In his article, Pastor Treglown talks about a feature common to most of Paul’s letters—the thanksgiving. Paul almost always begins his letters by giving thanks for the congregation which he is writing to. But what’s interesting is that in most of these letters, Paul follows this thanksgiving with a prayer.

In Romans, Paul thanks God for the Roman church (1:8), and then he talks about how he is always praying for them (1:9–10). In Ephesians, Paul thanks God for the Ephesian church (1:16), and then in the very same verse mentions how he remembers them in his prayers. In Philippians, Paul gives thanks for them (1:3), then prays for them (1:4–5). In Colossians: thanks (1:3), then in the same verse prayer. 1 Thessalonians: thanks (1:2) and prayer (1:3). So this is Paul’s usual pattern—first he gives thanks to God, and then he prays to God about the same.

And this is a pattern that the Church has taken from Paul, and which we still use every time we gather together for worship. I was reading a book by the liturgical scholar Gordon Lathrop recently in which he talks about the nature of both of these things in our worship—how thanksgiving is a response to what God has already done, but the prayer is a plea for God to do something in the future. Thus, the prayer is an acknowledgement that God’s work on earth is not done; it is an acknowledgement that there is still sin and death in the world—it is a lament. And both thanksgiving and lament are important in our worship, and in our prayers to God:

Thanksgiving alone might be misunderstood to be an acceptance of the status quo, as if the truly religious heart would rise about all actual material suffering… as if there were no need of God’s promise or God’s future. Lament alone could be a refusal of comfort and of hope, a choice to hold on to bitterness, as if there were no truth to God’s past giving grounds for hope. (Lathrop, Holy Things, 57)

So if this year our Thanksgiving celebrations are joyful ones, then let us, like Paul, never let go of our prayers—lest we forget those who are still in need in our world and our desperate need for Christ to return, make all things new, raise the dead, and put an end to sin and death—and also our desperate need for Him to comfort and strengthen us while we wait!

But if this year our Thanksgiving celebrations are not so celebratory—if they are too full of reminders of those who aren’t with us, or if they are overshadowed by fears or concerns in our lives—then let us, like Paul, never let go of our thanksgiving—lest we give in to despair and forget that our God joined us in our suffering, died, and rose again to give us life, and so He even now, in ways we can’t always see, is working all things together for good for those who belong to Him. (Romans 8:28)

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Pastor Duncan