“Shallow Thankfulness”
Text: Luke 18:9-14
11-27-2025
In the name of our God from whom all our blessings flow, dear friends in Christ. Years ago, when I first arrived here in Iowa, I attended the “New Church Worker’s Orientation” meeting for Iowa District West. In one of his talks to the group, District President Kapfer made an interesting comment. Keep in mind that he was talking to many of us who had never lived in Iowa and therefore didn’t know a lot about its history and culture. Having lived for 13 years over on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River, I didn’t think he would tell me anything new. But he said something that intrigued me. He explained how richly blessed this area is because in many places, the black topsoil goes down for several feet. And yet people live on it, drive on it, and farm it without realizing the great blessing underneath them.
I guess I had never thought about it, but he was right. When I farmed the land just outside of Omaha, it was very clear that we had a shallow depth of topsoil. All the farmers envied the guys who could get a hold of the rich, black dirt down by the rivers. The lighter soil everywhere else on the majority of farmland yielded smaller crops compared than over here. In many places, there are acres upon acres that are only good for grazing cattle on. Irrigation is the only way to get a decent crop out of that stingy soil.
So, whether you farm or not, you’re living on a gold mine made of dirt. But it hardly seems like it does it? Go down to the elevator, or the coffee shop, or the post office, or just about anywhere and you’ll hear people complaining about the poor farm economy. Grain prices are low but fertilizer and chemical costs are up. Cattle prices are great if you’re selling feeder calves but if you’re buying them to feed it’s way too expensive to make it work. And let’s not even talk about the cost of new machinery and repairs. All that doesn’t make you feel like you’re living on or near a gold mine, does it?
Or maybe it is and we just don’t realize it. Drive around this county and the neighboring ones and you’ll see mountains of excess grain piled up on the ground because there isn’t enough storage to hold it all. “But Pastor,” you say, “it doesn’t do us much good to have all that grain when it isn’t worth anything!” I know that. And I’m not trying to pretend that there isn’t a real problem for farmers. The point that I’m trying to make is that we still have plenty to be thankful for. Unfortunately, though, like that soil across the river, our depth of thankfulness can get pretty shallow at times.
When you consider all these blessings and compare them to what other countries have, you begin to see the depth of blessings we truly have. At our previous congregation we supported some agricultural missionaries over in West Africa. These missionaries would teach the native people about good and better farming practices while also sharing the Gospel with them. Quite an innovative approach, if you ask me. Anyway, they’d regularly send us photos of the proud African farmers standing next to their crop of corn. By teaching them new fertilization and cultivation techniques, these Africans were producing more and better crops to feed their families. Now, it may have looked like an outstanding crop to them but I’ve gotta tell you, it looked like a disaster compared to our fields. And yet, I’m confident those farmers praised God like never before when they harvested their crop. There weren’t piles of grain laying around, but there was more food for their tables that year.
Why is it that when we have less, we are more thankful to God? But the more we have, the shallower our thankfulness gets? It’s because when you live literally from hand to mouth, with no excess, you’re reminded daily of the goodness of God. You’re forced to rely on God’s mercy for your daily bread. And you’re compelled to go to Him in prayer thanking Him for giving you even the smallest of things that you need to survive.
But comparing our current circumstances in life to those of the less fortunate isn’t the right motive for our thankfulness. Especially when that thankfulness is driven by the belief that we somehow deserve what we have or that we have it because we are such a good person. That’s a very shallow thankfulness, if we can call it thankfulness at all. Did you listen to the prayer of the Pharisee in the Gospel lesson? He said: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men...” Now you tell me, was he really thankful to God? Not hardly. What he was saying is: “God I’m such a good person. I’m better than all these other low-lifes around me. And I’m thankful that you recognize it, Lord. I’m thankful that you rewarded me for all the good things I’ve done.” Friends, that isn’t thankfulness. It’s sinful arrogance.
I wonder what that Pharisee’s prayer would have been like if the next day, he lost everything? I suspect that any mention of “thanks” would have left his lips. Instead, it would have been, “Why do you hate me, God?” And our own thankfulness can get that shallow at times. It becomes, “God, I’ll thank you as long as things are going the way I want them to.” There was a song out in the late 70's that kind of expressed this mentality. The singer goes on and on about all his riches and fame. Then the refrain goes: “Life’s been good to me so far.” How often don’t we view life this way? How often don’t we view Thanksgiving this way? We say thanks to God for today, but the verdict is out about tomorrow because my status in life might change.
All of these are wrong motives for thankfulness. They are shallow forms of thankfulness. Over the years I’ve heard people complain that Thanksgiving Day seems to have been passed by. One day you see all the Halloween decorations up and the next day all the Christmas stuff appears. That’s not surprising, considering how shallow our thankfulness has gotten. The Scriptures, however, give us numerous examples of a true and deep thankfulness. Do you remember how in the book of Job God allowed every earthly possession and blessing to be taken from this godly man. Yet even after all this calamity, Job says: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” You see, Job’s gratitude was not based on his possessions or wealth or health. Regardless of all those things, he was thankful to God just for the gift of life and the Lord’s mercy he received.
Likewise, St. Paul writes those beautiful words in our Epistle lesson: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Keep in mind that he was a prisoner sitting in jail when he wrote that. What did Paul have to be thankful for? What did he have to rejoice over? The answer can be found in the simple prayer of the tax collector in the Gospel lesson because Paul had the same attitude. This man was a sinner and he knew it. He knew he didn’t deserve anything good from the hand of God. He knew there was nothing good in himself. Rather, all he deserved was God’s wrath and punishment. And yet, he humbly came to God, begging for mercy. He trusted that it was only from the goodness of God that he could be saved. The greatest blessing that God had to offer to this man was not material wealth and not a high status in society. The greatest blessing that God had to offer him was the forgiveness of sins.
And that’s the greatest blessing which God gives to you and me. Good crops, fair weather, a nice and warm home, plenty of food—all those are blessings from God. But they’re just gravy compared to the real blessing of God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ. You can be sure that when the tax collector left the temple, he truly had a thankful heart. Like Job and St. Paul, he realized that his sins were forgiven and he could rejoice by thanking God for this greatest blessing no matter what else happened in his life.
We too can have a deep and sincere thankfulness to God for this greatest blessing of all. We can have this deep thankfulness no matter what the circumstances are in our life. And we can show our gratitude as a response to God’s great love towards us. I’d like to encourage you all to take time this Thanksgiving to do just that. As you sit around your holiday table, whether you are surrounded by a whole bunch of people or just a few, stop and thank God for all His blessings in your life. Thank Him for your food, your home, your freedom, your family, and your friends. Thank Him for all those blessings. Then thank Him especially for the greatest blessing of all. Thank Him for the rich blessing of the forgiveness of your sins through His Son, Jesus Christ. May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving celebration filled with gratitude to God, the giver of all good things. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!