“THAT’S GRATITUDE!”
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21)
September 27, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania

TEXT:
The rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people
of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We
remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers,
the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our
strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to
look at.”

Numbers 11:4-6 (ESV)

I remember, as a child, my Dad bringing home his paycheck on Friday
when he came home from work. That was the night that we all got into
the car and went with Mom and Dad as they did our weekly grocery
shopping. Dad’s paycheck was usually somewhere between sixty and
seventy dollars for the week. Granted, that was a lot more money in
the late fifties and early sixties than it is today, but it still had
to stretch a long way to provide for a family of four. We didn’t have
a lot of the luxuries that other families had but we never thought of
ourselves as being “poor,” probably because nobody ever told us that
we were poor. My parents owned our house and car (and both of them
were paid for) and we never had to wonder where our next meal was
coming from. What this illustrates to me today is that many of those
who are considered “poor” in this country are not really poor at all
when compared with the poor worldwide. It’s amazing how many of us
who have lived through leaner times (myself included) start to take
what we have for granted and are disappointed that we don’t have more.

That kind of attitude is nothing new. Today’s Old Testament Reading
describes the children of Israel, wandering in the wilderness on their
way to the land of promise. Earlier in this chapter Moses writes:
“The people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their
misfortunes” (Number 11:1). This happened repeatedly during the
Israelites’ wilderness wanderings. God had delivered them from the
slavery of the Egyptians “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,
with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders” (Deuteronomy 26:8)
and yet they complained about their present state of affairs,
lamenting the fact that they no longer enjoyed the material comforts
that they had in Egypt. Apparently they feared and disliked the
responsibilities of freedom more than they valued that freedom itself.
So that we might learn from their example and be better equipped to
evaluate and address our own attitude toward the gifts of God, let’s
examine the problem of ingratitude that the people of God often have
and how that problem might be solved.

The first problem that the ancient Israelites had and that we have as
well is the way in which we often tend to evaluate our lot in life.
It’s a classic case of seeing the glass as being half empty rather
than half full. Instead of rejoicing in what they had, the Israelites
of old complained about what they did not have. The blessings of God
that surrounded them were so plentiful that they had become bored with
them. Their response to the Giver of all good things was not the
gratitude that you might expect; it was dissatisfaction over what they
lacked. We often find ourselves adopting the same kind of attitude.
What we have, no matter how plentiful and wonderful it may be, is “old
stuff” to us. We quickly become bored with it and are always craving
something new and exciting.

The other problem that the children of Israel had in this Old
Testament Reading is that they had a skewered view of their past.
Many philosophers (at least the ones that I read in college) have made
note of the fact that memory is far superior to reality because we can
edit our memories according to our liking, removing the bad and
exaggerating the good, whereas reality simply is what it is, whether
we like it or not. When thinking back on their experience in Egypt,
the Israelites had selective memory. They didn’t choose to think of
the hard labor and the humiliation that they had been delivered from;
all they thought about was the variety of food that they no longer had
available to them. As a result, they were not grateful that God had
miraculously provided them with nourishment in the wilderness; instead
they complained about their bland diet and they longed for “the old
days” in Egypt, where they enjoyed “meat . . . fish . . . cucumbers .
. . melons . . . leeks . . . onions [and] garlic.” How often do we
likewise become bored with the same old blessings that God gives us in
the Gospel of His Son and long for something different?

The solution to the problem that both the people of Israel and we
have is to focus on the blessings that God has given us rather than
lamenting the fact that we don’t always get everything that we want
precisely when we want it. God had already done so much for the
children of Israel. He had chosen them, of all the nations of the
world, to be His very own. He had delivered them from slavery in
Egypt and was about to give them the fruitful land that He had
promised to Abraham and his descendants. The things that they thought
they may have lacked were nothing compared with the status and the
riches with which He God endowed them out of His pure mercy and grace.
We also have received much from the Lord--much more. Through no merit
or worthiness of our own God gave us life and all that we need to
sustain it; He became incarnate in His Son to take our place under His
own Law and judgment; and by His Holy Spirit, working through the
Gospel, He called us to faith and discipleship so that we might have
as our very own the gifts of salvation that Jesus gained for us with
His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death.

If we were to concentrate on these gifts of grace and mercy, we would
no doubt value them above everything else--especially above the
material things that we long for. Jesus said: “Seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be
added to you” (Matthew 6:33) and “Where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). The profound truth, as no doubt
Fred Heintz can tell you after his recent mission trip, is that people
who have the least in material things are often the ones who value the
Gospel of Christ more than anyone else. They are poor, no doubt about
it--poorer than many of the “poor” in our country that we hear so much
about. But in fact they are richer than any of us. Freed from all of
the distractions that material possessions place before us, they are
able to hold, value, and give thanks for the “one thing [that] is
necessary” (Luke 10:42)--the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The ancient people of God looked at their situation as they wandered
in the wilderness, compared it with their past life of slavery in
Egypt, and concluded that the old life was better. The people of God
today often do the same thing. How often do we (and I am perhaps the
chief of sinners in this regard) lament the fact that “things just
ain’t the way they used to be”? Like it or not, we don’t live in the
past; we live in the here and now. Our Lord has assured us, through
the life and ministry of Christ, that He is with us in good times and
in bad, and that He will surely give us everything that we need until
He graciously takes us to Himself and perfectly fulfills our every
need and desire. By His grace and promise we can always take comfort
in the assurance of Saint Paul, who wrote to the Philippians: “I am
sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to
completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

Amen.

May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.