Thanksgiving Is Weird If You Follow Jesus
A holy refusal of nationalist nostalgia
Thanksgiving is weird for people trying to follow Jesus.
Gratitude is stitched into the gospel. Jesus blesses bread, breaks it, and gives thanks. Paul practically makes thanksgiving a spiritual discipline. Grace is the air the New Testament breathes.
And yet the American story wrapped around this Thursday comes pre-loaded with selective memory and a studiously scrubbed-clean origin myth that asks us not to notice who paid for the feast with something more valuable than a Kroger gift card.
So what do we do if we want turkey without the Manifest Destiny garnish?
We start by telling the truth. Following Jesus doesn’t require pretending the nation’s beginnings were a Hallmark movie. This land was taken, treaties were broken, cultures were targeted, and generations still bear the cost. Gratitude that depends on denial is just nostalgia dressed up in church clothes.
So, people who follow Jesus are free to reframe the day. In the prayer before the meal, we can say plainly that we eat on land once stewarded by Indigenous peoples. Maybe name a tribe.
We can ask God to heal what conquest and White supremacy have wounded. And we can refuse to confuse the reign of God with a superpower that calls itself innocent.
Empire runs on scarcity: never enough land, never enough safety, never enough power, unless we take it first. Jesus runs a different economy. Broken bread multiplies, and the vulnerable finally receive more than the crumbs that fall from the table. Cups overflow. The impoverished, not the powerful, are called blessed and get to finally sit in the seats of honor at the big-people table.
So cook, laugh, watch football if that’s your thing. And while you’re sliding into your tryptophan coma, practice a holy refusal of nationalist nostalgia. Tell a harder, truer story at the table. Reach out to someone who’s alone. Let your gratitude be less about how great our country is and more about how persistent God’s mercy is.
The question isn’t whether we can “still” celebrate Thanksgiving. The question is whether we can stop using gratitude as anesthesia that makes us forget.
So bless the food and tell the truth. Refuse the myth of innocent beginnings. Practice generosity that costs you something. That’s how we break bread without swallowing propaganda, and that’s how we follow Jesus without confusing him for an American mascot.
That’s how we recognize Rome, and still refuse to live like it’s actually calling the shots.