Thanksgiving -- Ancient Israelite Style!

To thank the Lord for his many blessings many of us gather together with our families at this time of year. We bring our best food, lots of meat and baked goods made from scratch with the best ingredients. Then we offer a prayer of thanks, recounting what we are grateful for. After that we spend the day eating, talking, and laughing, enjoying each other's company -- and God's blessing. We don't have to do this, but it's a tradition and we always look forward to it.

No, I'm not bragging about the Thanksgiving my extended family is having today. This is thanksgiving the way that ancient Israelites did it, 3000+ years ago.

It's buried in the depths of the almost-never-read Book of Leviticus, the third book in your Bible. Here is how the Voice Bible translates it:

If someone offers a sacrifice out of thanksgiving, then in addition to the sacrifice he must offer loaves of unleavened bread mixed with oil, unleavened wafers topped with oil, and loaves of the finest flour mixed with oil. Along with the peace offerings for thanksgiving, a person must include loaves of leavened bread. He must present one of each kind of bread as a gift to Me; it will belong to the priest who officiates the sacrifice and splatters the blood of the peace offerings against the sides of the altar.

The meat of the sacrifice for the thanksgiving peace offering must be eaten on the day it is offered. None of it is to be left over for the next day. (Book of Leviticus 7.12 - 15, Voice )

 There are obvious differences of course and the last thing I'm trying to do is suggest that Americans are modern Israelites (although the Puritans, who started our Thanksgiving tradition, are just the kind of guys who would read Leviticus).

Similarities

But it is interesting to me that there is a more than passing similarity between their thanksgiving and our thanksgiving. In this book God is setting up a way for Israel to relate to their God. As part of that he includes a way to spontaneously say "thank you" to him when they are so moved.

Most of the other sacrifices ordained in the first 7 chapters of Leviticus are either completely consumed in the altar fire or part is set aside for the Priests. But when it comes to thanksgiving, God's idea is: Get your family together, bring your best animal (which is what a sacrifice had to be), make 3 kinds of baked goods, and then gather before me (at the 'congregation tent' -- the forerunner of Solomon's Temple) and we'll have a good time together. And eat all you want because there won't be any leftovers.

Throughout the Scriptures we find God working through community and food. He is not an austere, far-off deity or the kind who does everything himself. God is constantly, intimately involved with every mundane thing in his people's lives, working through them to fulfill his eternal purposes. Even the most profound, sacred thing we do as the Christian movement, taking Holy Communion, is God working through food to transform his people and through them the world.

That's a good reason to be thankful. And it's a good reason to give thanks in this ancient way that also seems  so natural to us.



Note: This a repeat of a previous post so I can have Thanksgiving off.

Same Old, Same Old With the Son of God

Boredom

Photo by Adam Jones adamjones.freeservers.com

"On the 5th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me... downtime."

In the version of the Christian calendar followed in the western world this is the 5th Day of Christmas -- the one where your supposed to get those famous "five golden rings." But despite that, there are no holy feasts today, no commemorations like the one I mentioned the other day marking the first martyrdom in the Christian Movement. If you happen to be a big fan of Thomas Becket this would be the day you remember him, though it has nothing to do with Christmas (although he was yet another martyr...).

But there is a lesson in this day. After all, even life with the newborn Son of God wasn't a miracle-a-minute. There were no doubt weeks and months where nothing happened outside of ordinary, droning, peasant family life. Even the fact that they were refugees in Egypt for some time wouldn't have altered the mundaneness of the life of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus much.

Days like the 5th Day of Christmas, which basically just tick off time in the commemoration of Jesus' young life, help bring home the reality of all this. They hint that, despite all the wonders that swirl around the Holy Family at crucial moments, they were much more like us with all our prosaic concerns than we may think. As the Gospel of Luke tells us a little later on, most of Jesus' early life could be described this way: "The little boy Jesus was developing into a mature young man, full of wisdom. God was blessing him," (Luke, chapter 2 verse 40, ERV).

But that's to be expected. It is in legends and fairy tales that miracles happen every minute; here we are dealing with history. It just happens to be history in which God is with us.

Thanksgiving -- Ancient Israelite Style!

To thank the Lord for his many blessings many of us gather together with our families at this time of year. We bring our best food, lots of meat and baked goods made from scratch with the best ingredients. Then we offer a prayer of thanks, recounting what we are grateful for. After that we spend the day eating, talking, and laughing, enjoying each other's company -- and God's blessing. We don't have to do this, but it's a tradition and we always look forward to it.

No, I'm not bragging about the Thanksgiving my extended family is having today. This is thanksgiving the way that ancient Israelites did it, 3000+ years ago.

It's buried in the depths of the almost-never-read Book of Leviticus, the third book in your Bible. Here is how the Voice Bible translates it:

If someone offers a sacrifice out of thanksgiving, then in addition to the sacrifice he must offer loaves of unleavened bread mixed with oil, unleavened wafers topped with oil, and loaves of the finest flour mixed with oil. Along with the peace offerings for thanksgiving, a person must include loaves of leavened bread. He must present one of each kind of bread as a gift to Me; it will belong to the priest who officiates the sacrifice and splatters the blood of the peace offerings against the sides of the altar.

The meat of the sacrifice for the thanksgiving peace offering must be eaten on the day it is offered. None of it is to be left over for the next day. (Book of Leviticus 7.12 - 15, Voice )

 There are obvious differences of course and the last thing I'm trying to do is suggest that Americans are modern Israelites (although the Puritans, who started our Thanksgiving tradition, are just the kind of guys who would read Leviticus).

But it is interesting to me that there is a more than passing similarity between their thanksgiving and our thanksgiving. In this book God is setting up a way for Israel to relate to their God. As part of that he includes a way to spontaneously say "thank you" to him when they are so moved.

Most of the other sacrifices ordained in the first 7 chapters of Leviticus are either completely consumed in the altar fire or part is set aside for the Priests. But when it comes to thanksgiving, God's idea is: Get your family together, bring your best animal (which is what a sacrifice had to be), make 3 kinds of baked goods, and then gather before me (at the 'congregation tent' -- the forerunner of Solomon's Temple) and we'll have a good time together. And eat all you want because there won't be any leftovers.

Throughout the Scriptures we find God working through community and food. He is not an austere, far-off deity or the kind who does everything himself. God is constantly, intimately involved with every mundane thing in his people's lives, working through them to fulfill his eternal purposes. Even the most profound, sacred thing we do as the Christian movement, taking Holy Communion, is God working through food to transform his people and through them the world.

That's a good reason to be thankful. And it's a good reason to give thanks in this ancient way that also seems  so natural to us.

Siblings

When we started out all those years ago, this is what members of the Christian movement were known for. Is it still?

______________

So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the family of faith.

 Letter to the Galatians 6.10

The Christians love one another. They do not neglect widows. Orphans they rescue from those who are cruel to them. Every one of them who has anything gives without reserve to the one who has nothing. If they see a traveling stranger they bring them under their roof. They rejoice over them as over a real brother or sister, for they do not call one another brothers and sisters after the flesh, but they know they are siblings in the Spirit and in God.

If one of them sees that one of their poor must leave this world, they provide for their burial as well as possible. And if they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed by their opponents for the sake of their Christ’s name, all of them take care of all that person's needs. If possible they set them free.

If anyone among them is poor or comes into want while they themselves have nothing to spare, they fast two or three days for them. In this way they can supply any poor person with the food they need.

Apology of Aristides, Chapter 15 (c. AD 124)