Learning to Giving Thanks

Text: Luke 17:18-19 “18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.””

This morning I’d like to put before you one simple shift. A shift of prepositions. I would like to encourage you to replace the word ‘for’ with the word ‘to’.

Thankfulness seems like a perfectly noble thing. How could it ever be bad for you? It certainly couldn’t be dangerous. Or could it? Well, I would suggest to you that, unless you replace the word ‘for’ with the word ‘to’, then this is a very dangerous day.

Think about the stereotypical Thanksgiving Day: a family, gathered at a table that is piled with all kinds of food, each taking turns listing the things that they’re thankful for. It seems like a perfectly wholesome sight. But if that’s where the focus is— on the ‘for’— then that is a dangerous thing.

There’s the obvious problem: there are always a significant number of people among us who are facing hard times, who are suffering, who are bearing heavy burdens. At best, they might be thankful that they’re better off than others. But that’s thin consolation. Let’s frame it in terms of Jesus and the leper from our gospel reading. Would the leper have been able to celebrate Thanksgiving the day before Jesus came? There are certainly many people in similar positions today. And how appropriate is it to celebrate what you have when there are so many who don’t?

If Thanksgiving is about what we’re thankful for, then we need to wrestle with two very difficult questions:

How can we go on stuffing ourselves with food and distracting ourselves with football like everything is fine when businesses are closing; when people are losing jobs; when families are destroyed by all sorts of different causes; when there is so much fear and uncertainty in the world?

How do you celebrate when it’s your business that has closed; when you’ve lost your job; when there chairs at your thanksgiving table which are glaringly empty?

Now both of those questions can be addressed, at least to a point. Do you really need all the things that you have but others don’t? For so much of it, the answer is a resounding ‘No’. It is good to be reminded of what we really need and what we really don’t need. And it is certainly good for all of us to be reminded that there are others in need today. But they don’t entirely answer the questions. It’s true: so much of what we have that others don’t is stuff that we really don’t need. They can be just as happy, just as thankful without it. But that only goes so far. The basic point of the questions still remains.

But there’s an even greater danger. As you give thanks for all of your blessings, there is the danger that you may end up thanking yourself. Who earned the money for the comfortable house that you’re thankful for? Who does the work to keep the job that you’re so thankful for? Who built the family that you’re so thankful for? Our sinful nature likes nothing more than to make Thanksgiving about me.

Is there any greater proof of this temptation than the irony that many people have commented on: that Thanksgiving is immediately followed, the very next day, by “Black Friday”? We literally go from giving thanks one day to fighting over flat screen TV’s the next.

I would suggest to you that, unless you replace the word ‘for’ with the word ‘to’, this is a very dangerous day.

Thanksgiving has never been about “counting your blessings.” Not for Christians. It’s always been about learning to trust the Giver of all good gifts. It’s not primarily about what you’re thankful ‘for’ but who you give thanks ‘to’. Thanksgiving has never really been about “counting your blessings.” Not for Christians. It’s always been about thanking and praising the Giver of all good gifts.

That’s why a Christian Thanksgiving looks different from Thanksgiving for everyone else. It looks like Job, losing not only all of his great wealth and his servants, but loosing all 7 of his sons and all 3 of his daughters in a single day. And when he got the news, Job thanked God. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

It looks like St. Paul, writing from prison, “4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 ...The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:4-7).

The list goes on and on. The Macedonians, who barely had enough for themselves, insisting on giving to help the church in Jerusalem during a time of great famine because they were so grateful for the message that they had received from the missionaries the church in Jerusalem had sent. God’s people rejoicing and giving thanks as they’re martyred for their faith. We give thanks in all circumstances because you and I give thanks by faith.

It’s summed up well by one of our lesser-used hymns: “What God Ordains Is Always Good.”

1 What God ordains is always good: His will is just and holy. As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly. My God indeed In ev'ry need Knows well how He will shield me; To Him, then, I will yield me.

2 What God ordains is always good: He never will deceive me; He leads me in His righteous way, And never will He leave me. I take content What He has sent; His hand that sends me sadness Will turn my tears to gladness.

3 What God ordains is always good: His loving thought attends me; No poison can be in the cup That my physician sends me. My God is true; Each morning new I trust His grace unending, My life to Him commending.

4 What God ordains is always good: He is my friend and Father; He suffers naught to do me harm Though many storms may gather. Now I may know Both joy and woe; Some day I shall see clearly That He has loved me dearly.

5 What God ordains is always good: Though I the cup am drinking Which savors now of bitterness, I take it without shrinking. For after grief God gives relief, My heart with comfort filling And all my sorrow stilling.

6 What God ordains is always good: This truth remains unshaken. Though sorrow, need, or death be mine, I shall not be forsaken. I fear no harm, For with His arm He shall embrace and shield me; So to my God I yield me.

(Lutheran Service Book, Hymn #760)

How is it possible to be so blindly trusting? How is it possible to trust in God’s goodness no matter what? How is it possible to insist that “no poison can be in the cup that [your] physician sends [you]”? Because Christ suffered for you.

You might even say that Jesus is the reason for this season, too.

A cynic might challenge the leper from our gospel reading by asking why he owed Jesus any thanks. God allowed you to be sick in the first place. Why does He deserve any thanks for taking it away?

He deserves our thanks because the One who allows both joy and sorrow to come upon you is also the One who sent His beloved Son to this earth—not just to try to show you a better way, but to suffer and die on the cross for you. He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for [you], how will he not also with him graciously give [you] all things?” (Romans 8:32).

The One who allows moments of suffering to come to you is also the One who prayed, “Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). He did, in fact, drink the cup of God’s wrath in His suffering and death so that you would never have to.

Yes, we live in a world filled with uncertainty and anxiety. That may very well temper the thanksgiving of some. But you know the One who holds the future in His hands. You know the one directing events is the One who suffered and died for you. His hands still bear the scars from the cross that He bore for you.

I’m not saying that we can go on stuffing ourselves with food and distracting ourselves with football like everything is fine. But give thanks— even with the bitter cup that God has given us to drink from. No poison can be in the cup that your Physician hands you.

The reality is that we are so terribly, horribly, embarrassingly bad at counting our blessings. As one author put it,

…if we kept a spiritual scrapbook of “God’s Blessings,” there are many life pictures we’d be loathe to post. Our typical litmus test that determines whether or not something is a blessing is this: Does it make us happy? If it makes us smile, it’s a blessing. If it makes our lives a little easier, elevates us on the social scale, or simply makes us feel better about ourselves, then it qualifies as a blessing.

On the other hand, if something multiplies problems in our lives, makes us question our ability to maintain control of a situation, sullies our reputation, leads to heightened stress, or generally makes us feel worse about ourselves, then it’s no blessing. We may not label it a curse, but it’s certainly not something we’re going to humblebrag about on Facebook.

Our Father’s blessings, however, are not as easy to spot as brightly wrapped, bow-tied packages under the Christmas tree. They’re often covered in brown paper under the bloody tree of the cross. They often don’t seem good at all but burdensome, perhaps even defeating.

Such “blessings” look like a burned-out bridge on the highway to our person happiness.

This is an invaluable truth: trials and temptations, burdens and losses, are where God is most active to bring his grace into our lives. Counting your blessings includes counting your crosses, for Christ is hidden in suffering to lead us toward the blessings he desires for [you].

(Bird, Chad. “Your God Is Too Glorious: Finding God in the Most Unexpected Places.” Posted to Facebook by author. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=217512109744519&id=100044571933306)

This year, we learn a little bit better what it means to give thanks as Christians. Just like all we do, you and I give thanks by faith. It’s never really been about the ‘for’. It’s always been about who you’re thankful to. That is the sort of Thanksgiving that allows you to hear Jesus say to you, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.