11/26/2025: Thanksgiving 2025 Worship

Thanksgiving

Historically, Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a secular festival. Originally suggested by George Washington, it was sporadically celebrated until Abraham Lincoln set aside the fourth Thursday in November to be dedicated to giving thanks.

Christians make a point of being thankful all year long.  Secular Thanksgiving often zeroes in on the product, namely the harvest, food and abundance elements of being thankful.  Christians thanksgiving focuses on the giver.  We realize that every good gift comes from our heavenly Father regardless of the amount.  The plentiful harvests, the houses and family we enjoy are not only ours during this cycle of the year, but God graciously gives them to us year round.  Tonight’s first reading invites us to consider that the abundance we have has less to do with us and more to do with the loving God who gave it.  God is good!

Only Christians can be thankful for the spiritual blessings they receive from God.  The certainty of our forgiveness and the confidence of a final resurrection to heaven is built in to our Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter worship.  But a specific character in our Thanksgiving Gospel realized it personally.  Zacchaeus was a tax collector.  The Jewish stereotype of all tax collectors was that they were cheats, collecting more than the law required and lining their pockets with the extra.  When Jesus came to town, Zacchaeus insisted on seeing him.  After Jesus called him by name, he made plans to stay with him.  Zacchaeus was so delighted that salvation had come to him that he promised to repay four times more than anything he had stolen and give half his money to the poor.

Jesus' audience with Zacchaeus teaches us that thanksgiving is much more than football games, pumpkin pie and a gluttony-induced nap.  Thanksgiving is a daily Christian attitude.    It is our mind, our thought-process, our behavior, our generosity, our actions, our smile, our perspective, our optimism, our hopefulness, our trust.  It is how we think, it is who we are every day.  You've received the same grace Zacchaeus has.  Let the people in your world see how genuinely thankful you are, and let them see it every day!

God bless your worship!

Pastor Mueller preaches on Psalm 100 “Sing! Serve! Worship!”

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