An American Pastor’s Reflection on Harvest Thanksgiving

This past Sunday, our English-speaking international church in Spain celebrated Harvest Thanksgiving, along with our brothers and sisters in the UK, Canada, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We gathered a canned-food donation for a local charity and sang passionately all the harvest songs in our hymnal. Our service was overflowing with good sentiment, good people and gratitude to God.

As I sit down and bask in the joy of the day, I wonder why this occasion felt so different. My last "Harvest Thanksgiving" outside the US was in 2011 while I was the pastor of an international congregation in Hamburg, Germany. The main difference, I think, lies in the traumatic experiences in America of past 7 years.

You see, as a pastor, I have always struggled with American culture and traditions in the life of the church. For example, what is the appropriate place of the American flag in church; how "political" to be in a sermon, especially around elections; to sing or not to sing "God Bless America" to mark July 4, how to challenge the "Pilgrims and Indians" narrative in the church's preschool.

This is why the celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving in early October is such a relief: a celebration of gratitude removed from the "Pilgrims and Indians" narrative, a celebration of abundance and generosity and gratitude to God.

What does this mean? I do not want to, nor can I, expunge my culture from my experience. I am an American pastor and I believe in the dreams of my American ancestors, but there is a freedom in being an American living outside the country at this time in history. And because I am a dedicated citizen, I have already sent in my ballot for the mid-terms and continue to remain active in pro-democracy groups.

I am grateful for this experience of freedom.