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Thanksgiving, according to one newspaper columnist, has kept its original meaning better than any other holiday. That original meaning, he wrote, was family reunions around large dinner tables.

In contrast, Christmas has changed into Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Easter has come to emphasize new spring clothes and the Easter bunny. Even our national holidays -- Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day -- have become cook-outs and summer travel get-aways.

But what about Thanksgiving? Those of us here in a Thanksgiving church service may be surprised that family reunions around large dinner tables would be considered Thanksgiving's original meaning; but after a little thought that description seems not too bad.

For one thing, it fits the picture of our Pilgrim ancestors getting together with Native American-Indians. The Indians, we think, brought deer meat and wild turkey to the first Thanksgiving, while the Pilgrims brought sweet potatoes, bread, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Most important, that first harvest celebration seemed to be a time of peace and harmony among the European immigrants and the Native Americans. So-called Indian Wars had not started yet.

For another thing, today's Thanksgiving reunions bring out thankful feelings about our blessings. We may even sing a few Thanksgiving hymns: "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing" or "Come, ye thankful people, come; raise the song of harvest-home" or "Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices."

For still another thing, today's Thanksgiving gives us some probably-deserved feelings of guilt: "We have so much. What should we do for people who have so little?" we ask ourselves. So we try to ease these guilty feelings by donating Thanksgiving baskets to less fortunate people. Fund raisers for soup kitchens and feeding programs know that Thanksgiving is a good time to ask us for money, because we will enjoy our Thanksgiving dinners better, if we have given them some cash or a check.

Now there is a new kind of Thanksgiving guilt which comes from our historical mistreatment of American Indians. A thought-provoking question is, "Would our Pilgrim ancestors have been as kind to the Indians at that first Thanksgiving, as the Indians were to the Pilgrims, if their positions had been reversed?" In other words, "If the Pilgrims had been here first, and if Indian immigrants had arrived on the Mayflower, would the Pilgrims have allowed them a Thanksgiving feast at all, even providing the meat?" The unhappy suspicion is that they would have said, "No," to the savages.

That is enough Thanksgiving history and guilt-talk. It is time for our Bible lesson from the sixth chapter of John. In the preceding Bible verses Jesus had just finished feeding 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. There were even twelve baskets of food left over, which Jesus directed his disciples to gather up so that there would be no waste.

Then the miracle, which Jesus intended to be a good gift, took an ugly turn. The idea of free food from Jesus was so appealing that the people wanted to make Jesus their king -- in exchange, of course, for free food always. Jesus tried to get away from them by crossing the Sea of Galilee, but the crowd followed. When they caught up, they got to the point of their pursuit: "Sir, give us this bread always."

Jesus tried unsuccessfully to direct their crude request into something spiritual: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." The people felt those words were unsatisfactory, and a few verses after today's Gospel Lesson the crowd turned against Jesus: "Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, 'I am the bread that came down from heaven.' "

Let us, you and me, in this Thanksgiving season try once again to be grateful to God for all that we have received. We should remember that there is a big difference between what we need, and what we want. Our needs include just enough food, clothing, and shelter to keep us alive and healthy. Anything more is extra blessing.

A nutritionist distributed small dessert plates exactly six inches in diameter, the kind we would use for a piece of pie or cake. "There is enough space on that plate for a day's supply of food," the nutritionist said. Hard to believe! Even if the nutritionist is guilty of exaggeration, the general idea is correct -- that we eat more than we need, and we expect our food to be tasty and good-looking besides.

A history of World War II described food rationing in war-time England. Because of the war, and because of enemy submarines sinking ships, food was short; everybody was a little hungry all the time. Keep in mind that the English people were not being starved in concentration camps, or in death camps, or in prisoner of war camps. They were just a little hungry all the time.

So how was the health of the average English person on August 15, 1945, when World War II ended? Answer: health was at its best, and better than it would become during peacetime prosperity. Most English people -- and most United States people -- eat more than we need. Our wants exceed our needs.

A missionary to a poor country told of a community-wide potluck supper, where the missionaries were invited to serve themselves first. The food looked so good, that they heaped their plates in good old-fashioned USA church potluck style. Only as they started to eat did they notice that the food supply at the supper table was barely adequate for everybody else. Nobody complained; nobody had an empty plate; nobody even looked at them with hostility, because they were honored guests. In the next suppers, however, the missionaries took only the amount of food they really needed. That was what everybody else did, just as a matter of normal living. For most of us our wants exceed our needs.

This Thanksgiving sermon is not intended to be a lecture on the dangers of being overweight, or the virtues of dieting, but to illustrate how our thankfulness has unfortunately demanded much more than we really need. A successful but unlikeable man boasted, "I want two of everything." His wants included two houses, two boats, two cars, two women, two of everything.

On Thanksgiving we -- you and I -- should be thankful for what God has given us, and then we should make good use of whatever that is.

I prayed for a bunch of fresh flowers, but I got an ugly cactus with many thorns.

I prayed for beautiful butterflies, but got ugly worms.

But the cactus grew lovely blooms, and the worms were caterpillars which became lovely butterflies.

That is God's way.


We also need to remember that we live through change; some are changes for the better, and some are for the worse. We would like to keep the best things of the past, plus gaining the advantages of the present. Sorry, it does not work that way. A lady visiting in a hospital looked at the park across the street from the main entrance. She recalled her childhood, when she played on that playground, while her father visited her sick mother.

It seems strange now, but children were not allowed inside hospitals in those days, unless they were sick themselves and admitted as patients. They were not even allowed to visit a sick mother, which is a bad memory of the so-called "good old days."

On the other hand, it was safe in those days to leave a child in a public playground. Unthinkable now! Too many speeding cars, and too many child molesters.

Here is how this story connects with our Thanksgiving. We would like to have the advantages of the past, plus gaining the advantages of the present, but it seems we do not get both.

A woman moved from a hilly part of Massachusetts to a flat part of Ohio. She missed the beauty of the Massachusetts hills, but she learned to enjoy instead the beautiful sunrises and sunsets of Ohio's open skies. When God provides for us there are often changes. We gain some things, and we lose others. There is gaining and losing.

This Thanksgiving let us be grateful for the miracles by which God provides for our needs -- and so much more.