Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Text:  Luke 12: 13-21

Theme:  Being thankful for what you have, and don’t have

          (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. 

          Tomorrow our nation will observe again its long standing Day of Thanksgiving, offering up gratitude for all the blessings we have received from our gracious God this past year. This observance in our country, in many ways, has reflected an impulse to give thanks to God especially in the context or aftermath of adversity. After a disastrous experiment in socialism, the first pilgrims gave thanks to God with native Indians after a bountiful harvest gained from each owning and working his own land. After the struggle of the Revolutionary War and finally forming a constitutional government, our first president, George Washington declared Thursday, November 26, 1789 to be a national day of public thanksgiving and prayer. And then it was Abraham Lincoln who, in the midst of the Civil War, re-established an annual celebration of Thanksgiving. While facing tremendous national and personal distress, Lincoln led the nation at war to stop and thank God. He declared:

It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

     As we pause again to observe this national day of Thanksgiving, we are reminded that giving thanks to God for his blessings is an appropriate and continual accent for His adopted people. We may think of the words in our communion liturgy Preface: It is truly meet right and salutary that we should at all times and all places give thanks to God. And then at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper, we exhort one another with the words of David in Psalm 107:9: Oh Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. And His mercy endures forever.     

     As we prepare our hearts and minds to reflect on those things for which we ought to find needful from the Lord and for which we should offer up a special thanksgiving on this occasion . . the parable of the Rich Fool serves us well to reflect on how we ought not simply count our blessings, but also how we ought to order them in terms of their real importance.  Often, however, this is not an easy thing to do. The conditions in our life can often affect our perceptions of what is important and who ought to receive the credit for what we have, or for that matter, what we don’t have. Because of our fallen sinful nature, we have some rebellious tendencies that are not helpful in this regard at all. Because of our fat-relentless ego, it is easy for us to feel the least grateful and thankful the more we regularly experience and live with a great outpouring of the Lord’s blessings on us. Is it not true that we often can experience the least amount of gratitude when we receive the most in a continual way from the Lord’s bounty? As with the Rich Fool in our text, is it not true that a continual rich bounty of his blessings constantly received seems more likely to produce a sense of self-satisfaction and a desire for more. Has this happened to you? And then from self-satisfaction and the desire for more, our coveting also produces the false perception that all these things are somehow under our own control to have or not have? Have you experienced the coveting spiral: The more you have, the less you appreciate . . .  But the less you appreciate, the more you want . . . and the more you get of what you want, the more you think you can just get them endlessly.  That’s the way it was for the Rich Fool with his bumper crops and bigger barns. Have you had these experiences when life was really bountiful and good?

     Let me ask you to ponder this question: have you felt more keenly aware of God’s blessings in your life when you are in the midst of difficult times filled with adversity. . . or when you are feeling good, basking in continual plenty, and rolling in good times?  Have you felt a greater sense of gratitude and thankfulness for small blessings that feel really big in the midst of great trials . . . as when you are granted a bit of small relief in the midst of great suffering or hardship - or, a few dollars that paid some bills in the midst of looming debt; or, a bit of relief in the midst of much pain and discomfort . . . or even simplest words, you are forgiven, in the midst of a great burden of guilt?   Or on the other hand, have you rather felt most grateful and thankful to the Lord when the times, pleasures, and possessions in your life have been especially smooth and bountiful? Perhaps we need to give thanks to the Lord not only for what he gives us, but perhaps also for some things that he withholds - to sharpen our awareness and appreciation of his goodness and mercy. His strength is made perfect in our weakness, His grace is sufficient for us . . . and his bounty is to be gratefully enjoyed, but neither coveted, treasured, nor taken for granted. These sober truths negatively illustrated in the parable for us to take to heart on this Thanksgiving Eve.

     The Rich Fool not only mistook the blessings of the Lord’s bounty for the just reward of his own efforts, he coveted them in greater measure, making his growing agri-business his treasure to provide for himself a secure life. The Fool was a fool for thinking that success in agriculture could secure for himself the good life. This parable 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 it simply is not true that you only go around life once . . .  life is forever. The fool is a fool because he invested himself with lesser blessings of the Lord and made them his own treasure. 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. 

     Jesus is telling us that there is only one thing that we should possess as a treasure that can secure for us a happy forever.  We must possess that only thing that we really can take with us to Heaven.  We must possess and cling to the robe of righteousness, the grace of Christ, the forgiveness of our sins that Christ has covered us with in our baptism and in his saving Word.  This is what we need to be rich toward God.  This is the priceless treasure, the pearl of great price, that was paid for by the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord on the cross. 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 are all secure.

     God grant us the mind and heart to measure our treasure in the riches of God’s grace, and at the same time praise Him from whom all blessings to us flow, using them also as stewards that serve Christ in our neighbor’s need.  And let us appreciate that He often may grant us our greatest sense of thankfulness and gratitude for his blessings in the midst of our own poverty and adversity - keeping us mindful that all that we have and all that we are come only from His bountiful goodness. And for that, as with our nation, we may on this occasion of our National Day of Thanksgiving - give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, and his mercy endures forever.

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