Together At the Table
Reflections on the meaning of Thanksgiving
(My neighbor, Dick, in 2016, sitting at the little girls’ table for Thanksgiving, with my daughter and two nieces [picture taken by me])
(A five-minute read)
It’s hard to beat Thanksgiving.
Growing up, it was always a close second behind Christmas as my favorite holiday. There are so many amazing memories—beginning with our annual pilgrimage to my grandparents’ home on Cape Cod, not too far from where the Pilgrims first landed, to enjoy a couple days of joy and delight with my mom’s side of the family (consisting of her three sisters, their husbands, and ten of us grandkids), which entailed watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, street hockey games, playing and watching football, and, of course, having a delicious meal at the big table at my grandparents’ big and quintessential Cape Cod house.
After my grandfather passed away and my grandmother, much to our eternal chagrin, sold their big house (which was built by her father and was nestled next to the golf course in Hyannisport where John F. Kennedy used to play golf, just a short distance from the “Kennedy Compound”), we began holding Thanksgiving at my various aunts’ homes, before settling on the one who lived in New Hampshire, in their big colonial home in the White Mountains. Again, it was full of football, good food, and happy family memories. Even when I, along with my siblings and a bunch of cousins, was in college in Michigan, we’d always drive the long distance back to New England for Thanksgiving—only to drive back to Michigan a few days later (before then driving back to New England for Christmas a few weeks later). It was that important and meaningful to us.
The only year I ever missed Thanksgiving with my family in New England was when I spent a year abroad, doing mission work in Scotland. Some of the folks who I was working with tried to make the best of it for me, but the pizza at Pizza Hut they treated me to just wasn’t quite the same.
It was therefore a shock a few years ago, back in 2016, when we made a tough decision that was nearly unheard of in my family: we decided to stop spending the holiday with my family and instead enjoy Thanksgiving with our “missional” family here in Bangor. Feeling a desire and a need to experience life to greater degrees with those in our community, both within and without our church, we decided to join with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live here in the Bangor area, and invite others to the table with us. It was with mixed emotions that we made this decision, since I’m such a sentimental and nostalgic guy, but it was completely worth it.
That first year was perhaps the most memorable. Among others, we had specifically invited our neighbor, Dick, who was 78 years old at the time, and in declining health. He lived by himself across the street from us and we had basically adopted him as our grandfather. He looked out for us and we looked out for him. So it was natural to invite him over, since he was by himself and we wanted to make sure he was cared for.
He declined our invitation, however, saying he had a friend he’d spent every Thanksgiving with for the last three decades. A few days before Thanksgiving, though, our doorbell rang and before we could answer it, Dick came bursting in and, with great tears, announced that his friend had unexpectedly passed away the day before and he needed to join us. Though we were saddened by the loss of his friend, we were delighted that he could join us and we could provide some companionship for him on such an important day.
After a day full of laughter, good food, and great conversation, Dick said it was the best Thanksgiving he’d ever had, making our decision to spend it with our missional family completely worth it.
That memory is all the more meaningful this year after Dick sadly passed away this summer. His car still sits idle across the street from us, since his sons haven’t sold his house yet. Camille and I look out there every day and feel sadness as we remember all the good memories we had with him, including the Thanksgivings he spent with us.
It may seem like a small thing, and I’m not implying that a little gesture like that puts a dent into the major problems our world has. There are lots of hurting people in the world, a lot of systemic issues—from a pandemic still beleaguering us, to major religious persecution and oppressive regimes, to issues of poverty and famine and civil wars and racial oppression. But realizing there are macro-problems in the world shouldn’t cause us to neglect the small, micro-issues right outside our own doors.
It reminds me of what Henri Nouwen once wrote:
The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims. I have to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and on those who followed Him and trust that I will know how to live out my mission to be a sign of hope in this world.
I know there are controversies surrounding the history of Thanksgiving. I know Christmas and other holidays get hi-jacked by consumerism. I know there are major problems troubling our world. I get all that. Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism or a way to avoid dealing with the hard issues that harass our world, but I think there’s a place to embrace these small moments and embrace the season, refusing to “let the forces of darkness pull [us] into despair and make [us] one more of their many victims.”
That there are people this holiday season who don’t know where their next meal is coming from shouldn’t prevent me from loving well those closest to me. It shouldn’t mean we don’t celebrate and rejoice and draw close to those who have been placed in our lives.
My friend Ben Sprague pointed out that many people are tired this Thanksgiving—tired of the continuous and unrelenting onslaught of COVID. It has many people fatigued and worn out. So I hope that, to whatever degree we have the energy, we spread the love far and wide. That’s what these holidays are all about. Being a force, however small and however humble, to beat back the forces of darkness and living as lights of love.
One of the reasons I love Thanksgiving the most is because of where it takes place: at the table. To me, the table is the most beautiful image of what it means to be faith-people. As a Jesus-follower, it’s especially meaningful because the table is where Jesus did the largest part of his ministry. He invited sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes to the table, communicating an astounding grace that scandalized the religious people of his day. It was at the table where everyone learned they had value and significance to God. Everyone was welcome and everyone was equal.
As a Jesus-follower, the table, to me, is where the greatest gospel-work takes place. It is, in a very real sense, where real “church” happens. It’s also, I believe, a foretaste of the coming Kingdom, which Christ so often described in banqueting terms.
And so this Thanksgiving, I hope to participate in that Jesus-work, spreading the love and widening the circle, welcoming others to the table.
Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.