Text:  Leviticus 25:1-7,18-22 (Ps 37; 1 Tim 6:1-10, 17-19; Luke 6:37,38)                            Thanksgiving

Still More to be Thankful For

            In the name of him to whom is due all thanks, honor, praise, and glory, dear friends in Christ:  As part of my preparations for this morning’s message, I dug into the file and pulled out a copy of last year’s Thanksgiving sermon.  No, I don’t expect that you remember much about it (—I couldn’t even remember, and I wrote it!); but in it, I observed that there are two basic Lutheran approaches to preaching for Thanksgiving.  In Luther’s good “Law – Gospel” tradition, the easiest and most common is to enumerate a few of the countless blessings the Lord freely gives us every day, point out how we routinely take them for granted, and convict everyone of the sin of ingratitude.  In this land of ours so abundantly blessed by God, that’s not hard to do.  We have been given so very much, and yet we are not a thankful people.  But then I’d remind you of how God forgives us for Christ’s sake, even for the sin of ingratitude; and how he fills us with his Spirit that creates in us the thankfulness that recognizes what precious gifts the Lord pours upon us everyday.  Then I’d send you home to enjoy your Thanksgiving feast in the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.  That’s the nice way to do it.

The other approach is take the opposite tack and remind you of how many people in the world have so much less than we do:  how there are literally millions without food, shelter, medicine, clean water, clothes and so on; and how in the course of a week we individually consume, waste, or throw away enough to take care of whole families. The purpose is to convict everyone of the sin of selfishness – of not wanting to share God’s abundant blessings with others less fortunate, or of doing so only in a stingy, reluctant, or unloving way.  This sort of message is very effective because it really hits us where it hurts. Though, it’s kind of cruel for a pastor to lay it on his congregation on Thanksgiving.  It tends to place a dark cloud over later celebrations.  No matter how much I might assure you of how in Christ we are forgiven for our selfishness, it’s awfully hard to sit down at a feast – at a table sagging under the weight of God’s bounty – without still feeling the sting of guilt.

Anyway, last year, after mentioning those two basic approaches (and briefly preaching them both in the process – like I just did again—you see, there is a method to my madness), I then steered off in a different direction. Last fall, you will recall, was a difficult time for our nation.  As a people we had been shaken by the terrorist attacks targeted against the very centers of our economic and military power.  It was a time of general uncertainty and fear about the future.  Night after night on the news we’d hear the interviews and stories of people who had lost loved ones, or who had sons and daughters in the military abroad, or any number of other reasons to be worried and upset.  Most of them were in utter despair.  Theirs was a poverty of the spirit.  Their souls were starving.  Without faith in Christ they had nothing: no hope, no God in this world to which they could cling.  They were lost – as indeed they had been before; the difference was that now they could see it.  The things in which they had placed their trust had collapsed and revealed how weak they really were.  Standing in sharp contrast to those people were the ones who had their feet planted firmly on the Rock:  our Lord Jesus Christ.  Because they knew him and his love revealed in his suffering and dying for them, they also knew that he was with them in this tragedy; and how that one way or another, he would see them safely through it.  My main point was that these frightening events revealed once again that our greatest blessing is the Gospel of Jesus Christ itself – and how we often fail to recognize it and be thankful for it; and also how it’s one of the greatest treasures we can share with people in need.

            Well, now that I’ve already covered three sermons worth of Thanksgiving topics, what about this year?  Is there anything left to say?  Ah, never ask a preacher that question, because you can bet he’ll always have something more to say.  But what about this year?  Sure, as always, there is plenty to be thankful for – but maybe not as much as we’re used to. This year we had a rather severe drought that effected many.  And of course, because the economy around here is mostly agricultural, everyone is going to feel the pinch.  Even on a wider scale, the nation’s economy is performing rather sluggishly; and this year we’ve seen the collapse of some major financial empires.  Perhaps some of you suffered losses as tech stocks fell through the floor.  What else? Insurance rates and medical costs continue to skyrocket.  That’s not doing any of us any good.  Here on our own local level we’ve had businesses close, people laid off, and here in the church we’ve had major concerns about the cost of continuing to operate the school – and a glance at last Sunday’s bulletin will tell you that there’s an alarming difference between the church’s budget and this year’s giving to date.  We’re all feeling the pinch.  All in all, my guess is that when most of you sit down to reckon accounts at year’s end, you won’t be as far along as you hoped you’d be.  In terms of material blessings, for most of us, this year was a disappointment.  Makes it kind of hard to get into the spirit of Thanksgiving.

            Oh, I’m not saying we won’t put up a good show of it. We know how blessed we really are even in a marginal year like this … and yet, deep inside we can’t help but think about the blessings we did not attain.  And it’s hard to give thanks sincerely when we’re still brooding about the things we don’t have that we’d like to be giving thanks for.  It’s those things I’d like to talk about this morning: the more to be thankful for that we hoped to have, but didn’t get.

We see very clearly in the Scriptures presented this morning a consistent theme emerging; specifically that there is a direct relationship between the trust you have in God, and material blessings he distributes.  Our God is an amazingly generous God.  He enjoys nothing more than pouring out blessings on his children.  And it is his earnest desire to give you the legitimate desires of your heart.  But unfortunately, he can’t give us everything he’d like us to have.  It’s not that he’s short on resources; but rather because we don’t behave well when he gives us everything we want.  He knows it’s not good for us.  Because when that happens, when we are completely satisfied, we tend to take our focus off the giver and concentrate instead on the gifts.  What’s worse, we tend to place our trust in material wealth – effectively making it our god.  When that happens, the Lord is compelled for our own good to take blessings away.  He does it to remind us where all blessings come from in the first place, and to redirect our focus there.  That’s why Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”  The Lord wants to bless us; but even more he wants to be our God.  And that’s for our own benefit; because we need a Lord and Savior far more than any blessings he might give.  But when we’ve got that straight, he is pleased to open his hands and pour out upon us all the good gifts of his creation.        

            You are familiar with God’s command for his people to observe the Sabbath day.  You know how the seventh day of the week was to be a day of rest.  No labor was to be done.  It was to be set aside as time for mind and body to relax, recover, and recreate – and the Lord was very serious about it.  Failure to observe the Sabbath was a capital offense.  Less familiar to us, perhaps, are the commandments that deal with the Sabbath year that we heard about a bit ago in the reading from Leviticus.  The idea was essentially the same:  time off for rest and recovery – and ultimately to enhance long-term productivity. Incidentally, this is where we get the whole idea of a sabbatical year for college professors and people like them. It’s a year off of regular duties to pursue rest, do research, travel, whatever, so that the person returns to work with fresh ideas, renewed vigor, wider perspective – all things that will make him or her a better professor.  In God’s great design for his people, every seventh year was to do that for the whole nation.  Even the land itself was to rest.  The arable ground was to lie fallow.  Vineyards and orchards were to go unattended.  In an agricultural society, this would have meant eliminating all of the biggest projects of the year:  no plowing, sowing, harvesting, pruning, you name it—not this year.  There’d be time for family, pursuing other interests, travel, music, arts, improving homes, and doing all those “honey-do” projects.  And there’d be obvious benefits to the soil in slowing the depletion of nutrients and providing   greater stability against erosion.

            It was a great plan designed to make God’s people happier, wealthier, and more secure.  And it carried with it God’s promise of blessing – not just for one year, but for three.  The Lord said, “If you’re wondering what you’re going to eat that seventh year, don’t. If you follow these instructions, I will bless you so much that you will still be eating of the harvest of the sixth year, when you are reaping the harvest of the ninth.”  Think about that:  by that time they’d have already laid aside and stored the whole harvest of the eighth year.  Take a year off, and end up a whole year ahead.  The Lord was telling them, “You trust me in this:  I’ll take care of you, and give you more than you think is possible.”

            Now, that sounds like a wonderful deal, doesn’t it? And maybe you’re wondering if the Lord fulfilled his promise.  The answer is yes, of course he did.  The problem is that his people never made any attempt to observe the Sabbath year. They never trusted him enough to try it. And it’s pretty easy to imagine how it happened.  After wandering in the wilderness for forty years, the people occupied the Promised Land. No more bread from heaven; they were now eating the fruits of their own labor.  These were exciting times:  God had fulfilled all his promises and richly blessed them.  He’d given them the land flowing with milk and honey.  Then came the harvest of the sixth year, and they sat down to take count of the stores.  And they started thinking, “I don’t know … there doesn’t seem to be enough here … and who knows?  What if the bins leak and the grain gets spoiled, or the rats get into it, or what if there’s a drought in the eighth year?  We might end up starving.”  They worry about these things all winter long.  Then comes the planting season.  All the neighbors are nervously watching each other.  The men meet at the local co-op.  There’s a lot of arguing.  Some say, “We have to trust the Lord, he’s been very good to us. “ Others accuse them of just being lazy or irresponsible.  “We need to take care of our families.  Would you do nothing, and let your children starve?”  Finally somebody says, “Nuts to this.  I’m planting.  Oh, and don’t come knocking on my door when you’re hungry next year.”  The others all start thinking about that, and how he’s going to get stinking rich when there’s a shortage of grain next fall.  Can’t let that happen.  Or at least they want a piece of the action.  And soon everyone is out tilling the soil.

            And so they never realized the blessings God wanted them to have.  They never got the superabundant harvests, the rest, and other benefits of the Sabbath year.  Instead they kept scraping and sweating, just getting by, and living hand to mouth all because they thought they had to do it on their own – that they couldn’t trust the Lord to keep his promises.  Oh, for the most part they got by … but there was so much more they could have been thankful for.  The same is true for us.

Now, a couple of clarifications are in order.  First, understand that the specific commands concerning the Sabbath year do no apply to us.  But the general principle behind them remains the same.  God does not change.  He really wants to bless his people; but even more he wants to be their God.  If you find yourself falling short, struggling, scraping, and worried about what the future holds, let me suggest that maybe it’s because the Lord is using circumstances to redirect your focus to him where it belongs. “Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desire of your heart.”  That’s a promise.

Secondly, we need to check our motives.  If my only goal is to get ahead … if I’m only pursuing the Lord and his righteousness to see what great blessings I’ll get as a result, then I’m not really delighting in the Lord.  I’m only attempting to use him to get what I’m really after.  That’s a grave mistake.  But at the same time, it’s an equally grave mistake not to expect the Lord to keep his word.  He promises to bless those who cling to him and seek his righteousness.  You should expect him to do that.

Thirdly, understand that I’m not promoting the so-called “health and welfare” Gospel that says if you do your part then everything will always come up roses for you – and if things are bad for you, it’s only because you don’t have enough faith.  That’s not right.  In God’s great wisdom, even the righteous (those righteous by faith in Christ) suffer hardships, setbacks, and health problems.  The Lord uses these situations for his own purposes, and also to give us greater understanding and compassion, and yes, to elicit in us greater trust and faith in him.  For the faithful, even hardship is a blessing.  We need to trust him at all times, even when things are dark and drear.

Fourth, understand that when you seek the Lord … when you strive to enrich your life with a greater understanding of him as he reveals himself through his Holy Word, be forewarned:  it may very well end up that the desires of your heart might not be what you thought they were.  When you hunger and thirst for him, your appetites usually change.  His Spirit working within you will bend your heart toward blessings that have even greater power to satisfy your life.  Material wealth and power and property and so on may lose their luster in light of the blessings God will grant.

And finally, understand that with increased wealth, should the Lord grant it, comes increased responsibility.  Paul writes, “Tell those who are rich in this present world …to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”  When God in his grace grants us wealth, he also gives us the opportunity to be like him:  gracious. And when you are, you needn’t worry about running out of wealth.  Jesus says, “Give and it will be given to you:  a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”  Or as the Psalmist writes, “I’ve lived a long time, yet I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely [to those in need].”  You cannot out give God.  He’ll always stay way ahead of you.

My friends, in this fellowship we rejoice and give thanks regularly for God’s most perfect gift:  the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness and salvation we have in his name. In this land of ours, we enjoy and give thanks to God for the unparalleled freedom, wealth, peace, and security he has richly blessed us with.  What I would say to you this morning is that the Lord desires to give you still much more to be thankful for.  It’s my Thanksgiving prayer for all of you that he would open your hearts, strengthen your spirits, and build up your trust through the power of his Word to receive them.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!