“Enduring Food and Feasting”
Original sermon given on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“Enduring Food and Feasting”
Deuteronomy 26, Philippians 4, John 6
In the name of the Living God, the Giver of All Good Gifts. Amen.
Happy Thanksgiving, Church Family! Like me, you may have some lasting memories of Thanksgiving Day — memories shoved deep inside you like stuffing in a turkey; or memories basted all over you, to over-extend the turkey metaphor.
Perhaps it’s memories of a banquet spread so large that extra tables and chairs were added. (Anyone else ever get relegated to the kids’ card table?) Since my mom’s here this year, I can share that we several times we had to set up the ping-pong table over the pool table in the basement, covering it with several tablecloths and squeezing the chairs around it in order to accommodate everyone.
There are memories of those who attend: relatives, distant and near; good friends; new boyfriends or girlfriends (no old ones though); and even some stragglers and strays who happened to be in town with nowhere else to go.
There’s the big pile of dishes to be done at the end of meal. While some watch the football game on TV (the Lions lost a lot in those days), others worked together… cheerfully — it is Thanksgiving, after all — to wash, dry, and put away the mountain of plates and pans.
Perhaps there was a turkey-induced nap afterwards or a walk in the fresh air to clear the mind and get the digestive juices started.
No doubt there are memories of tension at Thanksgiving. Tension over people or politics; religion or relationships; past sins or unresolved hurt — getting that many people to get along for a couple of hours is a Thanksgiving miracle in itself. But we’re supposed to have this moment when whatever divides us is not as important as what unites us — we’ve been given so much, at least we can be thankful together.
Maybe your household watched “A Charle Brown Thanksgiving” where we all learned that popcorn and buttered toast served by silly Snoopy is as good as any feast, if our hearts are in the right place.
This is all particularly an American cultural memory of Thanksgiving; together with the mythic image of the Mayflower Pilgrims in New England, having survived the harsh winter, now rejoicing in abundance. Few nations do it quite like we do, but many peoples and cultures have harvest festivals or autumnal feasts. Which raises perhaps the greatest question of the day: what really is at the heart of Thanksgiving for the Christian? How is ours different?
I’m going to offer three things, drawn from our three scripture readings, which take us into the heart of Thanksgiving: Remembrance of scarcity and sacrifice of the past; Rejoicing always; Refocusing on what is most important. (It has three “R”s so that might be helpful.)
Remembrance. In our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy 26, God commands them to make a first-fruits sacrifice — a special, specific thanksgiving ritual — as they prepare to enter the promised land. He does this because he knew they’d forget. Things were not always this good. They’d had a hard past. And over generations it would be too easy to forget from where they had come. They were enslaved; they had very little; they traveled in tents. It was God who delivered, saved, blessed, provided, and then gave bounty. God commands a sacrifice of thanksgiving not because he needs it, but because they need it. The richer we become, the poorer our thanks becomes because we forget. Few of us know want, hunger, poverty, insecurity, and so we assume this is the way it has always been and will always be. So, God commands a sacrifice of thanksgiving to help them remember.
The Pilgrims in early America on that mythic first thanksgiving hadn’t forgotten. Their story, of course, has rather grown with the telling over the generations, but this much is true: it had only been the last winter, when things had been so different. And so, they enthusiastically brought forth the fruits of the earth and generously shared with others because they remembered how hard and scary it had been. We should remember this too.
In Deuteronomy 26 God calls the children of Israel to remember and give thanks — he commands it — because he knows that abundance would work in them a sort of thankless amnesia. “Then you shall declare before the Lord your God (he even tells them exactly what to say) … ’So now I bring forth the first fruits of the the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’” (Dt. 26.10)
Our own Lutheran heritage, here at First Saint Paul’s and across the broader church, is worth remembering with thanksgiving too. Our forebearers sacrificed much and gave out of their poverty to support their churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, charitable organizations. We do well to remember their sacrifices today and to imitate their generosity.
To be thankful is, firstly, to remember. It hasn’t always been this way; and it might not always be. Today, take a moment to recognize abundant blessings and to, like the Hebrews, remember from whom all blessings flow: “The Lord gave; the Lord promised; the Lord provides.”
So Christian thanksgiving remembers the scarcity and sacrifice of the past. Secondly, it rejoices… always. In our second reading, St. Paul writes to the Philippian Christians at a time of great persecution and uncertainty. He’s under house arrest (probably in Rome) and knows not whether he will live or die. Yet he writes what we call “the Epistle of Joy”: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say rejoice… do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.” Christian thanksgiving rejoices at all times and in all circumstances. This is hard, and so, again, that’s why God commands it. “Rejoice in the Lord always” is an imperative! There’s always a reason to rejoice; there’s always something to be thankful for.
I think of some of our Community Meal guests who gather on Saturdays. I find there some Christian examples of constant gratefulness and joy, despite so many hardships, that put me to shame. “How someone with so little give such thanks?” I say to myself.
It’s because Christian joy is not merely an emotion. It is a God-given disposition towards life — even towards adversity. In the hardest times, being thankful is the hardest task, but it also comes with the greatest reward.
So Christian thanksgiving is 1) remembrance of the scarcity and sacrifice of the past; it 2) rejoices in all circumstances; 3) it refocuses on what truly matters.
Today’s gospel reading from John 6 follows quickly upon the famous feeding of the five thousand. The crowds, having been fed with earthly bread, swarm around Jesus looking for more. Jesus admonishes them for their fixation with food that fails. He refocuses them on the “forever food” found in him. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life” (John 6.27). Faith in him; feasting on him; being filled by him — only this ultimately lasts and truly satisfies. Jesus refocuses them: there are better things than bread.
They hearken back to the miraculous manna in the wilderness. But Jesus has something even better — is something better. He will offer his very self for the life of the world, and no earthly banquet spread; or harvest gathered; or fellowship shared; or gift given can compare with what he offers now and eternally.
This is why Christian thanksgiving refocuses our eyes (and our bellies!) to the eternal banquet in heaven, a foretaste of which is spread before us this morning in Christ’s body and blood. The best thanksgiving hymns do this too. They rightly sing of harvests and bounty and earthly blessings but always refocus upon the gift of Christ and the gospel and eternal blessings.
For example, Stz. 4 of one of our Communion hymns this morning, “Come, Ye Thankful People Come”, sings of a final harvest of souls:
Even so, Lord quickly come
To Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy People in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin.” (LSB 892)
Stz. 4 of the hymn we’ll sing in a few moments, proclaims:
You Saints of God, lift up your hearts,
Rejoice in your salvation,
For mercy God in Christ imparts
To every generation.
Let gratitude your banner be,
For you, once slaves, are now set free
To be His new creation.
Thanksgiving is a call to remember times of scarcity and sacrifice; to rejoice always, especially when things are hard; and to refocus on eternal gifts. May God grant us true thankfulness.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
