A rain-check for some Hi-Tom baseball game was dropped by somebody on a hot Sunday last July into the collection plate at this church. We wondered what significance, if any, could be attached to finding a rain check in the collection plate. What would you make of it?

Did somebody judge that particular service a fizzle? Was it a youngster up to a harmless prank? Or had a devoted fan spent his last dollar for a baseball ticket, and turning his trousers’ pockets inside out, brought up as his last treasure the rain check and cheerfully offered it — every bit of it — to God — a sort of modern “widow’s mite” offering? Or could it be that some slumbering worshipper was so far gone he couldn’t tell the difference between a greenback and a rain check?

Whatever the significance of this particular rain check in the collection plate that hot Sunday last July, the event is highly symbolic of our persistent practice of giving to God the left-overs of life, the scraps and tag ends of our time, talents, and possessions — what’s no longer worth anything to us. Whether by accident or a purpose, that’s what God gets. Why, because we have so little of the spirit of true thankfulness?

Today is Thanksgiving Day. And how do you get thanksgiving? Does one turkey plus one holiday plus a moderate measure of happiness plus one cup brimful of good health plus a heaping portion of prosperity equal Thanksgiving? Is that the recipe for Thanksgiving? Not on your tintype. That’s not the way you get thanksgiving.

Look at the Pilgrims, our model in Thanksgiving, who instituted this national day of Thanksgiving. What did they have to make them thankful? They had suffered cruel injustice at the hands of the head of the Plymouth Company and a Mr. Christopher Jones, captain of the Mayflower, who had secretly connived to land the helpless settlers on the cold and rocky shores of New England instead of in the milder climate of Virginia, where they thought they were going. The original company of 102 Pilgrims which set sail from England had been reduced in a year’s time to just half that number. Fifty-one had died of what they called “the sickness,” a combination of scurvy and tuberculosis. Their first crop of Indian corn, just harvested, was fairly successful, while their bean and pea crop was a total failure. At best, it looked as if, by the grace of God, they might be able to pull through another year. Prosperity was neither a present fact, nor a golden memory, nor a rosy legend around the next corner. And yet they rose to the response of thankfulness. They had a real thanksgiving. Certainly their thankfulness was not dependent on what they had. Where did they get their thanksgiving?

Then there were the ancient Hebrews who produced the greatest treasury of thanksgiving literature in all the world — the book of Psalms. Theirs was a rocky, barren land, not nearly so fertile as the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. Their war-like neighbors were always fighting with them, despoiling their land and taking them into slavery. Their history was one of homelessness and wandering. Yet, above the occasional lament by the waters of Babylon, there arose continuous songs of praise to God, whom they continued to trust and to thank for His goodness to men.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Who forgiveth all Thine iniquities, who healeth all Thy diseases, who redeemeth all life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies so that Thy youth is renewed like the eagles. — O thank the Lord, for He is good. — O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men.”

Surely the thankfulness of the Hebrew people was not dependent upon what prosperity they had. Yet they had thankfulness. Where did it come from?

The Pilgrims and the ancient Hebrews had Thanksgiving in spite of all their privations and difficulties and personal disappointments, in spite of all the things they didn’t have, because genuine thanksgiving never springs from prosperity nor even from good fortune or robust health. Thanksgiving springs only from a certain kind of spirit — a spirit that has two things: recollection and faith.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth the living. The repeated call to worship in Israel’s temple and synagogues ran: “Remember, O Israel, remember.” There is no more fruitful experience for the spirit of man than to pause momentarily in the forward push of life and recount and recall what one has on the black side of the ledger. “Count your many blessings, name them one by one.” (Fulton Ousler’s story — The Lost Letter) There is no thanksgiving without recollection.

Neither is there thanksgiving without faith. How can one give thanks to Him in whom one does not believe? How can one give thanks for favors one is not aware of having received? The eye of faith traces all blessings to their ultimate source in God, while the self-sufficient unbeliever only congratulates himself upon laying personal claim to the treasures of the universe.

Recollection in faith adds up to that most wonderful of human possessions — a grateful spirit — one of those joint productions in which God and man each have a part to play.

And it is this thankful spirit upon which we can pin our hope for a better world. History has been eminently right in signaling out as the significant thing about the Pilgrims, their thankful spirit. It was their thankful spirit which not only gave them the victory in life and death over the obstacles of poverty, cold, and enemies among savages and their own countrymen, but actually changed the hearts of Captain Jones and the red Indians. As Ernest Gebler says of them in his story, The Pilgrim Adventure, they are the people whose spirit brought life to a new world. What do we need more today than a spirit which will bring new life to our old world?

There is a movie coming to our town next week called, The Next Voice You Hear. The next voice is the voice of God. It breaks in on all radio programs, jams all stations, every night for six nights exactly at 8:30. Yes, God speaks. Everyone is electrified. The voice is heard simultaneously in all lands by all people in their own tongues. A U.S. pilot was flying from North Africa to Europe with a French pilot. Each heard the voice speaking in his earphones, the American in English and the Frenchman in French.

The messages are simple, homey, straightforward, like this: “You don’t really need to hear my voice in order to have evidence of the miracles I can perform. The sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the rain from heaven, sunrise and sunset, seed-time and harvest are all my constant, ever-recurring miracles. Now, consider the miracles you can perform in your own lives, miracles of love and patience and peace. Treasure such words as faith and love and freedom and, in your living together with each other, out of your own hearts bring forth miracles to transform your world.” And the picture shows the actual miracles wrought in a quiet way in troubled lives of those who embrace faith and give God free hand in their lives.

So the believing, thankful heart which accepts all God’s blessings as miracles of His love and gives thanks to Him, has taken the first step toward performing those miracles which are committed to human hands and hearts alone — and which must be performed by us, or our world is marked for destruction.

• Scripture Reference: n/a • Secondary Scripture References: n/a • Subject : Thanksgiving; 786; 663 • Special Topic: n/a • Series: n/a • Occasion: Thanksgiving • First Preached: 11/23/1950 • Last Preached: 11/23/1950 • Rating: 3 • Book/Author References: The Lost Letter, Fulton Ousler; The Pilgrim Adventure, Ernest Gabler