In 1893, the New York Herald declared in a scathing editorial, “Thanksgiving Day is no longer a solemn festival to God for mercies given...it is a holiday granted by the state and nation to see a game of football.” The secularization of holidays in America is not an exclusively modern phenomenon.

And while this statement may not fully resonate with our own experience of Thanksgiving, it reminds us that many have lost touch with the original intent. Thanksgiving Day means different things to different people but hopefully it goes beyond the “Three F’s” that typify the American adaptation: food, family, and football. The true spirit of Thanksgiving transcends our dinner tables, our football fields and even our national heritage. The true spirit of Thanksgiving is exactly that — a day of giving thanks to God.

For Episcopalians, there is a bit of irony in the celebration of Thanksgiving. After all, the reason the pilgrims came to America was to escape religious tyranny in England. And who was persecuting these radical protestant separatists? Why, the Church of England! Nonetheless, Thanksgiving Day is listed as a major feast in our current Prayer Book.

Don’t worry, this isn’t to suggest that Episcopalians should be hesitant to celebrate Thanksgiving. Contrary to popular belief, Americans didn’t “invent” Thanksgiving. We’ve put our stamp on it to make it distinctly American, but days set aside for giving thanks are as ancient as civilization itself. Giving thanks seems to be an innate human response to blessings given. The link between life, land, and the divine has been celebrated throughout all time. In the pre Judeo-Christian era, yearly festivals of thanksgiving took place at the successful conclusion of the harvest.

In the Hebrew Bible, the three principal feasts of the Jews, Passover (the new flock), Pentecost (grain) and Tabernacles (wine), each had agricultural significance. And the Law of Moses, specifically the Book of Leviticus, prescribes various thank offerings, as both private and public acts of worship.

The theme of thanksgiving is also an important New Testament and liturgical theme.

The sacrament of Holy Communion is called Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving). And the consecratory prayer over the bread and wine is called the Great Thanksgiving, highlighting its centrality to our lives and our liturgy.

In the Middle Ages, the most common harvest and thanksgiving celebration was centered on the November 11 Feast of St. Martin of Tours. Martinmas was a lively festival commencing with mass and continuing with games, parades and a traditional feast. The highlight of the meal was the main dish referred to as “Martin’s Goose.” Along with dinner they drank “Saint Martin’s wine,” which was the first lot of wine made from the grapes at the recent harvest.

This celebration was still kept in Holland after the Reformation and it was here that the Pilgrims who sailed to America in 1620 likely became familiar with it. And so, the American version of Thanksgiving, romanticized as it may be, entered our collective consciousness. Over the years, various festivals of thanksgiving took place in the New England and Virginia colonies. In 1789, George Washington became the first American president to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving. However, the holiday then reverted back to local and regional observance until Abraham Lincoln declared the first of our modern observations on the last Thursday of November in 1863. A yearly national day of thanksgiving was affirmed by every president over the years but it wasn’t until 1941 that Thanksgiving Day was officially established as a national holiday by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

We tend to give thanks for many things on Thanksgiving Day: our families, our friends, even our athletes. And it’s even possible that our thanks may go to Aunt Helen for not burning the turkey again this year, or to ourselves for setting the table with such perfection, or to Granddad for refraining from his unbearably distasteful political commentary. But as Christians, the root of our thankfulness runs deeper than this. And by going to church on Thanksgiving Day, wherever we may be, we can recapture an old tradition: one that places the emphasis of thanks upon the God from whom all blessings truly do flow.
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