A Thanksgiving Reflection

As we gather this week to offer gratitude, I’m mindful that Thanksgiving is a complicated day. 

For many of us, it’s a time of slowing down, gathering around tables, and naming the gifts God has placed in our lives. It’s a time for family and friends to create new meals with tried and true recipes. It’s a moment to retell stories we’ve shared over the years, and respond as if it’s the first time we’ve heard them. 

All of this is a gift. 

Yet for our Native American sisters and brothers, this season carries the weight of deep historical trauma as the pain of land taken, cultures erased, and families devastated remains part of their collective memory. 

This is why Thanksgiving must be met with truth-telling. 

Thanksgiving is not a time for historical amnesia or minimizing. It is not a call to sentimental ignorance, but to courageous remembrance. 

We give thanks with our eyes open. We acknowledge the painful story beneath this holiday, even as we celebrate the God who enters broken histories with healing and truth. The God who calls us to remember is also the God who calls us to repair.

So as we express gratitude—for breath, for community, for the gifts of this year—may we also offer prayers of lament for the injustice endured by Native peoples. May our words of thanks lead us into deeper solidarity, humility, and action. And may we recognize that true gratitude is not simply feeling blessed, but being a blessing.

To follow Jesus faithfully means we hold both gratitude and grief in the same hands. 

So on this day, may we follow the Jesus who teaches us to give thanks honestly, to lament truthfully, and to love sacrificially. In that spirit, may our tables become places where healing, reconciliation, and hope take root. May our lives hold together tensions that are often superficially resolved. May our love be shaped by honesty. May our hearts be formed by gratitude. And may our actions be guided by justice and mercy. 

Thanksgiving 2025