The observance of Thanksgiving is almost as old as our nation. President George Washington issued a proclamation for “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. ”On October 3, 1789, President Abraham Lincoln built on that and established “a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” Notice how naturally Lincoln named God. Thanksgiving has been celebrated in the United States ever since.
So without reservation we can be grateful for this nation, celebrate it as a “City Set on a Hill,” and pray it will be a “beacon of hope.”
That naming our nation as a City Set on a Hill is used in politics as a declaration of American exceptionalism to refer to America acting as a “beacon of hope” for the world. That description of our nation was made prominent by President Reagan and has been used freely since. More often than not, its use is not in keeping with its original intent.
John Winthrop, quoting from Matthew 5:14, used it in a sermon warning his fellow Puritans that their new community would be “as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us”, meaning, if the Puritans failed to uphold their covenant with God, then their sins and errors would be exposed for all the world to see. “So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world”.
His words deserve our serious consideration as we move though these post-Thanksgiving days, lest we be made a story and a byword through the world”.
I was intrigued by national news programs on the eve of Thanksgiving Day. One major news channel was bemoaning the fact the other news channel was making Thanksgiving all political and “politics should not invade our Thanksgiving dinner talk.”
In the public political climate of our day, when “hatred” seems to identify our two primary political parties, as responsible citizens and as responsible “practicing religious” people, how can we be faithful to our constitution and to God and avoid talking “politics?” That’s essential if we are going to be faithful to the core concepts of our constitution: created by God, with freedom and justice for all. That means that what is right and true is never right and true for some, but inevitably right and true for all. So, let’s be political and talk about it!