Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the Universe, for you give us the living bread from heaven. Amen.
Later today at your dinner table, someone might say “Pass the bread,” to which you might respond based on the text from John, “You seek only to fill up on carbs. Do not ask for food that perishes, but for food that leads to eternal life.” On second thought, maybe just pass the rolls if that happens. But the point that Jesus is making is one worthy of our attention on Thanksgiving Day. It’s a question of what we hunger for.
Earlier in chapter 6 of John, Jesus has fed a massive crowd of 5,000 people with only five loaves and two fish. We’re so accustomed to hearing the story that we might overlook just how amazing it is – for a group of people who are hungry and without food to be fed is clearly a sign that the kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven. Imagine if every time you open the refrigerator today as you prepare for the Thanksgiving meal that there is more food there. Or if every time you check your bank balance there is more in the account than the day before. It’s an astounding sign and the people took notice.
As we heard Jesus say, that feeding was a sign that he is the bread of life. But the crowds took it as a sign of something else. Perhaps they connected the dots and were thinking about how much their profit margins would go up in the market if they could have an endless supply of free bread and fish to sell. Or maybe they were drawing up battle plans against Rome with this newfound source of endless rations for the troops. Or they were wondering what other things Jesus might be able to multiply and supply in abundance – gold, olive oil, diamonds.
Jesus sensed this growing and insatiable appetite for more and John records that “When Jesus realized they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew to the mountain by himself.” But like those searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they eventually track Jesus down and that’s where our passage this morning picked up. This is where Jesus says to them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” In other words, “you’re here because your stomachs were full and are now grumbling, not because your hearts are restless and you are looking for peace that the world cannot give.”
How true it is that our appetites are insatiable. We simply don’t know the word “enough.” And if we needed any proof of that, just look at the calendar. Today is a day when we gather with family and friends to give thanks for all that we have and we often focus on what things matter most in life. And then tomorrow? Well, we might put it as “Very truly, I tell you, you are not looking for more reasons to be thankful, rather you are looking for sales, door busters, and accumulating stuff.” How sad and ironic it is that we go right from Thanksgiving into Black Friday. How easily we shift from contentment to consumerism, from gratitude to greed.
One theologian has said that the worst of all sins is ingratitude because it leads to arrogance, self-sufficiency, and the lust for more and more. It might not be a stretch to say that most every other evil and sin, from warfare, to gossip, to insults, to dishonesty are all rooted in an inability to be grateful and content with what we have. In a sense, we can even read Genesis 2 through that lens – Adam and Eve were given the abundance of an entire Garden, but they wanted more and took that which they did not need and did not belong to them.
On a day like Thanksgiving, the preacher will often extol the virtues of gratitude. And I’ve preached that sermon more than a few times. It’s been said by spiritual sages that gratitude allows us to savor the blessing of this life and relish them instead of speeding through without any sense of reflection or enjoyment on the joys that make life worth living.
And all of that is true. Studies consistently show that gratitude leads to better sleep, improved physical health, it builds resilience against depression and anxiety, and leads to higher levels of happiness. Gratitude grounds us in humility and helps us to recognize how dependent we are upon one another. All of this is why so many therapists, clergy, and coaches will tell you to keep a gratitude to journal or to try to go out of your way to say “thank you” at least 5 times a day. Parents want their children to be well-mannered and teach them, or command them, to say, “thank you” and write thank you notes. Even corporations and charities know the important of making their customers and donors feel appreciated. I checked my email inbox and the last time I paid a utility bill, ordered an item online, and signed up for a newsletter, every single company responded with “Thank you.” This is because one of the things that gratitude does is to deepen our relationship and connection with someone else. Gratitude moves us from the realm of transaction to relationship. And that’s a good thing.
You can probably tell this is where I’m going – there’s a “but” to all of this. Gratitude is great, but too often we treat it as a means to an end. And, fundamentally, gratitude is not a hack to happiness or a tool for transformation. If we practice saying “thank you” more often or write three things that we’re grateful for every night before bed, that becomes law, not Gospel. It makes gratitude something we do because we’re supposed to or because we think it will buy us a better reputation. It’s almost as if Jesus would say to us, “Truly I tell you, you are using gratitude not to grow closer to God, but because you think gratitude will get you more.”
It might sound like a counter-intuitive message for Thanksgiving Day, but I’m not going to tell you that you need to practice gratitude. There’s nothing wrong with struggling to be grateful. When disaster strikes and something goes wrong, the advice “Well, just count your blessings and be thankful for what you do have” really isn’t all that helpful. Often, it’s frustrating and just plain annoying. So I’m not going to stand here today and tell you that the struggles you have aren’t real and that you should just ignore them and be thankful for what you do have.
This often shows up in the grammatical construction of “at least,” and it really isn’t helpful. As a priest, I’ve heard people say to one another, “Well, at least that’s a treatable form of cancer,” or “At least you had trip insurance,” or “At least you had so many happy memories before your spouse developed dementia.” Sometimes we’re simply not interested in silver linings and forced gratitude doesn’t do anything except induce shame.
If you come here this morning with grateful hearts, that’s fantastic. And if you come with empty and broken hearts, that’s also fine because we come here to give God what we have, not what we do not. The Biblical word that we so often hear as “thanksgiving” does mean an expression of gratitude and acknowledge of God as the source of all things, but in the language of the Bible, thanksgivings were not mere words, they were sacrifices. The way that you show thanksgiving is by bringing a sacrifice to God.
That’s what we heard in the reading from Deuteronomy – because God is a generous giver, we participate in that divine economy by giving. But God is not a picky gift recipient. God does not have a wish list of acceptable gifts because God is not interested in transactions, but rather relationship. If giving God gratitude for your health, your job, your family, the beauty of living in a place like Colorado, or this congregation is what you have to offer this morning, that’s a worthy sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. And maybe what you have to offer is resentment over how someone has wronged you; God will also gladly take that off of your plate. It could be that you’re anxious about your health, finances, or the state of our society right now. You can bring those to the altar as an offering to God.
It’s not only in the Sacraments that God is in the transformation business, but in all things. The gracious and surprising way that Sacraments work is that that we bring something to God – water, bread and wine, a couple in love, the burden of sins we have been carrying – and God receives what we bring, transforms them in grace, and then gives them back to us in a fuller way. God receives whatever sacrifice we bring and returns them to us as a Sacrament, a sure and certain vessel of God’s grace and love.
So if you have things that you are grateful for, bring them in your heart as you come forward for Communion and be amazed at how that gratitude blossoms into joy, charity, and contentment. And if what you have to bring are regrets, doubts, fears, bitterness, or discontent, bring those as well and don’t be surprised if in offering them to God, they grow towards forgiveness, acceptance, healing, and peace. And even if you are not able to be thankful for those things, you might find a sense of relief and gratitude in no longer having to carry them alone. As Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you relief.”
Whether or not you are grateful today is not my concern. Turning gratitude into a law or requirement destroys the beauty the gift. Instead, what I hope thanksgiving can school us in is taking stock of what it is that we are carrying that can be transformed by God. What makes a thanksgiving a thanksgiving in Scripture is the sacrificial aspect of it – when we give something to God as a means of participating in the sacramental and divine economy where all things are transformed by God’s love, all things are saved by beauty, and all things are made well. And for that sacramental truth, we say – Thanks be to God!
