Beginning of the Gospel of Matthew
My wife is in New York visiting her mother and some lifelong friends. It’s an annual pilgrimage of sorts. When I spoke with her on the phone yesterday three of them were on their way to a Christmas store of some kind. Without thinking I blurted out something about it not even being Thanksgiving yet so how can they be thinking about Christmas already. That got me to thinking about Thanksgiving this morning as I was reading in the Gospel of Matthew.
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
(Matthew 11:25-26 ESV)
A Strange Thanksgiving
What a strange kind of gratitude. Saint Augustine is attributed as saying that job one for us is to learn how to “think God’s thoughts after him.” To take a little liberty with that expression I might add that it is important that we learn how to think God’s thanks after him. There is a strangeness about this thanksgiving.
“I thank you, Father…that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding…”
Thankfulness for things hidden from those who pride themselves on their ability to discover hidden things. This is more than irony. This is tragedy more profound and prolific than ever composed by the entire Greek dramatic tradition. It would seem inhuman to express this kind of gratitude. To twist the words of Fredrick Douglas just a bit, in this case, that which is inhuman not only can be divine–it must be divine. If, as Chesterton encouraged, “all of our thinks are to be thanks,” it seems we must embrace the necessity of studying the divine being in learning to think God’s thanks after him.
Pope said “the proper study of man is man.” Packer was right to modify the Eighteenth Century poet by claiming that man’s proper study is God. In the end, they are both right. And they are both wrong. Not wrong in their subject but in their approach.
Apprehending a gratitude of this kind is not merely mental, it is moral, and it has more to do with what we love than what we learn.
To borrow from Augustine again (and more re
Saint Augustine
cently Jamie Smith), it is a matter of reordering our desires. And the reordering our desires requires living liturgically conscious lives so that we love what God loves. You can’t thank like God thanks unless you love what God loves. And you can only love what God loves by living liturgically conscious lives–in both the broad and narrow senses.
It might be too early for Christmas, but it can never be too early for Thanksgiving. It can, however, be too late.
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