Now Thank We All
Thanksgiving and the Psalms
November 19, 2014
When I tried to call
to mind the events of that first Thanksgiving I realized again how fuzzy my
American history is! I’m not sure
whether my ignorance is a product of poor learning in the first place or loss
of what I used to know. I’m reminded of
the twisted way some kids hear the Bible stories we tell. Like the kid who listed Joan of Arc as Noah’s
wife or the one who got the gist of the story about Lot’s wife right—she turned
into something—but confused this story with the story of the ark of the
covenant going before the people as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by
night. He suggested that Lot’s wife was
“a pillar of salt” by day and a “ball of fire” by night! I’m afraid my recollection of the events
around the year 1621 in New England was just about as confused as that boy’s
Bible story.
You see, somehow I got to
thinking that the Pilgrims were the first ones to arrive in the New World, the
founders of the nation. And then I
picked up on the fact that the settlers arrived down in Jamestown in 1607,
thirteen years ahead of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. And next I was startled when I read about an
English speaking Indian who appeared in the camp named Squanto (Tisquantum in
his language). And confused as I was by
thinking that these English folks were the first ones in the area, I wondered
if someone was pulling my leg about this English speaking Indian who helped the
Pilgrims plant their corn and learn to catch eels. Where did he come from? He seemed like a Rolex watch in a cowboy
movie. But no! My ignorance had done it to me again. It seems that young Squanto had not only been
to England but to Spain, too. Captain
John Smith of Pochohantas fame had led an expedition into the New England area
years before and a fellow captain on that trip enticed some Indians on to his
boats to trade furs for goods and then held them as captives. He took them to Spain where he sold some of
them as slaves before others were saved by monks in a monastery who found out
what he had done. From there Squanto
made his way to England where he lived and worked for a few years, learning
English along the way, before joining an expedition to Newfoundland and
subsequently back to his home territory at Plymouth. Arriving there he learned that his whole
tribe had died of some disease (imported from the boat crews apparently). It was this English speaking Squanto who was
brought to the Pilgrim settlement and may have made the difference between
eating and starving for them. As is
usually the case, Squanto had a darker side that emerged later but his help in
that winter of 1621 was almost providential.
That first Thanksgiving
occurred sometime in the Fall of 1621, and there was food enough for the
Indians and the Pilgrims alike to enjoy as they celebrated the harvest that
would see them through the second winter in America. More than half of the original settlers did
not live to give thanks for that harvest.
And so , the first Thanksgiving came after tragedy, suffering and
death.
Two and a half centuries
later, October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation
declaring that the last Thursday in November would be Thanksgiving Day. Our country was in the midst of a Civil War and
for millions there was little for which to give thanks. Just a month or so later the President would
stand on the battlefield at Gettysburg and urge
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
In the Thanksgiving proclamation, President Lincoln asked that we set
aside the day
as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth
in the Heavens...and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand
to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent
with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity
and Union.
You may be wondering
about this time how all this relates to the Bible since these Wednesday
presentations are supposed to be Bible Studies.
The connection (at least in my mind) lies in the close association of
suffering and thanksgiving in the first Thanksgiving and in Lincoln’s
proclamation. Only because they had
suffered so much could the Pilgrims rejoice so at the bounty of food that was
theirs at the end of that first year. It
is very hard to appreciate that which we have never lost or come close to
losing. How often have we said or heard
others say something like, “Oh, if only I had known what I had before I lost my
knees (or my health or my job…)I would have done things differently!” And of course the opposite is true too. Those who have been granted a new lease on
life or a new freedom from pain or the chance to do something they thought was
lost forever are effusive in their joy and gratitude.
This connection between
thanksgiving and threats to the things we value most is not new. In fact, it highlights something that has
puzzled Old Testament scholars for a long time.
Many years ago a German scholar by the name of Hermann Gunkel wrote a
book on the Psalms that changed the way scholars understand these songs. Gunkel identified several types of Psalms and
showed that all the Psalms of a certain type had the same characteristics. You can imagine how knowing this helped
scholars understand some of the psalms that been hard to interpret. It was like giving someone a line drawing of
the shape of the various states before they started putting a jigsaw puzzle
together. Now they knew what to look
for. Psalms that had been fragmentary
could be pieced together with others that supplied the missing parts.
One of the types that
Gunkel identified was that of the Thanksgiving.
He said that there were two kinds of thanksgiving psalms, one used by an
individual person and another that the whole community could use. Of course we use very personal terms when as
individuals we thank God for something.
Remember the chorus that we sang as teenagers:
Thank you,
Lord, for saving my soul,
Thank you,
Lord, for making me whole;
Thank you,
Lord, for giving to me
Thy great salvation so rich and free.
And
compare that with the hymn we often sing at Thanksgiving
Come, ye
thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is
safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our
Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of
harvest home.
One
is all about “me” and the other is all about “us.” So it was in ancient Israel too.
There aren’t many of the communal
thanksgiving psalms left in our Bible for some reason. Since we know that there were occasions when
they brought their gifts of the first fruits to the Temple, we can assume that
these times would have been occasions for them to thank God for the harvest
just as our Pilgrims did in 1621. There
are a few left. One of these is Psalm
124
1] If it had not been the LORD
who was on our side,
let Israel now say --
[2] if it had not been the LORD
who was on our side,
when men rose up against us,
[3] then they would have swallowed
us up alive,
when their anger was kindled
against us;
[4] then the flood would have
swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over
us;
[5] then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
[6] Blessed be the LORD,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
[7] We have escaped as a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
[8] Our help is in the name of
the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
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