The Neighbors You Don't Have

Luke 11:5-8

January 14, 2015

When we think of the word "parable" our minds may jump immediately to the story of the Prodigal Son or that of the Good Samaritan.  These are certainly the most famous of Jesus' stories, and they deserve to be the first ones we think of.  And because we associate parables with these wonderful stories about a father's love and a stranger's kindness, the word "parable" itself may well make us think of warm and fuzzy things--little kittens or stories that have happy endings and make us feel good.  Jesus told a lot of stories to make his message understandable and memorable.  Depending on what we include as a parable there are at least thirty different ones in Matthew, Mark, and Luke--John doesn't record a single one!  Many of these really do make us feel good because they end on a happy note.  But there are a few parables that don't follow the "happy ending" pattern exactly and, instead of leaving us with warm and fuzzy feelings, may make us put on our thinking caps and scratch our heads.  That's probably why Jesus told some these stories.
Let's get the story itself in front of us.  It appears in Luke 11:5-8 (and not in any other Gospel).  I've  chosen to use the New International Version because of the way it translates one word in the parable.  See if you can guess the word that the NIV treats differently than other translations.
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;  a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’  And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
       Did you guess that the NIV's use of "shameless audacity" to translate one Greek word^[1] in the story  is what makes it different?  The old King James Version as well as the Revised Standard Version and the Catholic Douay-Rheims Version all translate this word "importunity."  The New King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version and The Living Bible translate the word in question as "persistence."  Eugene Peterson's The Message manages to combine more than one of these meanings by translating the word:  "if you stand your ground, knocking and waking up all the neighbors."  We'll come back to the word "audacity" later.

So What's The Point of the Parable?
Luke makes it clear that the parable has something to do with prayer.  He placed the parable immediately after The Lord's Prayer (Luke 11: 1-4) and immediately before Jesus' saying about Asking, Seeking and Knocking (Luke 11:9-10).  But just what is the point of the parable?  Jesus sometimes told his listeners explicitly what his message was in a parable.  In the parable in which a shepherd leaves the ninety and nine to search for one lost sheep Jesus  emphasized that "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentence" (Luke 15:7).  His point is very clear.  In the parable of the midnight borrower, however, there is no such summation and we must figure out for ourselves what the point is.   Luke has put this parable beside other teachings of Jesus on prayer so he has helped us narrow down our choices.  So even though the parable is all about hospitality and we know that in the ancient world the requirement to offer hospitality was very important, Luke thought this was not the point of the story.   Does the parable intend to tell us how to pray by describing a neighbor who bangs on the door late at night to borrow some bread?  Did Jesus intend to compare God to the friend who was asleep with his children?  Or, is the parable intended to give us assurance that we will be heard when we pray just as the sleeping neighbor ultimately heard and answered his friends plea?
We'll need to look at several things before we decide what the point of the parable is.  For example, Luke did something that Freshmen in college sometimes do when they write an essay;  he used pronouns without being crystal clear to whom he was referring when he said "he."   We must ask who the "he" is.  We need to use our concordances and see what the opening phrase, "Which of you,"  expects as an answer.   If Jesus asks, "Which of you have a friend who would refuse to get up and help you if you called on him?" would we anticipate the answer, "Nobody has a neighbor like that" or "Everybody has a neighbor like that."  We will need to explore the meaning of that Greek word that is translated so differently in the various translations.  Why isn't its meaning clear?  We may need to know something about normal behavior in Jesus' time;  did people arrive hungry at midnight routinely?  Was it normal to bang on a friend's door late at night when it was clear that the family was asleep?  These are not all the questions scholars ask as they try to get to the point of this parable, but these are some of the major issues that we can explore.

Who Is the He?
Before we tackle the biblical text, let's take a few moments to try an exercise in sentence punctuation.  If you were given the following sentence, how would you punctuate it so it makes sense:    "time flies you can't they fly too fast."   Don't add anything but punctuation marks!  To give you a little help, I can tell you that part of the solution is to pay attention to the pronouns….. Well, doubtless this was not very challenging to students like you.  I've put the answer in a footnote ^[2] in case you need to see the sentence properly punctuated.   Now let's look at Luke's use of pronouns in the parable he recorded as the RSV has it:

5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves;6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

I'll replace the pronouns with the names of people you know--Doug, Lindy and Alvin--and you can decide whether I've done it correctly:

5 And Jesus said to them, “Which of you (Doug) who has a friend (Lindy) will go to Lindy at midnight and say to Lindy, ‘Lindy, lend me three loaves;6 for  Alvin has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before Alvin’; 7 and Lindy will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me (Doug); the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot give you anything.' 8 I tell you (Doug), though Lindy will not get up and give you anything [just] because Lindy is your (Doug's) friend, yet because of Doug's importunity Lindy will rise and give Doug whatever Doug needs (for Alvin).
The parable says that while friendship alone would not move a person to get out of bed and disturb his whole family to help a neighbor, something would cause him to do that.  What is that something?

The Crucial Word "anaideia."
The key word in the parable is the Greek word "anaideia" which without question means "shamelessness" or something like that in every setting where it occurs outside this parable.^[3]   This is the only place in our Bible where the word occurs.  According to one major scholar "shamelessness" (Greek:  anaideia) means "one either has no understanding of what is shameful or no hesitation in committing shameful acts."^[4]   Snodgrass writes that "the word expresses an ignorance about  or disregard of what is shameful and the absence of any sense of proper behavior."^[5]    Perhaps we can get close to understanding this concept if we call to mind the two guys in the Sonic commercial who are, as always, in the front seat of a car and the straight man comments that perhaps eating chicken nuggets
will give you that certain 'Je ne sais quoi'!  (Peter Grosz)
"Jenna said what?"          (T. J. Jagodowski)
                        "Jenna?"
                        "Did she mention me by name or..."
                        "I said 'Je ne sais quoi!'"
                        "I know, but what did Jenna say!?!?"
Mr. Jagodowski is not embarrassed by his failure to understand the French his partner used because he is shameless; in his ignorance he is so sure of himself that he cannot be shamed.
As has been alluded to already, very few translations of our New Testament have actually used the true meaning of the word anaideia in their rendering of this parable.  Most have substituted the word "importunity" which implies that the man who asks has made repeated or annoying requests.  The word "importunity" paints a picture of a man who kept on and kept on knocking and calling.  There is only one thing wrong with translating the parable that way.   The parable does not say that the man asked repeatedly, and it does not say that he knocked!" There is no hint in the text we have that the man is rude or insensitive.  He is just a man in need who asks his neighbor for help.
Apparently the parable has been modified by the translators to stress the man's persistence "because interpreters have wanted a more direct application to a theology of prayer than the parable seems to offer… .  We want to know in what way God is like the sleeper and how people who pray are like the petitioner."^[6]

Shamelessness We Can Be Proud Of
Dr. Snodgrass has concluded " 'Shamelessness' cannot have a positive meaning in this  passage.  It is a negative term describing the rudeness of the man outside asking for bread."^[7]    He may well be right, and for a non-scholar in this area to suggest that he is wrong may well be a true case of anaideia  and hubris .^[8]  You should certainly be very skeptical of the interpretation that I am about to offer.  Feel free to reject it out of hand if you feel so led.
The parable is clearly of the "how much more" kind;  it tells us that if a neighbor will get up at midnight to answer a request for food, how much more will God respond to our requests.  I fully agree with Dr. Snodgrass that "The parable does not invite rudeness in praying any more than it suggests that God is asleep…..  The parable addresses the implied question 'Will God respond to prayer."^[9]   But where does the "shamelessness" come in?  Let me paraphrase the parable for us this way:  If we had an emergency and called on a neighbor for help in the middle of the night, none of our neighbors would refuse us.^[10]   [In the words of the parable, none would say, " Do not bother me."]  They might not be our closest friends, but they would help us because it is the right thing to do.  [In the words of the parable, "he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship"]  And we wouldn't feel any sense of shame in calling for help at midnight; it is what our neighbors would expect us to do in an emergency.  The neighbor will get up and help us and feel good about doing so because without any hesitancy --any embarrassment,  any shame--we asked for his help.   [In the words of the parable, "because of his 'shamelessness' he will rise and give him whatever he needs."^[12]]
And so it is with prayer.  There is absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed to pray for help.^[11]  If our neighbors would come to our aid because we depended on them in a time of need, how much more is this true of him who is closer than a brother?  There would only be shame if we didn't call on him.



BACK TO TEXT1. The Greek word involved is the word anaideia. The key article about this parable and its use of the word anaideia is: Klyne Snodgrass, "Anaideia and the Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:8)," Journal of Biblical Literature, 116 (1997), 505-513
BACK TO TEXT 2. The sentence reads "Time flies? You can't! They fly too fast." The word "time" refers to trying to determine how fast a fly flies; it is a verb here. The word "flies" is a noun here and not a verb. The pronoun "they" refers back to the "flies." If one doesn't get the connection between the pronoun "they" and the noun "flies" it is hard to make sense of the sentence.
BACK TO TEXT3. See footnote one for Klein Snodgrass' article. See also his Stories With Intent (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2008), 442-445.
BACK TO TEXT4. Snodgrass, Stories With Intent. 442-443.
BACK TO TEXT 5. Op. cit., 443.
BACK TO TEXT 6. Snodgrass, Stories With Intent, 447.
BACK TO TEXT 7. Op. cit., 445.
BACK TO TEXT 8. Hubris has been humorously defined as the attitude of a man who throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan after having killed his father and mother! That takes gall.
BACK TO TEXT 9. Op. cit., 448.
BACK TO TEXT 10. Snodgrass points out that the NIV is wrong to translate the opening words as "Suppose..." The expression is "Who from you" making this an interrogative parable; "it consists of a long question and Jesus answer to his own question . ... The whole point is that no one would say such a thing and refuse to get up and give his friend what he needs. Such a refusal is unthinkable. The question 'Who from you (Tis ex hymōn)' appears eleven times in the Gospels. In all of them the question asks if anyone would do some hypothetical action, and in each case the implied answer is 'No one.'" Snodgrass, Op. cit., 442.
BACK TO TEXT 11. Dr. Snodgrass has made a strong case for the fact that there is no "good" meaning attached to the word anaideia as I have understood it here. I have understood the word to mean "without shame." Dr. Snodgrass argues that it means without "a proper sense of shame" on the part of someone who engages "in improper conduct." He notes that the term is always used for "outrageous and offensive behavior such as rashness, insolence, disorder, coarse behavior and recklessness." If he is right then it seems to me that Luke used the wrong word in this case. There is nothing outrageous or coarse about calling for help from a neighbor in an emergency. I think in this case the word means "without feeling shame."
BACK TO TEXT 12. After finishing the narrative for this presentation, I sent my last paragraphs to Dr. Snodgrass and got this reply which, as you will see, tells me that my interpretation is not true to the technical sense of the word anaideia: " As for anaideia, I do not think it ever means "without shame" in the good sense. It is a word repeatedly that points to the fact that someone has no sense of what shame is and does not know what is legitimate culturally accepted behavior. However, your point about people needing to feel no shame in praying is something that comes out of the "how much more" logic of the parable. The parable is intended to encourage prayer and expectation that God will act. You might compare the logic of the parallel "how much more" parable of the Unjust Judge. If an unjust judge will respond, how much more your Father who cares for you and will vindicate his people. There is no focus on the "unjust" imagery. To put it another way, the assumption of the Friend of Midnight is that God is eager to respond to prayer, and it seeks to encourage prayer. If that is the case, certainly there should be no fear, anxiety, or shame in approaching God. That conclusion is not tied to the word anaideia though. At least that is how I see the parable working." Personal email from Klyne Snodgrass, Northpark Seminary, Chicago, 1/05/15.

Writing On Our Minds

How Do We Read A Parable?

January 4, 2015

         Sometimes, even seasoned athletes need to return to the fundamentals of their sport—blocking and tackling in football—rather than focus on ever more complicated aspects of the game.  And so it is for us Christians some of whom have been at this for a long time.  A return to fundamentals for Christians may mean simply listening to the Master’s voice rather than wrestling with the application of our faith to the issues of our time, though that can hardly be ignored.  And nowhere in the Gospels is the Master’s voice heard with any more clarity than in the stories he told.  The most famous ones have become a part of our Western culture.  The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are known the world over, wherever Christianity has penetrated. These would have been on the highlight reel if ESPN had broadcast the Gospels.  But, alas, as in sports so in the Gospels—there are many less famous parables that seldom get mentioned.  So in this series, we’ll try to focus on the lesser known parables even though they may not be quite as memorable as the famous ones.  After all, they were stories Jesus told for a reason, and if they are his stories they need to be our stories too.

            Before we get too far into our study, it might help to define some terms we’ll use.  We’ve already used the word “stories” but, as we shall see, not all the parables Jesus used were stories as we think of them—descriptions of something that transpires between two or more persons involving some tension and its resolution.  The best known parables are, indeed, the stories Jesus told, but the word “parable” itself is a Greek word that we have taken over to describe these teachings of Jesus.  The Greek word literally means “something thrown along side of” something else to illustrate it or help someone understand it.  So if one laid a line drawing down beside a faded, old masterpiece, it could help us see the figures in the original painting better.  In a sense, the line drawing would be a “parable.”  Its function is to help us understand. 

            Many times in the Gospels we find something like “he told them many things in parables” (Mt. 13:3).  Scholars can’t agree on exactly how many parables there are and, surely, some of the sayings of Jesus are parables even though they are not labeled as such.  They also have a hard time deciding just what kinds of parables there are.  Some of the lines between the types they define are not crystal clear to most  of us.  Let’s try to put a label on at least some of  Jesus “parables,” those sayings he put alongside something to help us understand it.

Parables That Are In Code

            Oddly enough, some people thought early on that the function of the parables was exactly the opposite—to hide the meaning so only those in the inner circle could understand the meaning of the teaching.  And because of this understanding of the parables, these teachings of Jesus were given far-fetched interpretations that assigned some meanings to elements in the teachings that Jesus never intended at all.  When we make each element in a story a “code” that stands for something other than what it is, we have made the story an “allegory.”  One famous example of an allegory is Paul Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, but perhaps a work closer to our time can serve as an even better example of this kind of literature.     

            In 1900 a delightful book was written that was subsequently made into a movie.  We have all seen it.  It involves a little girl and her dog who are caught up in a tornado in Kansas and hurled into a make believe world where there are Lion’s who have no courage, Scarecrows who have no brains, and Tin Men who have no hearts.  And there is a Yellow Brick Road, Wicked Witches, and a Wizard with a roaring voice who turns out to be a sham. But there may be more to this story than we realize.  “Few people are even aware the The Wizard of Oz is an elaborate political allegory about conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century in the U.S.A., with “Oz” (the abbreviation for “ounce”) and the yellow brick road both referring to the gold standard (which was debated at the time), the scarecrow representing the farmers, the tin man the industrial workers, and the cowardly lion reformers, especially William Jennings Bryan.  It is a perfectly good story understandable in its own right, but both enjoyable and powerful when the lens of its intent is in place.”[1]

            There is no doubt that at least one of Jesus’ parables, the parable of the sower and the seeds, has an allegorical flavor to it.[2]  The Gospels record Jesus’ own interpretation of this parable which makes the seed the “word of God” and the soils different levels of receiving the word.  So each element was intended to illustrate why not everyone who hears the message of Jesus lets it take root and produce fruit in his life.  And just as one can go back and make each element of the Wizard of Oz fit a particular situation in history, so, too, one can assign each element of this parable a meaning and many early Christian preachers did just that.   But because of the fantastic interpretations given to some parables when they were treated as allegories, most interpreters today would say that “the practice of turning parables into allegories that Jesus never intended must be resisted at every point.”[3]  In most cases, scholars suggest that a parable has one primary message or point.  We need to hear our Master’s voice as it conveyed that point to its original audience if we can and then make the application of that point to the appropriate situation today.  With that much introduction, let’s look first of all at the kinds of parables we find in the Gospels and then focus on a few examples.

Parables That Ask A Question

            We’ve already said that the most famous parables are the stories.  But in some cases, Jesus starts telling a story by asking a question.  We might call these the “what do you think?” parables.  The parable of the lost sheep is like this.  It begins, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not…. (Lk 15:4).    Jesus could have just told a story about a shepherd who left his flock of sheep to go look for the one that was lost and then was so happy about finding it that he threw a party to celebrate.  A similar story about a lost son (the Prodigal) did not start with a question, but it could have.  We all remember that Jesus said that “Whoever would save his life would lose it…” but we may not remember the parables he told to illustrate the cost of discipleship.  In one of those he asked , “Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Lk 14:28).  It’s a good question and one that applies to virtually all of life.  Jesus had a way with questions.

Parables That Make Us Decide

            Some of Jesus’ parables were used to confront a person about the choices she (or he) has made much as Nathan did when he told his famous story about the rich farmer who stole his poor neighbors one lamb for a barbecue! These are almost lawyer-like in that they deal with right and wrong in real life. Like the “What do you think?” parables, these may involve a question but they don’t just ask a question.  Take for instance the time Jesus went to the house of Simon the Leper in Bethany just a few days before he was arrested.  Luke describes the scene but does not name any of the characters.  Matthew and Mark help us fill in the names.  The Gospel of John identifies the woman as Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha but he is the only one who does so.  Here’s the scene.  Jesus and the disciples had been invited to dine with Simon.  As they reclined on the couches around the table, a woman approached Jesus, crying.  Since Jesus was reclining with his head toward the table, his feet were exposed.  The woman’s tears fell on Jesus’ feet and then she took some expensive ointment, perfume, and massaged Jesus feet.  The host, Simon the Leper, was obviously irritated by the intrusion.  Jesus saw it immediately and said:  “Simon, I have something to say to you.”  And then he told the story of two men who owed a man money.  One of them owed ten times as much as the other.  The man forgave both of the debtors what they owed him.  Then Jesus asked Simon the loaded question:  “Which one of these debtors will love their banker more?”  And after Simon responded, then Jesus drew the comparison between Simon’s love for him and that of the woman as demonstrated by their actions.  Obviously, Simon had a decision to make about how much he loved his master.

Parables That Compare

            Some of Jesus’ parables compare two things using the word “like”.  For example, Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed…” (Mt. 13:31).   He compared the size of the seed (tiny) to the size of the fully grown plant (the greatest of the shrubs). But before he told that parable he said (Mk 4:30) : “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it?”  Clearly Jesus thought of a parable as a comparison.  In another “like” parable, Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…(Mt 13:33) that affects everything it touches.   Jesus taught much about the kingdom of God and much of what he taught about the kingdom he taught by comparing it to something that people already knew about:  farming, making bread, sowing seeds, finding something valuable in the field, fishing nets, fig trees and children playing.  The Kingdom of God was for Jesus like a field of grain.  The farmer does not know exactly how the seed reproduces to make the grain, but one thing he knows, “when the grain is ripe, at once he put in the sickle because the harvest is come” (Mk 4:26).  So the Kingdom is coming to fruition.  And when all is ripe, God will reap the harvest.

 Parables That Paint Pictures

            The story parables paint unforgettable pictures in our minds, scenes that have captured the imagination of Christians for two millennia now.  I love the way John Steinbeck described the effect of one of his teachers on his life.  

"She aroused us to shouting, bookwaving discussions.  She had the noisiest class in school and she didn't even seem to know it...She breathed curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands like captured fire-flies...She left her signature on us, the literature of a teacher who writes on minds. …I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of that high school teacher." [4]

That’s what Jesus did with these story parables—he “wrote on our minds.”   Matthew recorded Jesus’ teaching about prayer:  “when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues…(Mt 6:5).  But Luke recorded the story Jesus told to make this point:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector….” (Lk 18:9) and we all know the ‘rest of the story.’  I’m glad they didn’t make a movie of that scene and reduce that episode to just one fixed image.  It lives in a million minds and speaks to all our hearts with the voice of the Master.

Parables That Are Proverbs

            In the Old Testament, the word mashal is translated into English both as “parable” and as “proverb.” In fact, the very name of the book of Proverbs uses this word in its Hebrew title.  So at least in the Old Testament a wise saying counted as either a parable or a proverb.  In fact, we have this same use of the word parable in the Gospels.  In  Luke 4:23, nearly all of our translations read:  “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician heal yourself.’ “  But the word that is translated “proverb” in this verse is exactly the same word that is translated “parable” in scores of other places in the Gospels.  Many of Jesus sayings sound like what we would call “proverbs.”  For example, one saying that sounds like a proverb but is labeled a parable is Mark 7:15, “There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.”  Great teachers have a way of using unforgettable imagery to help us understand abstract ideas.  Jesus was no exception; indeed he was the rule. 

Conclusion     

            Parables were a way of teaching, not a fixed format Jesus used.  Mark tells us that “with many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it” (Mk 4:33).  But some sayings of Jesus are called parables in one Gospel and not in the others.  For example, the sayings about new wine in old wineskins and new patches on old garments are presented by Luke as parables (Lk 5:36-39) but both Matthew and Mark just present these sayings as teachings of Jesus.  Clearly the Gospel writers could have labeled many other of Jesus’ teachings as parables had they been so inclined.  Jesus himself did not label his teachings; he just wrote on our minds.

---

[1] Klyne Snodgrass, Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI:  William Be. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2008) p. 16.   L. Frank Baum first published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and the success of that book led to several sequels. A number of adaptations of Baum's Oz stories for stage and screen appeared before MGM's classic movie was released in 1939. The most celebrated interpretation came from a high school history teacher in upstate New York named Henry Littlefield, who found that the imagery of Baum's story corresponded to the issues and figures in American politics at the end of the 19th century. Littlefield found that he could use The Wizard of Oz to teach history to his students, as the story functioned well as an allegory to the Populist movement and the 1896 presidential election. In the years since Littlefield's article first appeared in American Quarterly in 1964, several analysts have weighed in with their own refinements to this interpretation. A number of people have disagreed with Littlefield's premise entirely, denying that Baum had any political intent at all, while others have suggested other political interpretations.   See the site below for more:  http://www.turnmeondeadman.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=63

[2] Matthew 13:3-23

[3] Snodgrass, Ibid., 17

[4] California Teachers Association Journal, November,1955, p.7.      

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.

           

It is interesting that while this is a thanksgiving psalm, the word thank or thanksgiving is not used in it at all.^[1] This points up something that we all know naturally there is a fine line between thanking God and praising God.  C.S. Lewis made a wonderful point when he noted that we spontaneously praise what we value and urge others to join us in praising it.  “Isn’t she lovely?  Wasn’t it glorious?  Don’t you think that magnificent?”^[2]  So it is with gratitude too.