Moses said to all Israel: For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:7-8
We gather tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving across this country and honestly it could not come at a better time. Don’t you feel like there is more tension than usual in the air? Elections, violence, Israel-Gaza, Russia-Ukraine, interests rates rising, businesses closing, and everyone increasingly at each others throats. Everything seems so….scarce.
Yet look around at how much we all have! We live in a land of immense opportunity. In spite of all the challenges in America people still seek to come here from around the world because we are the land of opportunity. This is the message that Moses offers to God’s people before they enter the promised land, and one that continues to resonate for us today. We are incredibly fortunate to have been given so much by God. Everything we have, our homes, our families, our joys, our jobs, all of the many gifts we have been given however big or small, come from God. All God asks of us in return, all God ever asked, from that first day, is to share it with our neighbor. To not be jealous of what others have and to not hold too tightly to the things that are ‘ours’ because they all came from the same place.
Yet everywhere today we see fights for stuff. For land. For water. For polítical, social, religious power. And then we see the fights about the fights. Who did what. Who started it. Who is to blame. Conflict breeds more conflict. Violence begets more violence.
You and I cannot do much about how other people act. But we can do a little bit to quell violence, to tamp down anger, to serve as a buffer against hostility. A really important way to do that is to remind yourself first just how blessed you are. Look at all you have! Look around at the people who love you. Consider the things that bring you joy. That fill you with light, with hope. Begin there. Why?
Because we are blessed. And we absolutely do not deserve it.
Which means that those who are suffering, whether they are dealing with addiction in Baltimore, violence in Gaza, or terrorism in Israel, also don’t deserve it! As Children of God they are no better or worse, no closer or farther from the divine than you or I.
Their situation is not a problem that we can solve. But it is a reality that we can recognize. Humanize. And seek to understand.
Monica always makes fun of me because she will start telling me about some challenge or frustration and before she is even finished speaking I am ready to jump in with “Well here is what you should do!” It is not unlike the random person posting on twitter - “maybe Israel and Palestine should just each get their own country?” We always would love for the problem to be simple, to be solvable.
A few years ago I was part of a group that met with Tal Becker, one of the chief negotiators for many years in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He said something that has always stuck with me, (paraphrasing) “If it was as simple as just divvying up the pie, we could have solved this years ago. The problem is each side will only feel like they are winning when the other side suffers.”
Sometimes it doesn’t feel enough for us to be happy with what we have. We want someone else to hurt in the process. And sometimes, in really dark moments, the only thing that we feel will make us happy is for someone else to hurt.
Which is why this is exactly the perfect time for thanksgiving.
A time for all of us to step back. To take stock. To recognize how blessed, how truly blessed we are, and to give ourselves permission to believe that that alone is enough.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.