A Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday (the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost), Preached on 11 October, 2026, at Prince of Peace, Wasaga Beach, and Good Shepherd, Stayner, Anglican Diocese of Toronto. Readings for this Sunday: Exodus 32.1-14, Psalm 106.1-6,19-23, Philippians 4.1-9, Matthew 22.1-14
Thanksgiving, the time when we take stock of our blessings, traditionally thought of as blessings of the earth, and when, ideally, we think of others as ourselves. Thanksgiving can be thought of as an attitude that is sometimes expressed in prayers and hymns. This season reminds us that authentic gratitude comes from acknowledging our dependence on the God who sustains us.
The Christian write Anne Lamott has written that the best prayers she knows are ‘help me, help me, help me” and “thank you, thank you, thank you”. It’s a wise observation. We might go beyond it to say that all prayers, or at least, all prayers that we typically pray, fall into the two categories of “please” and “thank you”.
In their everyday use, both prayers are born out of urgency. We might pray “please help me” when we are racing to the hospital after receiving terrible news, or when we want the pain to stop.
“Please help” prayers are born of crisis. We need help and we’ll try anything, even prayer. Gratitude, our “thank you” prayers, are harder. In Luke’s gospel Jesus meets ten lepers, They shout “Jesus, master, have pity on us” (Lk 9:13). Jesus heals them. Nine go off happily, but only one turns back to say thank you. Jesus bitterly remarks, ““Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this [one[?”
It seems to me that we have to work at our “thank you” prayers because we can easily forget to be grateful when trouble has passed. When a person gets a clean bill of health, they might just go “Phew, lucky me!”. Praying “thank you Lord” is harder because we go deeper than just saying “lucky me”. We have to actually give God credit for being with us, for providing for us and protecting us. Our “thank you” prayers don’t come easily. Maybe that’s because the only time most of us are ok with depending on God is when we don’t know where else to turn.
These last few weeks in church our first lessons have been from the book of Exodus as we follow the Israelites in the wilderness. It’s a dangerous place. The people are totally dependent on God. They have no comforts, no food, no water, and so they blame Moses. They were slaves but they look back and think “Man, slavery was better than dying in this desert”. They stop trusting the God who has rescued them time and again, and they turn to a god of their own making, the golden calf.
It’s often said that the story of the Golden Calf is about idolatry, but it’s also a story of a Thanksgiving celebration that goes horribly wrong. What’s particularly tragic about this episode is that it is an example of misplaced gratitude. Not able to trust or understand the God they have, the Israelites want to give thanks on their own terms to gods of their own making, who will ask nothing of them in return.
I think that we as a society can be a lot like the Israelites. We don’t want to be dependent on God who asks us to do hard things, like love our neighbour, give of what we have, and renounce violence. Be we sure are ready to depend on Gods of our own making that don’t ask much of us. In Collingwood, where I live, it’s not uncommon to see luxury cars on the street. High price restaurants and boutique stores abound. Those with some spare millions can buy a luxury home in Blue Mountains and can join private ski and golf clubs. Spas and cosmetic surgeons offer youth and beauty.
We may not make golden calves, but we are inclined to put our trust in gods that we can comprehend and which seem to offer security. Our culture makes Gods which offer a sense of security and satisfaction, they tempt us to give them our trust and even gratitude that we have what others lack. These are gods that we turn to with misplaced gratitude. Being thankful to a God who makes demands on us is what I called earlier authentic gratitude.
Authentic gratitude is challenging because it makes us vulnerable – it exposes us to the needs of others and it does not meet every one of our perceived needs. Authentic gratitude takes us away from ourselves and towards God, which is why in our prayer books we combine our thanks AND our praise. Authentic gratitude means that we are grateful for the things that we hold in common with all humanity – the ability to love and be loved as creatures who all bear the image of God and who thus deserve equal dignity– and thus share what we have.
This Thanksgiving, may our gratitude be properly placed, with thanks and praise, in the living God who rescues us from sin and death, things that no god of our own making can do. May our prayers of “help me” be answered as we need and not as we deserve, and may our prayers of “thank you” be born of authentic gratitude which sees the love of God for all his creation and which compels us to love and share with our neighbours.
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