No Black Friday Sales Here

Dear Friends,

Unlike the rest of your Inbox, there are no Black Friday deals in this entire email. Not even one. No coupons. We do have a great price on salvation though: free of charge! And our Early Access sale every Sunday at 8 am is open to everyone (and not very crowded).

I remember when the Black Friday morning news always included a report on which Walmarts had suffered fisticuffs the night before when the doors opened at midnight. This year, the TV ads proclaimed that Walmart’s “Black Friday begins 3:00 pm Wednesday” — which is a gross affront to plain meaning of the English words involved. Also, you missed it.

I don’t want to romanticize outbreaks of fisticuffs like they were some sort of ideal outcome, but there was something nice about keeping Black Friday from taking over Thanksgiving Day. Back then it just loomed like a shadow over Thanksgiving. Now, Black Friday has full on absorbed the day. Or you might say, as my son noted at Best Buy last week, really it’s Black November now.

I have no remedy for this at a societal level. But at an individual level, we can intentionally carve out some space in our days — and in our hearts tomorrow. The commercials during the Cowboys game will say what they say, but the prayer you have in your heart and that animates your heart can say something different.

My favorite prayer of Thanksgiving in The Book of Common Prayer is the General Thanksgiving, originally composed by Thomas Cramner (about a century before the first Thanksgiving and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean).

The opening thanksgiving goes like this:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life;

That list at the end covers the usual Thanksgiving themes: the gift of our lives, all that sustains and preserves them, and all the blessings we enjoy. It is good and right to thank God for those. But notice: that sentence isn’t over. There’s no period; it keeps going…

but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

As good as that other stuff is, this we thank God for even more: our salvation in Christ, the grace God gives to us, and the hope we have in Him.

May your Thanksgiving holiday be rooted in that sort of thanks, the thanks that be to God!

So grateful to serve with you at St. Andrew’s,
Fr. Andrew