offering thanksgiving

We, as modern-day Christians, have a hard time with the book of Deuteronomy. The law given in that book is foreign to us in many ways. Yet the lesson for Lent 1 is clearly applicable today. If one reads it with a careful eye, it seems to say that while God requires the first fruits of the harvest, he doesn't care much about it. Instead, he wants you to offer thanksgiving for the great things he has done.

In this passage the Israelites are told what they should say as they offer their first fruits to God. The words are not praises or adorations. They are not glories and hallelujahs, but rather they are a story; THE story. The story of Israel's salvation from its humble beginnings as "a wandering Aramean" to its entrance into the land of "milk and honey". The murmuring of the desert is no where to be found in this story, for it is a recollection of God's saving action; a work done having required nothing of God's chosen people. A work done in grace. Giving of the first fruits is a response to that grace. Recalling the story of salvation is a way of offering thanksgiving that is well beyond the giving of material things.

We, as modern-day Christians, can associate with this. As we come to offer God our thanksgivings we would do well to recall the saving work done long before us. The grace filled act of saving Israel from Egypt is repeated in the grace filled sacrifice of the paschal lamb. God doesn't need our first fruits, God doesn't need anything. God wants and longs for our relationship, and the beginning of that relationship is the recognition of God's total otherness and God's saving work in history. So offer your first fruits, but not to fulfill some requirement, but rather as a spiritual discipline of thanksgiving in the recollection of God's saving grace.