For those of us in the U.S. we will be sitting down tomorrow, most likely with family, to share in our tradition of the Thanksgiving holiday and the meal that is a part of it. The origins of the American celebration (Canada has Thanksgiving the 2nd Monday of October), are murky and somewhat contestable.  Some say Florida, others say El Paso, traditionalists claim Plymouth or possibly Jamestown, Virginia.  Whether you are celebrating with tamales or turkey, this is a time in which we give thanks for the blessings we have received.

The question then arises, who are we giving thanks to?  While Thanksgiving was largely treated as a religious observance for Christians here, a day that marked the end of the harvest and the entrance into advent, it is focused more today on the tangible bits of our life.  We give thanks for prosperity, for family, for our country, for the food and football.  Many, regardless of religious observance, will offer a prayer before the meal to give thanks.

I find Thanksgiving interesting, from a scriptural standpoint, because I see it as a continuation of levitical laws. When the Israelites offered up their sacrifices at certain times of year the coupled the sacrifice with a feast. While we certainly do not 'sacrifice' our turkeys to God (I am not sure he would have counted frozen ones anyway) we do partake in the 'feasting' ritual of the Thanksgiving experience.  Whether it be the Turkey, the potatoes, the green beans and yams, we gladly take part in the feast.

Now, I know that Christ's sacrifice is all-sufficient, and I am the last one to beat the legalism drum; however I find it interesting that as Americans we have become more than happy to engage the feast, to be "thankful" for the bounty that has been provided, but I wonder if we are missing that whole 'sacrifice' part of it.  It's pretty rare that anyone is asked to 'sacrifice' anything these days.  Sure, we have the military, who continue to serve and protect us and sacrifice themselves.  We have the single moms and dads who work two and three jobs to support their children.  We have the brave police and fire servants that give their lives to protect and serve.  We have the pastors who take calls at 2 or 3 in the morning, only to be yelled at for not 'doing enough'. Our Christians brothers and sisters that are oppressed and die at the hands of others daily. 

There has sure been a lot of people all rankled over the fact that President Obama was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Usually the Nobel prize is given to a person after they have done something rather remarkable in their given field. This year, for instance, three men each shared the nobel prize in Physics for their achievements in the capture and transmission of light particles. The award wasn't given to them because of some future achievement, it was a reward for hard work. In contrast Obama hasn't even finished a single year of his presidency, his stratospheric demeanor of hope has been seemingly brought back down by the realities of two ongoing wars, a shaky economy, and a democratic congress that is more concerned with re-election in conservative states than in effecting a rash of progressively liberal legislation.

So the question then is, why in the world does he deserve a Nobel Prize? The answer is, he doesn't. But then neither do the physicists, chemists, doctors, and authors that receive one. They did not receive the prize because they deserved it, they received it because the academy which judges the potential recipient's showed grace. All of the men and woman involved are all very talented in some way, and would continue to be so even if they had not been awarded; however they were each chosen for whatever reasons to be highlighted with gift of the award. There is no way to apply for the award, to fill in a series of check boxes that prove your merit and ensure that you will get one. The Nobel prize's are as close as we can get in our human systems to reflecting the nature of grace.

Grace ticks people off, especially when we live in a legalistic mindset that is always judging our position relative to those around us. The minute someone receives grace, that we don't believe should, we react in that sinful way that is called envy. People are furious because Obama is clearly the recipient of grace, and in their minds grace is not free, it must be earned at a price. This is the kind of thinking that kept the pharisees ignorant of Jesus' words. They were envious of the grace that God was enacting through Jesus and his followers upon a people that did not 'deserve' it.

So, if this whole Obama/Peace Prize thing has you so riled up, just ask yourself what you are so mad about. Grace is by it's nature seemingly unfair to those outside of it's bounds. That's what makes God's grace so wonderful for those that have accepted it's gift, and seemingly so foolish for those that would rather try and earn their way into heaven via some kind of bell-curve grading process.

Posted via email from David's posterous

If you have ever moved from one place to another, and if you are like me (and I know I am), then you have no doubt at some point wondered what in the sweet world are you going to do with the mountain of junk you have somehow managed to attain and then stow into the nooks and crannies of your home/apartment/hobbit hole, etc..  As you begin to gather all of your bounteous loot and place it into box after box you reminisce a bit, perhaps even fawn over, some item of past worth.  Perhaps it's your trophies from Junior High Track, or your mint set of 1988 Donruss baseball cards, or in my case a small box of knickknacks that contain a variety of American and foreign coins and postage stamps collected from relatives and visiting missionaries.  After your moment of cherishment you place the item in a box, take it to your new destination, and after settling in it ends up tucked away until you repeat the process over again.

Our Christian life can sometimes end up being a lot like this exercise in moving.  We have a lot of miscellaneous junk that we have stowed away in our psyches.  A bad deed there, a hidden longing over here, a well intentioned plan in the attic that we are saving for some rainy day.  From time to time God asks us to move, and so we box up all of our assorted junk that we have attached personal meaning to, and bring it out of hiding just long enough to acknowledge it; but before you know it we have moved into our new pad and all of the junk has been tidied up and placed out of sight and mind.

The thing is we have often misunderstood God's command.  Location is hardly ever the issue, it's the presence of God in the midst of our circumstance and awareness of his abiding love that makes the difference.  If you are feeling restless, like you need to move on, chances are you are simply going to box up the same old junk that is holding you back now and only end up with a change of scenery.  God isn't interested in competing with FedEx or UPS, he is not interested in helping you be emotionally unhealthy somewhere else.  We think God is asking us to move on, when he is simply asking us to let him dump our junk so that he can move in.

God wants to inhabit the deepest parts of our being and to transform them.  This is the essence of sanctification, God transforming us into the person he always meant for us to be, His image bearer.  Are you allowing God to transform you in this way?  The essence of your faith hangs on this question; are you attempting to define yourself, or have you found the freedom that is discovering who God already made you to be?  In your story is your house full of boxes of self-loathing, regret and pain; or is it full of mysterious and wonderful packages yet to be opened?

I ran across this video here and thought it was a great conversation about conversion, and how it is so easy to make the 'good news' sound a bit more like Amway...

“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us….’
    
    So God created human beings in his own image.
    In the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.”

(Genesis 1:26 ed. & 1:27, NLT)

Unless we are a hermit living on a remote mountain peak, or perhaps deep in the desert; chances are we have any number of relationships with other human beings.  Whether it be work, school, friendship, maybe a love interest.  We interact with other human beings every day.  During the course of those interactions we have all kinds of choices in how we are going to handle ourselves.  Do we make a joke?  Do we laugh at the other person’s attempt at a joke?  Do we greet someone with a wave, or a handshake; maybe even a hug or kiss?  Do we help them with their project? If the other person says something distasteful or hurtful do we retaliate with words or thoughts of unkindness?  If they are threatening do we strike out, hoping to wound them more than they wound us?  Do we harbor a jealous thought and try to undermine their success in the workplace or in society?

So, given all of these ways by which we engage in relationship, what does it mean to be created in the image of God, how does that shape our responses?  Even more, how should we relate to other human beings knowing that they too have upon them the stamp of God’s handiwork, the imago Dei?

When we consider the creation account of humanity we find that in our earliest essence we have been set aside as something special within God’s creation.  Rob Bell points out, “We have a spiritual dimension to us that animal’s don’t have. Some call this consciousness, others an awareness of ‘more’, others call it transcendence.”1 We are at a level that is higher than the animals of this earth.  We are more than physical beings.  Racism and oppression are often justified through a mythology of soullessness, if we let ourselves believe that a fellow human has no soul then we are no longer bound to treat them humanely or with justice.  This inability or unwillingness to see God’s image on all of humanity was evidenced in the holocaust, and Rwanda; Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.

You may protest though, “I have not committed an act of genocide, or racism, or slavery!”  And yet, there are many ways in which we refuse to allow ourselves to see the image of God upon our fellow humankind.  When we enter into judgment of another, so as to justify our own righteousness we have made the other person into an animal, a being of lesser worth.  Jesus once said, “if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!” (Matt. 5:22)  Regardless of what another person has done, they are still bearers of the image of God, in which they have been created.  If God has decreed from the dawn of creation that humanity is his sacred trust, beings of infinite worth and beauty, for which he suffered and died to give life, who are we to contradict or usurp his will so as to pronounce a sentence of death?  When we take the life of another human being in our own judgment, whether in actuality or metaphorically through slander or oppression, we are equally guilty of having denied the other person their right as the image bearer of God.

Rather than judgment, our default position to others should be one of love.  As Greg Boyd notes:

Love is the central command in Scripture and judgment the central prohibition.  Indeed, judgment is the “original sin” in Scripture.  This is why the forbidden tree in the center of the garden–the prohibition around which life in the garden revolved–was called the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”2

As Christian’s we are not to be known as the great judgers of humanity, rather as the great lovers of humanity.  We are to be as passionate about humanity as Jesus ever was. By looking for the image of God upon our fellow humans it can’t help but make us rethink our interactions.  There is nothing we can do that will cause God’s love to stop for us, and nothing that will cause him to remove from us his likeness.  Can we willingly judge another as less than human, or less worthy of life, or worse than ourselves, knowing that in their face we are seeing a reflection of God’s love for all mankind?

The way of the peacemaker, of the lover of humanity, is the most dangerous one of all.  Rather than using violence to protect our rights, we must not be afraid of loosing everything, including our right to live, to shine Christ’s light on the heart of our murderers and to reveal God’s mercy for all men.  Our calling is no less dangerous than that of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.  We must love recklessly those that would kill us; knowing that Justice, and salvation are God’s alone.

1 Bell, Rob. 2007. Sex God. Zondervan. Grand Rapids, MI. p 57

2 Boyd, Greg. 2004. Repenting of Religion. Baker Books. Grand Rapids, MI. p 9