also for the alien among them (v. 11). DLM