Thanksgiving 2026

 

Deuteronomy 8: 7-18; Psalm 65; 2 Corinthians 9: 6-15; Luke 17: 11-19

There's a modern type of psychology that is sometimes called Positive Psychology. When you go to a psychologist generally you go because you are treating a problem of some kind, and so you'll go to a psychologist to help you with your anxiety, or your depression, or grief, or a trauma you've experienced. Positive Psychology differs from the usual approach in that it tries to look at how to develop and maintain a healthy psychological state. So it's not looking at the problem as much as it's looking at creating general psychological health.

One aspect of Positive Psychology has to do with learning to grow in gratitude. These psychologists have found that learning to be grateful reduces negative emotion and improves life satisfaction. They recommend practices such as gratitude journaling, listing things that you're grateful for, and writing letters to people you're grateful for.

The neuroscientist Alex Korb, in his book “Upward Spiral”, writes this. 

“Some brains are wired to focus more on the negative, and that tendency gets even worse in depression. But there’s a powerful force that directly combats negativity, and it’s called ‘gratitude.’ Gratitude is a potent antidote to negativity because it doesn’t depend on your life circumstances. You could be poor and starving and yet still grateful for a warm breeze. Conversely, you could be rich and powerful and still be annoyed at the sound your husband makes when he’s chewing. Gratitude is a state of mind—in fact, there’s a gratitude circuit in your brain, badly in need of a workout. Strengthening that circuit brings the power to elevate your physical and mental health, boost happiness, improve sleep, and help you feel more connected to other people.”[1]

“Dozens of studies in recent years have shown the benefits of gratitude. Perhaps most importantly, gratitude improves mood. When you think about and express more gratitude, it’s easier to feel positive emotions.”

A.J. Jacobs, who identifies as a secular Jewish man, wrote a book about an experiment where he tried to live the directions of the Old Testament as literally as he could. His book is called "The Year of Living Biblically." The book was written a bit tongue-in-cheek, and is fairly irreverent. He grew a long beard, wore a long robe, and walked around with a staff… sort of as a stereotypical Old Testament character you might see in a comic strip. While the book is mainly comedy, there are some significant reflective moments. … Among the things he noticed about this personal experiment was that he experienced heightened gratitude. So, one of the things he learned was that following the way of life suggested by the Bible will make you more grateful.

Our readings today are chosen around the theme of gratitude to help us celebrate Thanksgiving. … Deuteronomy is the final words of Moses to the people before he dies. They were about to enter the Promised Land, which had been promised to them from the time of Abraham. After being rescued from Egypt, they had spent time in the wilderness being shaped so that they could be God's people in this new land.

Living in this land is going to require that they live in a particular way. Moses helped the people to understand the covenant that would guide them. And it is by these words of God that they will live in this land.

In verse 3 we read words that Jesus quoted during his temptation in the wilderness: 

"Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." 

The words that come from the mouth of the Lord are the commandments that they have been given. These words are tied to their life in the Promised Land. To ignore these words is to remove themselves from the security of their position in the land and the bounty that is tied to it. Living in the Promised Land means that they will have everything they need, and we read, "You shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you."

When they were living in the wilderness they learned an extreme dependence on God. The bread that sustained them rained down on the land. They didn't have to work to make it. They only had to gather the manna from the ground. … They didn't have to hunt for meat. Quail rained on their camp. … The water was provided for them from a rock. Everything they needed was provided for them. They learned to rely on the provision of God. It was only through God's provision that they were able to survive. They had to learn to trust God to provide for them.

Now in the Promised Land, they will have to work the land. But this will come with a different kind of temptation. Prosperity can create a kind of forgetfulness. We read, 

"Beware, lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth" (Deut 8:17).

 The new temptation will be to think they don't need to thank God for anything because they've earned everything they have through their own efforts. “'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” But Moses is reminding them that God has placed them in this land and God has given them the strength they've used to draw the resources from the land.

This might be a temptation for us in Alberta, who often pride ourselves in being very self-sufficient and hardworking. But spiritually, this can become a temptation away from gratitude. It's good for us to be reminded that the strength we use to work was not something that we earned, but it was something that was given to us from God. The bodies we were born with, the brain we were given, the circumstances that we were born into, were not anything we earned. We could have been born in a different part of the world, for example. So, we are encouraged to be grateful to God for the circumstances that He has given us, and for the strength He has given us to be able to build our life.

Psalm 65, which we just read, expands on our reading from Deuteronomy. God waters the earth, God enriches it, God crowns the year with goodness- with harvest. It's a hymn of gratitude, reminding us that creation itself is sustained by God's generosity. While Deuteronomy reminds us to not forget who gave us our strength, Psalm 65 reminds us to not forget who gives the world its fruitfulness. You can work very hard in a desolate land and still not create wealth . with the strength of your arm.

I want to touch on our other two readings, which are both in the theme of gratitude.

Thinking on a different aspect of gratitude, we have Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. This reading shows us a consequence of gratitude, which is generosity. A mindset that is focused on scarcity will always be concerned that we don't have enough, so we need to protect what we have. A scarcity mindset is opposed to a gratitude mindset. A scarcity mindset cannot be generous. Its instinct is to greedily gather and protect what we have because we fear we won't have enough for ourselves. A mindset focused on gratitude, however, is able to be generous with the abundance that we have been given. We see how generous God has been with us. St. Paul says, 

"You will be enriched in every way, to be generous in every way" (2 Cor 9:10). 

Knowing where our abundance has come from, and not focusing on what we lack, or fearing we don't have enough, with grateful hearts we will be cheerful givers rather than reluctant givers. So gratitude will make us more generous.

In our reading from Luke 17, there are 10 lepers who are healed but only one returns to give thanks. Even when something miraculous happens, gratitude is not necessarily automatic. We have seen this as we watched the Hebrews walk through the wilderness through our Exodus readings over the last number of weeks. They were miraculously provided for and yet they still grumbled. In our gospel, All ten lepers were miraculously healed, but only one returned to give thanks … and this was a Samaritan. It was an outsider. It was a heretic by their standards. The other nine seemed to use Jesus as a means to an end. They used him to get what they wanted. He was a means to receive their healing and return back to their lives. It is possible to have that attitude towards God, thinking of him like a divine genie granting us our wishes.

If we want to truly learn to be grateful people, then that means placing God at the centre of our gratitude. Gratitude is a muscle we train. It is a spiritual discipline that trains us to see our lives with thanksgiving to God. If we can learn to see every breath we take as a gift from God: the air that fills our lungs; the beating of our hearts; the meal we eat; the sunshine that radiates down on the field; the rain that watered the plants; the energy that caused the growth in the seed; the farmer that harvested; the miller that made the flour; the baker that made the bread; the strength of our bodies and minds help us to create wealth to purchase the bread; and the bounteous context in which we find ourselves, where bread is made available to us so we can buy it. … If we can learn to see all of these things as gifts from God, then we will ultimately have more spiritually mature souls. And positive psychology says that we'll even have more healthy minds and bodies. But gratitude isn't just good psychology. It's an essential posture of faith. It is an essential feature of a relationship with God.

So today, on Thanksgiving, we are invited to do what that Samaritan did - to stop, to turn back, and to place God at the centre of our gratitude. AMEN

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[1] chapter 10: Activate a Gratitude Circuit