Thanksgiving Thoughts

Just read this article over at the NY Times by David D. Hall. The article, Peace, Love, and Puritanism, takes a nice (quick) yet interesting look at the history of Thanksgiving, Puritans, and America. I'm not sure that I agree with the whole of the article, but his line at the end really clicked with me. Hall writes,

In our society, liberty has become deeply problematic: more a matter of entitlement than of obligation to the whole. Everywhere, we see power abused, the common good scanted. Getting the Puritans right won’t change what we eat on Thanksgiving, but it might change what we can be thankful for and how we imagine a better America.

How scary true is this? I feel this speaks volumes, loud ones at that, to contemporary America. I also feel this speaks volumes to the current American religious landscape. Hall points out the Puritans had no self indulgent work ethic. The "Protestant Work Ethic" is really the American way. I am Christian. I am American. I am free. Get out of my way.

It brings to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan and how many Americans would cross by on the other side of the road. My real point however, is this: Martin Luther, in the 16th century, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the 20th century, saw Christian freedom not as freedom from but rather freedom for. You can almost hear the American religious chorus shouting, "Amen!" Until we realize this freedom for means that as a Christian, American or not makes no difference, your freedom is that you are not in condemnation by sin and as such are free for your neighbor. The Christian call is not American gluttony, "Give me my rights!" talk, but rather a sense of humility and service that often gets overlooked, yet you do it because Christ has gone before you to the cross, and also in his resurrection we know we don't live in vain.

So I would ask this Holiday season we do not clamor for our rights and our freedoms from things. Instead, I would ask that we clamor for our neighbor and our freedom for him.