Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. Families and friends will gather, and we will give thanks to God for the harvest. For those who are far from home, please stay and eat with us after the service. Our table today is your table. But why do we do this? A few years ago, my daughter asked me a question that made me think about it more deeply than I ever had.

Many of us know a harvest festival from another land. Korea has Chuseok, often called Korean Thanksgiving. China has the Mid-Autumn Festival, which many celebrated earlier this autumn. Both come on the full moon of the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, close to Canadian Thanksgiving. In my house, when the days came near, my two daughters would ask whether we would celebrate the Korean one or the Canadian one. Their real question was what we would eat, Korean food or turkey, and we almost always chose chicken, a peaceful compromise between two cultures we love.

Then one year my daughter Jenny said, “Mom, I think we should celebrate one or the other. If we don’t, we miss an important part of our life.” I do not remember what I answered, but her words became two questions. What is the meaning of this celebration? And why do we do it?

These festivals look much alike. The roads and trains fill with people heading home. Families gather around the table, with rice cakes in Korea and mooncakes in China, and everyone looks up at the same full moon. They celebrate the harvest and the joy of being together, and many give thanks. Their roots are in old folk traditions and in the Confucian respect for family, yet I see something bigger in them. The wish to give thanks for a harvest is universal, whatever religion we hold, whatever food we prepare. Gratitude seems to belong to being human.

So what is the heart of this day? I found help from a Canadian theologian named Mary Jo Leddy, who has lived and worked with refugees in Toronto. In her book Radical Gratitude, she says that many of us live with what she calls a “ledger view of life.” It is like a scorecard in our heads: what I earned, what I am owed, what others have that I do not, what I still want. And the scorecard always asks for more. Leddy says this keeps us captive to wanting. Freedom begins when we stop taking life for granted. Even opening our eyes this morning was a gift, freely given.

That gives me an idea of what these festivals are for. They are a day to stop counting. For one day we put the scorecard down. We look at the table, the food, the people, the harvest, and we say, “This is enough. And I did not earn all of it. It was given.”

Think of all that we have been given. Sunshine and rain for the crops. Seeds and fruit trees. Children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Meaningful work, a safe home, good health, and loving relationships. A newborn baby in the family. An engagement or a wedding for our children or grandchildren. Farmers know this better than anyone: we can plant the seed, but we cannot make the rain. So much of what we call ours came as a gift.

I also know that not every table is full this year. Some of us come with an empty chair, a hard diagnosis, or a job that is gone. For some of us, hearing “be thankful” may feel heavy. Giving thanks is not forced happiness, and it does not mean we pretend the pain is not real. It means we keep looking, with honest eyes, for the gifts that still come, and we bring the rest to God as well.

Whatever you carry today, you are welcome here. Leddy also reminds us that gratitude sends us outward, to share and to welcome others.

Our blessings are more than we can remember. Some Jewish people practice saying one hundred blessings of thanks every day, from waking until sleep. A rabbi who taught at my seminary encouraged us to try, and I did. It was not easy. Naming a hundred gifts takes great effort when we are not present to our own lives. Gratitude, I learned, needs practice. It is a habit of paying attention.

Today’s story from Luke shows us two ways of living. Ten men with leprosy, a skin disease that cut them off from family, worship, and community, cry out to Jesus for mercy. Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they go, all ten are cleansed. One of them, seeing that he is healed, turns back. He praises God with a loud voice, falls at Jesus’ feet, and gives thanks. And he was a Samaritan, a foreigner with no claim on anyone.

The other nine keep walking, and I do not think they were bad people. They received what they asked for, and it is easy to feel that what we receive is only what we are owed. But for the man who turns back, it was not payment. It was a gift.

Jesus asks where the other nine are and is surprised that the one who came back to give praise to God is a Samaritan, a foreigner. Jesus does not measure this man by his nationality or his religion. What Jesus honors is the action, the turning back. Then Jesus says to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

What does this mean? The man’s body was already healed, just like the others. The Greek word here is sozo. It can mean ‘made well,’ and it can also mean ‘saved.’ All ten were cleansed, but this man receives something more than a healthy body. He turns back with praise, and he is made whole. Something deeper than skin is healed in him. From lament to praise. From the margins to belonging. From sorrow to joy. The nine men received the gift. One man found the Giver. On most days I am among the nine, so busy enjoying the gift that I forget to turn around.

Here faith and gratitude are tied together. Gratitude is not the price we pay for God’s love, and it is not a test we have to pass. It is what we do when we realize we are loved. A scorecard asks, “What do I deserve?” Faith asks, “Who gave me this gift?”

Jenny, if you ever hear this, thank you for asking. So here is my answer to your question and to my own. We celebrate, whether Chuseok, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Thanksgiving, because we need one day to put down the scorecard. We stop counting what we earned and what we still want, and we remember that life was given to us. Whether we are young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, with degrees or without, religious or not, at home or far from home, we can turn around, even slowly, even through tears, and say thank you to the Giver.

Everything we have is a gift, and a gift is meant to be shared. So today, no one needs to eat alone. Our deepest joy is found in giving thanks and praise. Amen.