What comes after Thanksgiving?

Please do not let Thanksgiving get too far behind us without the opportunity for some reflection.

By now we have not only finished off the turkey, but the frugal moms have already found ways to please us with some ingenious dishes from the leftovers. 

We had the feast, the family and the football. Before we let this pass from our memories, allow me some time to think more sensibly and perhaps a little more spiritually about these days. I’m afraid that “Black Friday” may have rushed us through all of this and left us numb about our own feelings.

Every Thanksgiving I’m reminded of a sermon by Dr. Gordon Clinard, my preaching professor in seminary. The title of the message was “After Thanksgiving, What?” The question had significance for me then and it does now.

We had the Thanksgiving holiday and we had loved ones around us. Even if there may have been loneliness for some who were absent, the comfort of memories served us well. We may have even ventured outside our comfort zone and thought about our needy people or even served them a Thanksgiving dinner.

I know about loneliness, so I applaud you for those thoughts and actions. But the question still haunts me: After Thanksgiving, what? A vital relationship with God revolves around our thankfulness. The Apostle Paul asks the Christians in the Church at Ephesus (Ephesians 5:18-20) to “… be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things to God the father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Whatever our situation, let me suggest a few things about the thankfulness that this occasion allows. Jesus, during His earthly ministry, expressed the need for thankfulness. Luke, in Chapter 17, tells about Jesus healing 10 lepers.

One of the 10 comes back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. Jesus asked, “Were not 10 healed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then Jesus said to that one thankful man, “Rise and go. Your faith has made you well.” 

Please note the man who had been previously healed is now pronounced “well.” Does thankfulness open the door to more of Jesus and a real “wellness?”

I have to tell you my preaching professor may have shocked the congregation at the First Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas, soon after Thanksgiving when he introduced the parable about two men, a Pharisee and a publican (tax collector), who went into the temple to pray. Dr. Clinard used this parable at Thanksgiving time, because the Pharisee in the story really does begin his prayer with thanksgiving. The Pharisee said, “I’m thankful I’m not like other men.”

And then he names them — the extortionist, the unjust and the adulterers. He soon moves on to brag about how good he is. How can a man come into the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving, bragging about how good he is? To boost his self-esteem, he looks over at the publican, who is a tax collector and sinner. He thanks God he is not like him or other sinners. He starts to pray a prayer of thanksgiving, but it isn’t long before God is out of the picture. Then he adds, “I fast twice a week, and I give tithes of all I possess.”

This may have started as a prayer of thanksgiving, but it soon turned into a prayer thanking God he is not like others.

When Jesus allows the publican to speak, he utters not so much a prayer of thanksgiving, but a prayer for mercy. He had probably slipped into the temple and remained close to the door. He said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

We can’t condone the life of the publican. His profession as a tax collector could have served him to cheat people.

What we must recognize was his knowing the love, holiness and righteousness of God. The publican may not have done anything about the separation he had with God, but he acknowledged his need for mercy and forgiveness.

“Isn’t that the starting place?” Jesus comments on these two worship experiences to say the publican, the sinner, went down to his house justified.

Another Thanksgiving season has come and gone. So what comes after Thanksgiving? It all depends on how much of God is in it.