Harvest Thanksgiving [John 6:25-35]

This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church, Tailem Bend (9 am) and St. John Lutheran Church, Karoonda (11 am) on 10 February, for the celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving. 

It's very funny that on the day we give thanks for the harvest, and give of our harvest, that we would hear words from Jesus from John chapter 6: The Bread from Heaven discourse, which talks about spiritual gifts and spiritual eating. It's like we bring our harvest, with thanks, only to hear: “that's nice, but let's talk about something better.” But it is only that we may give double thanksgiving on this day.

Thanksgiving on top of Thanksgiving is what the Church gives because Christ is the true bread from heaven.

The Church gives thanks for the harvest and for all earthly gifts. (See, we are here to talk about the harvest). We do this in two ways. The first way is by what we say about the harvest during our everyday life. We say that God set up and blessed this work way back in the garden of Eden before Adam and Eve fell into sin. God put Adam in the garden to work and keep it. When we work the land we do it knowing securely that Christ our Lord hasn't forbid this work but only upheld it, and that we have God's command to work the earth and his promise that this is pleasing to him and that he will provide through this work.

We look at every earthly gift of God in the same way: Martin Luther wrote in the Large Catechism “[God] causes all created things to serve for the uses and necessities of life. These include the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, day and night, air, fire, water, earth, and whatever it bears and produces. The include birds and fish, beasts, grain, and all kinds of produce. They also include whatever else there is for bodily and temporal goods, like good government, peace, and security.” So we learn from this article that none of us owns for himself, nor can preserve, his life nor anything that is here listed or can be listed. This is true no matter how small and unimportant a thing it might be. For all is included in the word Creator” - as in “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”

And we don't just do this on Harvest Thanksgiving, we do it a lot on Sundays. During the service of Communion, when we say, “it is truly right, and for our lasting good, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you . . .”, we are giving thanks. It's always good to give thanks to God for everything good.

And when we pray the offering prayer; we mention “what you have first given us – ourselves, our times, and our possessions” and that includes our money, and so what we give to the Lord on the Lord's day is standing in for what we just said: ourselves, our time, and all our possessions. But they're not really gifts if God has first given them to us, they are a proper thank you for something that has been given. (it's like kids giving their parents a present all wrapped up - “Oh, it's my own watch. Thank you I guess.” - more of a 'thanks' than a 'giving').

At the same time,

The Church repents because it doesn't give thanks for the gifts of creation and for the gifts of the Church (“But you just said we do give thanks.” “I know.”) The people who found Jesus didn't give thanks in the right way for the feeding of the 5,000. “When [the people] found [Jesus] on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" ²⁶ Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” These are the people who were there for the Feeding of the 5,000. Jesus says the people didn't come because they saw signs (which point beyond themselves) but because they ate a lot (which doesn't point beyond being full); and to prove that they don't think Jesus is doing signs, they ask him what signs he does! After he just fed the 5,000! They didn't give thanks in the right way because in rejecting Jesus' signs they were rejecting spiritual gifts from him.

Unfortunately we too confine ourselves to the quest for earthly things at the expense of spiritual heavenly matters. And we can do that whether we can afford the earthly things or not, because we can pursue them in our heads by mentally arranging them in our house:, “Oh, I know right where I would put that thing and right where this thing should go”.

But all the while we never acknowledge that – everything is perishable. Even non-perishable food items aren't really. Imagine a can of beans after just 100 years. I wouldn't eat that. Even though that's true, still our sinful nature prefers the perishable over the imperishable. So Jesus says, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.” Martin Luther once preached, “Thus Christ directs the attention of the people to a different supply of food. But when this is proclaimed to flesh and blood, man soon loses interest in this message. Everyone is determined to remain with bread that he can see and feel. Thus the peasant sticks to his corn, saying: “Yes, I hear that You offer to feed me and to give me bread; but I fail to hear the guldens ring or to see the sacks of grain. Where are You keeping these? I am sure that You are a beggar Yourself. Where do You have Your granary? Where is this food?” In reply Jesus declares:

Which the Son of Man will give to you.” And all talk back is silenced.

We don't give thanks for the Word of God (the Holy Scripture), Baptism, and the Lord's Supper when we emphasize the 'give' over the 'thanks'. How can Baptism, the Word, and the Lord's Supper be just another thing that we give to God, when there is nothing we can give to God that he hasn't first given to us? Aren't these things then something different? Something he gives to us?

The Church gives thanks for all gifts because of the Bread from heaven – Christ Jesus our Lord (who reveals himself in his glory at the Transfiguration, which we also remember this day). For Christ and his cross puts everything in its proper place – earthly gifts remain earthly gifts, and spiritual gifts remain spiritual gifts. If Christ is the true bread from heaven, and if the work of God is to believe in Christ Jesus, we can give proper thanks for earthly bread, for him, and for his flesh (even all at the same time).

For Christ can give us all sorts of gifts – earthly as well as spiritual. The foundation of his spiritual gifts is that by his suffering and death he has freed me from sin, death, and the devil. And no earthly gift should take away from that or distract from that but only lead to that, just as we confess the creation of the earth and then right after the salvation of the earth when we confess the Apostles Creed.

And so thanksgiving is never the most important part of Sundays. If it was, everything would be backward. We don't give thanksgiving on Sunday as our gift to God, because then we would leave it at the altar and just go about our week without it. But we take the thanks for what God has done for us on Sunday especially, and we take it with us wherever we go every day of the week, in our hearts, mouth, song, and eyes (that we give thanks for every good gift that we see – clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that we have). The Christian life is a never-ending song of praise when our eyes see everything in the way that God gave it to us – and that includes fellow church members, family members, government, community, daily bread, the Lord's Supper, the Word – everything!

None of this can happen unless Christ is the true bread from heaven, as he says. This is why Jesus brings up Moses: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." ³⁵ Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Moses didn't give the bread from heaven but it came from God, and the true bread is someone greater than Moses: the Son of God, God himself, Jesus Christ.

He is the bread from heaven who gives eternal life by giving his flesh unto death on the cross that you may have this bread by faith and by eating his flesh. Jesus says that he is the bread from heaven and that his flesh is the bread from heaven, and that the one who eats his flesh will have eternal life. These are shocking words. There is an eating of Christ as the true Bread from heaven that happens in faith. And there is an eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Christ that occurs in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Both of these truths belong together, always. Again, Jesus is the foundation.

So what we do is, we confine ourselves to what Christ lays out for us. We look to all spiritual gifts and earthly gifts for what they are, because of who Christ is. Then we receive all good gifts and no fake gifts (fake gifts would be shown in the 10 commandments – your neighbor's good and property aren't gifts for you because they're for your neighbor, etc. And fake, false teaching isn't a gift because it doesn't teach Christ rightly.)

Conclusion: And so we bring a double thanks. Because Christ is Christ we repent for not giving thanks. Because Christ is Christ, we do give thanks. And because Christ is Christ, we give thanks for bread, for his cross, and for his flesh given for us which we eat. At the altar there is Thanksgiving upon Thanksgiving.  Amen.