Thank Offering

             “‘If they offer it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering they are to offer thick loaves made without yeast and with olive oil mixed in, thin loaves made without yeast and brushed with oil, and thick loaves of the finest flour well-kneaded and with oil mixed in. Along with their fellowship offering of thanksgiving they are to present an offering with thick loaves of bread made with yeast. They are to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the Lord; it belongs to the priest who splashes the blood of the fellowship offering against the altar. The meat of their fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; they must leave none of it till morning. (Leviticus 7:12-15)

 

            We’re heading into November, and I’m planning to take on a challenge to list 1000 things I’m thankful for by bedtime on Thanksgiving Day, so I’m starting to rev up my gratitude engine. It turns out that the Mosaic Law had requirements about thanksgiving – not about private gratitude, but about what we might call corporate expressions thereof – sort of like the “rules” we have about Thanksgiving dinner,  in addition to a turkey weighing X (to feed everyone invited), there must be rolls, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole… This all belongs to the priest (Christ, and by extension, each of us) who splashes the blood of the fellowship offering against the altar.

            This offering isn’t something the priest dredges up or buys. It’s what those wishing to express their thanks provide for the priest, who gets to keep it, but keeping it involves sharing it with the priest’s family and with the family or community making the offering.

The other rule was that none was to be left over until the next morning. This is where two kinds of people pitch a fit. The first is the sort who likes a big meal to be excessive. There are ten people there, but every dish must feed twenty, so everyone can overeat and make sure that we run out of none of it. Heaven forbid there not be leftovers because someone might be left out if there aren’t leftovers. The other sort of person (me!) is the one who rarely eats what isn’t a leftover. I want to cook a Thanksgiving turkey to feed twenty, with leftovers to feed me for the next four months. Leftovers are how I function.   

But the truth is that Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t tend to really be about gratitude. Oh, we may give lip service to the idea, saying grace and even sharing things we’re thankful for, and I’m not saying that we aren’t grateful in a general way. Still, it’s not the sort of thankfulness that leads us to – for example – lead fundraising efforts for thirty years for the charity hospital that saved your child’s life, or even the sort of gratitude you might feel if someone returned the engagement ring you lost, recovered the one and only complete copy of your story’s manuscript, or showed up to provide an iron-clad alibi for you for the time of a murder. There are different levels of gratitude. The thank offering described in Leviticus is one of the bigger sorts of gratitude. I suspect we need to work our way toward feeling (and expressing) that sort of extravagant gratitude toward God.

Part of developing that is to begin to develop the smaller sort. That’s part of why I plan to try to list 1000 things I’m grateful for during November. That’s roughly 34 items per day. That’s a lot of gratitude. You’re welcome to join me (or make it 1000 by Christmas or 1000 in the next year.)