Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Theme: Being thankful for what you have and what you can take with you (and God said) This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

As we prepare our hearts and minds to reflect on those things for which we ought offer up a thanksgiving to God . . . Jesus parable is to instruct us on how we ought not simply count our blessings, but rather how we ought to order them in terms of their real importance. The parable of our Lord reflects an important piece of wisdom: we should value our blessings and treat them in accord with their ability to provide for our needs with the understanding that . . . life is not just the here and now, life is forever.

Let’s explore this a bit as we reflect this Thanksgiving Eve on those things for which we ought gratefully to give thanks. When it comes to the temporal and material dimension of life, Jesus would have his parable instruct us to avoid two extremes that plague Christian thinking. Both are distortions of a point that Jesus is making in our text. The first distortion is to take the words of our Lord to mean that being materially well off and having a successful business life are contrary to the call for a faithful walk with God. This faulty view has been around in the life of the Church since ancient times. In the ancient Church, many left ordinary living in the temporal orders of life to go off into the wilderness and live in caves with just enough food and water to keep themselves alive. They devoted themselves to meditation, prayer, and fasting - keeping themselves undefiled by the things of this world while awaiting the Lord’s return. Historically this hermit movement evolved into what was considered the most exemplary form of Christian life for centuries, monasticism. Monasticism gave thanks for poverty. It considered the absence of God’s material blessings to be a spiritual virtue as if there were a beatitude of the Lord: Blessed are those who have nothing, for that is very spiritually virtuous.

But monasticism is a distortion of what Jesus is teaching us. It is true that we cannot take anything material with us into eternity. Nevertheless, Jesus’ words that life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (vs. 15) does not mean that it consists in the absence of possessions. Jesus is not teaching that poverty is a virtue. He is not teaching that material things are bad, inherently unspiritual, and of the devil. We do not pray in the Lord’s prayer, give us this day our daily bread; but better still, don’t give me anything. Rather we pray this petition with the understanding of Luther and the Catechism that this petition covers all of our temporal needs of food, drink, clothing, shelter, good family, good friends . . . in short, all of the things that make for living peaceably and productively here in the world. We praise God from whom all blessings flow . . . not simply those regarded as spiritual. Jesus provided an abundance of the best wine at the marriage feast at Cana. He fed the five thousand and again the four thousand in the wilderness and at that, not simply to avoid starvation. He provided enough for all to get their fill with even an abundance of leftovers. Jesus is not advocating that the exemplary Christian life is the ascetic life of self-denial.

Then again we are also not to make the opposite error as is common among many false evangelists today who tout a gospel of success. Jesus is not teaching that the more pleased He is with us, the greater material wealth he will shower on us. He is certainly not teaching as they do that material wealth is a consequence and sign of belonging to the Lord and possessing a strong faith. He is not advocate of a gospel of name it and claim it. When James said, ye have not because ye ask not, he was not teaching the faithful that riches are ours for the mere asking of the Lord with sufficient faith that we will get them. The Gospel of Jesus is neither a gospel of wealth nor a gospel of poverty. What than is Jesus really teaching us in his parable? The key word from which to understand his point is the word, treasure. The guy with the many barns is a fool because in them he thinks that he has laid up for himself the things needed for a happy and secure future. And to this Jesus generalizes for all of us; so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God (vs. 21).

A person’s treasure is whatever he thinks will secure the good life and a happy, contented future. To be rich means to have your treasure in abundance. The guy in the parable who has been very successful in agri-business is a fool for thinking that from his bumper crops he can secure for himself the good life and a happy, contented future. Jesus is telling us that there is only one thing that we should understand as the treasure that can secure for us a happy forever. We need that one thing we really can take with us to Heaven - the robe of righteousness, the grace of Christ, the forgiveness of our sins that Christ. This is what we need to be rich toward God. This is the priceless treasure that was paid for by the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord on the cross, yet this is the treasure that comes to us only as a free gift. . . priceless but free; unmerited but meritorious before God; a gift of righteousness possessed completely by the Christian already, yes even by each of us, yet we are always in need of more. The Gospel gift of the grace of the Christ is what makes us rich toward God. When we appreciate this and hold it dear as our only treasure of priceless worth, our present, our future days, and our happy forever have been secured. We have sought and found the gift that secures for us the Kingdom of God, and then . . . and then, as Jesus says about all the things that make up our daily bread (and turkey too!) - all these things will be added unto us . . . blessings from God to be sure, yes material blessings! But not riches that should be considered our treasure. Of our material blessings, God has made us stewards . . . blessings to be a blessing. Whether agri-business or whatever is your business . . . God gives us more than our daily bread that we might distribute these earthly blessings to our neighbor that through such neighbors as have been given to us . . . we might serve Christ where we live, work, and play. God grant us the mind and heart to measure our treasure in the riches of God’s grace, and at the same time to thank and praise Him from whom all blessings to us flow, using them also with lives that serve Christ in our neighbor’s need. Gratefully blessed, that we might treasure our life with Him in his priceless gifts, gratefully blessed that we share the blessings of God with others. For both let is gather this Thanksgiving with grateful hearts and lives. We have such a gracious God who has showered us again this year with his bounty!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. A-men.