COLLEEN TINKER
This coming week we in the United States will celebrate our annual Thanksgiving holiday. This day is rooted deeply in our country’s early history and echoes the stories of the Pilgrims who settled Plymouth Colony in the 17th century and who survived the first winter in the New World. That first Thanksgiving celebrated the settlers’ first harvest in their new home, a harvest that they had been able to achieve with the help of the local Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans. Only 53 people had survived the journey on the Mayflower and the privations of that first winter, and that first successful harvest caused an overflow of rejoicing.
Besides eating from the yield of their harvest, the men killed wild fowl, and the Native Americans brought five deer and presented them to the company’s leaders for the group to eat.
Two eyewitness accounts of that feast have given us a list of the Pilgrims who were there as well as the fact that the feasting lasted about a week, and the Wampanoag and their king Massasoit participated in many of the festivities with the settlers. Besides eating from the yield of their harvest, the men killed wild fowl, and the Native Americans brought five deer and presented them to the company’s leaders for the group to eat.
In his account, Edward Winslow states, “And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
In 1789 the first American president George Washington “declared the last Thursday in November a national Thanksgiving,” but it did not become an official national holiday until Abraham Lincoln supported legislation to make it so in 1863—while the country was bitterly divided in the Civil War. (I have used the History of Massachusetts Blog as a source for the details above.)
Former Adventist Ponderings
The stories of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans jointly celebrating that first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony and the fact that Abraham Lincoln pursued a national Thanksgiving holiday to help unify a divided nation emphasize to me that gratitude to God is the key to peace and integrity. Whatever doubts and resentments lurk in human hearts, only honoring God as God and giving thanks delivers people from their futile speculations and darkened hearts (Rom 1:21).
When I was in Adventism, I knew the stories of the Pilgrims and the Indians celebrating Thanksgiving together at the end of that first harvest. In fact, those memories of the Mayflower colony were part of my sense of national identity, and the yearly feast at the end of November always launched the Christmas season for me. Yet the sense of a shared season of thanks to God was missing.
Oh, I knew that the holiday honored our forebears thanking God for preserving them, but in real-time, Thanksgiving was a mixed bag for Adventists.
Oh, I knew that the holiday honored our forebears thanking God for preserving them, but in real-time, Thanksgiving was a mixed bag for Adventists.
I was “luckier” than Richard. My mother loved to cook, and being the daughter of Romanian immigrants to Canada, she learned to prepare meat that her family had raised—unencumbered by Ellen White’s warnings against meat, sugar, butter, milk, and eggs. Yes, she grew up Adventist, but her parents were not steeped in The Spirit of Prophecy. They gave up the unclean meats, but giving up clean meat and dairy was unthinkable on their prairie homestead. Thus, for my sister and me, Thanksgiving was primarily about the food. We always looked forward to the homemade pumpkin pies made with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, dressing made from scratch, homemade dinner rolls, mashed potatoes from my dad’s potato harvest, and—of course—the Mock Turkey loaf made with Fri-Chick, oatmeal, ground walnuts, eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, and asparagus juice to “enhance the turkey-like flavor”. (It’s a mystery to me how we failed to see that the Mock Turkey was far less healthful than turkey white meat!)
Richard, however, has few memories of Thanksgiving. His mother had spurned the secrets of cooking with cream and sugar but had thoroughly absorbed Ellen White’s restrictive health message. For Richard, Thanksgiving was primarily about not going to school. In fact, he can hardly remember Thanksgiving food at all—except for the deeply disappointing pumpkin pies. His mother internalized Ellen’s prohibitions against sugar, milk, and eggs cooked together as well as her statements against cinnamon and other spices and “stimulants”. Her food was plain and bland, as Ellen directed, and the Thanksgiving vege-roasts were completely forgettable. The pumpkin pies, however, were worse than forgettable; Richard learned not to eat them. Devoid of cinnamon and nearly all sweetening, they looked like dessert but tricked him. When he took a bite, they tasted like vegetable casseroles rather than succulent treats. To this day Richard has trouble eating pumpkin pie!
Many former Adventists continue to struggle with Thanksgiving food. Growing up on Tofurkey or some concoction of cottage cheese and eggs or of lentils and tomatoes instead of turkey, many formers venture towards tradition but still have a taste for their Special K loaves. Furthermore, missing from a great many Adventist Thanksgivings was a sense of shared gratitude and an honoring of God as God. Instead, while Adventist Thanksgivings might include turkey for the more progressives among them, the sense of “knowing better” and the pride of having an abundance of vegetables beside the entrees served as the backdrop for the gamut of dysfunctional family gatherings. Generally missing was true gratitude, and generally present were barely-hidden resentments, often-arrogant conversations, and an overriding sense of allowing oneself the seasonal sin of overeating with commitments to pick up the health message as a mantle beginning with tomorrow’s exercise.
God Gave Us Meals
The horrifying contrast between Ellen’s food advice and God’s gracious provision has come into stark focus for me. It is no wonder that so many of us struggled with guilt and shame and fear as we approached a holiday like Thanksgiving without knowledge of the Lord’s gifts for our good and His glory. In order to make this contrast clear, I share below a few Ellen quotes about food:
There is a natural and a depraved appetite. Parents who have taught their children to eat unhealthful, stimulating food all their lives—until the taste is perverted, and they crave clay, slate pencils, burned coffee, tea grounds, cinnamon, cloves, and spices—cannot claim that the appetite demands what the system requires. The appetite has been falsely educated, until it is depraved. The fine organs of the stomach have been stimulated and burned, until they have lost their delicate sensitiveness. Simple, healthful food seems to them insipid. The abused stomach will not perform the work given it, unless urged to it by the most stimulating substances. If these children had been trained from their infancy to take only healthful food, prepared in the most simple manner, preserving its natural properties as much as possible, and avoiding flesh meats, grease, and all spices, the taste and appetite would be unimpaired (Child Guidance, p. 381.2).
Some use milk and a large amount of sugar on mush, thinking that they are carrying out health reform. But the sugar and the milk combined are liable to cause fermentation in the stomach, and are thus harmful. The free use of sugar in any form tends to clog the system, and is not unfrequently a cause of disease (Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 57).
You may think that you cannot work without meat; I thought so once, but I know that in his original plan God did not provide for the use of the flesh of dead animals as a diet for man. It is a gross, perverted taste that will accept such food. To think of dead flesh rotting in the stomach is revolting (Unpublished Testimonies, February 17, 1884. HL 99.1).
If we subsist largely upon the flesh of dead animals, we shall partake of their nature (Testimonies for the Church 2:61. HL 101.3).
Meat eating deranges the system, beclouds the intellect, and blunts the moral sensibilities (Testimonies for the Church 2:64. HL 102.1)
Is it any wonder that former Adventists have trouble learning to eat the food God gave mankind to eat? Or is it any wonder that Adventists may stage feasts for weddings, birthdays, and holidays, but the menus lack protein and even the comfort of carbohydrates?
Contrary to Ellen White, the Bible gives us God’s own word about food. Ancient Israel, for example, always ate lamb at the annual Feast of Passover. From the first Passover on the eve of their exodus from Egypt, God’s command was that Israelites would roast and eat a lamb together and cook unleavened bread (Exodus 12:21–28).
In the New Testament, Jesus transformed this annual feast into a meal of remembrance of Him:
And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood (Luke 22:14–20).
As the early church grew, the new born-again believers could not contain the joy of their new life. Acts 2:43–47 says,
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
From the Old Testament through the New Testament, God’s people have always practiced hospitality and celebrated with food, eating together and sharing fellowship over the table. In fact, Jesus prepared His disciples for this reality before the New Covenant was inaugurated in His blood. Shortly before Jesus fed the 4,000 in northern Israel in a predominantly Gentile area, he told His disciples that food is not what makes a man unclean. In fact, He declared all foods clean! Here is what He said:
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:14–23).
Then, to emphasize the New Covenant reality that Jesus’ blood had, indeed, inaugurated a new covenant devoid of the dividing wall of diet, He gave Peter the famous vision of the sheet of unclean animals telling him to “Kill and eat” just before men from the gentile Cornelius’s household showed up at Peter’s door. No longer were God’s people supposed to call any person unclean. In fact, that command extended to the food that person eats.
Because God instructed Peter to go to Cornelius’s house to teach him and his household the gospel, Peter had not only to enter a gentile household but also to eat gentile food!
Because God instructed Peter to go to Cornelius’s house to teach him and his household the gospel (a visit the Law forbade), Peter had not only to enter a gentile household but also to eat gentile food! Peter couldn’t go and ask for clean meat only. In fact, the law would have made any meat prepared in a gentile kitchen unclean.
No, Peter had to eat whatever Cornelius’s chef set before him! He was never to call a gentile or his food unclean again. (In fact, this vision is one of the reasons Peter’s drift toward excluding himself from eating with the gentile Christians at Antioch was such an outrage to Paul in Galatians 2.)
True Thanksgiving
We former Adventists have been released from a crippling bondage by being made alive through the gospel of Jesus’ finished work. God has given us everything for food, and we are to share it with one another with thanksgiving because it is “sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:1–5). We can eat turkey without fear, and we can enjoy the custard of pumpkin pies without guilt. God has given us His grace in shared meals and the food He provides. We can thank Him for the bird that gave its life for our nourishment, and we can be grateful for the milk and eggs—and even for the sugar—that bakes into the cinnamon-spiced pumpkin custard or the cream cheese and butter in the frosting on the pumpkin cake.
Because of Jesus we can enjoy all food. Because of Jesus we can be at peace with one another and enjoy sharing the table. Because of Jesus we can remember Him when we eat—and because of Jesus, we also share a meal reserved only for His Bride—the Lord’s Table.
Freed from the conscience-killing bondage of a false prophet’s demands, we can celebrate our identity in Jesus and honor Him by enjoying His provision. Meals are His gift to His people.
So let God’s word sweep away the almost-hidden strands of guilt and fear, and celebrate this week. It’s Thanksgiving! †
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