The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving that we memorialize each Fall actually was not a sacred day of prayer and worship.  Rather it was a time of celebration following two long winters. The Pilgrim Separatists had previously sought sanctuary in Holland but had been forced to set sail for the New World.

Arriving in late December, 1620 they attempted to wait out the first winter on ship. Although they had lost only one or two travelers on the voyage, only fifty percent of the settlers survived the winter.

The account of Squanto, the bilingual Native American who taught the sick and starving Pilgrims how to raise a corn crop, is well documented. Finally the Mayflower left port and the remaining fifty settlers begin to farm, fish and hunt. They were building their houses, and actually had harvested their first crop.

As the Fall harvest celebration began, the chief of a nearby tribe arrived with 90 braves.  The Pilgrims sought to accommodate, but their food supply was insufficient for the unexpected guests.

Almost magically, the native guests began to extend their own hospitality, as they added venison to the wild fowl and vegetables provided by the settlers.

Whether for practical or humanitarian reasons, the settlers’ willingness to share their table served as confirmation of a mutual support treaty between the new immigrants and the indigenous Wampanoag tribe.

So the Pilgrims made their table longer by willingly sharing such as they had. The resulting celebration was (as we say) history — our history.

However, it has not always been our legacy.

The next wave of settlers from England viewed Thanksgiving differently.  The Anglican Puritans who arrived some ten years later believed that they were entitled by God to take the land, comparing their actions to Old Testament Israel’s conquering of Canaan.

It would not be long before the Puritans, apparently in much prayer and fasting, solemnly thanked God that they had destroyed the first Americans, whom they viewed as Hell-bound savages to be exterminated.

The subsequent waves of British Puritan immigration would bring Indian Wars as well as religious sectarianism. The beautiful legacy of celebration at the longer table had been abandoned.

This paradox of “otherizing” in the Name of God continues.  The common we-they language always presents a smaller righteous we fortifying itself against a perceived savage they.

Nonetheless, a careful reading of Jesus’ teaching encourages us to make our table longer, and celebrate the Greater We.

The story of the Pilgrims’ joyful celebration should have been a legacy for us to claim and fulfill.  To that end is this blog dedicated.