May 18, 2003
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The Norwegian Day of Thanksgiving Prof. Inge Lønning Psalm 67:2-6 The word "Thanksgiving" is a nice word, one of the nicest we have. To Christians, it ought to be the headline not only for one day every year, but for every day of life God guarantees us through his mercy. To Norwegian – the smaller part of us living in Norway and the greater part living in the United States of America, the 17th of May is nevertheless very special day of thanksgiving – THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING. 58 years ago, on the 17th of May 1945, I had my first fundamental and unforgettable experience of Thanksgiving Day. I was 7, and had spent almost one year in school. I had not seen a single Norwegian flag or heard as much as a quiet little "hurra" on the 17th of May. Now suddenly it was there – a brand new experience of colors, of festival, the sound of drums from all the "Buekorps" of Bergen, with the Royal anthem and "Ja, vi elsker" – a continuing shock of joy from early morning to late night. A prelude we had on the 8th of May, 1945, when all the church bells of Bergen proclaimed peace and freedom – strange words which did not carry very much meaning to us children. Still we had an idea – "Peace" and "freedom" stood for the opposite of air raid alarms, bombs and dark, covered windows. The joy we did understand. To be more accurate: joy you don’t need to understand, you just have to open up your senses, take it in and be carried away by it, together with all the others who are carried away. Almost 60 years have passed since I had my first experience of Thanksgiving Day. The memory is as strong and shining as if it were yesterday, because it is one of those basic memories forming your consciousness for your whole lifetime. Whenever springtime is there again, this basic memory of my childhood is revitalized and gives me once more a feeling of what my Norwegian identity is all about. What unites us is not remarkable national achievements, even if our history could provide us with some examples, and even if we love to boast of our victories in winter sports. What unites us, is not a fortune of great achievements, but a common debt of gratitude. That debt is great, overwhelmingly great. In capitals all over the world, there are monuments of presidents and kings. Royal Majesties on horseback, royal majesties at war, royal majesties in uniform. From our modern history as a sovereign country, the period from 1905 – Oslo has just two royal monuments: one of King Haakon, tall, slim and bareheaded, standing upright as if in a storm – his figure symbolizing the shortest quote ever written into a block of granite, the block standing as a monument at the place in Elverum where King Haakon received the German ambassador who came from Oslo, on the afternoon of the 9th of April 1940 to claim the unconditional surrender of all Norwegian armed forces. The text has just three letters: N-E-I. Nei., No. And then we have the royal monument which is really unique: King Olav at Holmenkollen, in his old fashioned and well used ski suit, with a small dog as his royal escort. That is the strongest and most genuine expression of the respect and the affection all Norwegians had towards King Olav. At the same time that monument is an almost perfect symbol of an inherited political culture: exactly like that is the Norwegian concept of a Royal Majesty: An authority not resting upon symbols of power and signs of superiority and distance, but on the affection which is the result of the common experience of shared destiny in good and bad days. On our national day of thanksgiving 2003 we should remind ourselves that our common debt of gratitude contains a common obligation. Peace, freedom and prosperity are rare gifts in the history of mankind, not the normal framework of life. Most generations living before us did not see very much of those gifts, nor do the majority of our contemporaries in the world of today. All the more important it is to realize that the gifts of God are meant to be shared by all his children. The salvation of God should, as we heard in the text from the Book of Psalms, be known among all people. His face is shining upon us not to let our shadow fall on others, but to make us transparent for the mercy of God. The power of routine is great, and dangerous. Long lasting success tends to disturb the sense of proportions and to undermine our common ability to distinguish between unimportant attractions and basic values of life. Have we left behind the old society of three generations and changed it into a brand new model of three one-generation-societies, each of them with its own language and its own so-called culture? A society which does not grant the youngest and the oldest ones among its members human dignity, self respect and the courage to meet the challenges of life is an empty society. A goal and a meaning of life can a community offer only when it is open, generous and inclusive enough to provide all its members, regardless of age, physical and mental capacity, social background, success or failure – provide all of them with the same experience of being wanted, being welcomed as a necessary part of society. Only such a community has got a wider perspective on itself than the busybody-like approach to everyday struggle for individual success. A human society is more than just the total number of individuals performing on stage at a given moment. A human society is open towards the past, stretching backwards as far as memory enables us to trace the countless generations which have left their fingerprints on everything surrounding us which makes life worth living: the landscape, the houses, language, music, art and literature. And it is open towards the unknown future of those generations which are going to follow us. On our national day of thanksgiving, we should remind ourselves that the privilege of peace and freedom is a moral obligation. All generations are linked together, and each one of us is a link between our parents and our children. In periods of our history when most people were rather poor, the basic norm of life was this one: what you inherited from your parents you should take care of in a way which will enable you to hand it over to your children in better shape than it was when you received it. We badly need to restore that standard in a society which likes to call itself a society of consumers. Dear congregation, we are celebrating a very special day of national Day of thanksgiving. As Christians, we are invited to celebrate an even more basic fact than the forefathers at Eidsvoll gave us on May 17, 1814. We are called to celebrate the fact that we belong to an immensely greater solidarity, a unlimited solidarity in time and space. It is like the Apostle Paul says: None of us live for ourselves, and no one died for themselves. For if we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. For it was therefore that Christ died and came back to life, that he should be Lord of the living and of the dead. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who was, and is, and will be, one true God now and forever, Amen. |
The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church · 924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 · (612)874-0716 |