In understanding a concept, it is often helpful to consider its opposite. So on Thanksgiving Day, it’s fitting to think about being thankful; that is to say, gratitude. What is the opposite of that? “Ingratitude” doesn’t get us very far. I propose that the opposite of thankfulness is entitlement.
This thought came to me when I came across a passage from Mark Tooley, a conservative Methodist who heads the Institute for Religion and Democracy, from two years ago. I lift this completely out of the original context, a discussion of some Christians who have given up on America and want to start over:
In contrast with most of the world and most people in history, we today in America are mostly wealthy, comfortable, and free. We live where we want, usually in nice homes, and we go where we want, usually in nice cars. We eat well, we befriend whomever we want, we say and think what we want, and we often complain, sometimes justly, about what we don’t have. More often, our complaints reflect the sense of entitlement that we, as covetous sinners, all have to some extent. Why isn’t God giving us more? Who is holding us back? Why are we victims of such injustice? Why must we live among people we know to be wrong?
The sense of entitlement! We think that we deserve the good things we have. I deserve a nice home, a nice car, nice cuisine, a nice family, and a nice job. And if I don’t have those things up to my standards of satisfaction, I feel like a victim of injustice. “It’s not fair.” This feeling is usually heightened by covetousness, resentment at what other people have that I don’t. But if we do have these good things, we take them for granted, since they are nothing less than we deserve.
The sense of thankfulness, in contrast, is the awareness that many, at least, of the good things we have come to us as gifts. To be sure, we might earn our salaries, which we deserve through our own hard work. But we did nothing to deserve our talents and abilities, our upbringing in the family we were born into, our spouse and children, the various vocations where God has placed us, the opportunities that have come our way.
These and other good things in our lives come to us not because we have earned them, much less deserve them because of our wonderful qualities, but out of grace. The grace of people who have shown us generosity–our parents, teachers, mentors, friends, loved ones–and, ultimately, the grace of God.
The connection between thankfulness and grace is made explicit in the very language of the Bible. The Greek word for thanksgiving is εὐχαριστία. Eucharistia. This, in turn, comes from “eu,” the word for “good,” plus “charis,” the word for “grace.” To be thankful is a response to a “good grace.”
Christian author Ann Voskamp, whose book One Thousand Gifts is intended to sensitize Christians to their God-given blessings, explores in an interview the implications of that word as it is used in Scripture:
This is the word that can change everything: eucharisteo—it comes right out of the Gospel of Luke: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them … ” (Luke 22:19 NIV). In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”
The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Charis. Grace. Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving. Chara. Joy.
Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo; the table of thanksgiving. The holy grail of joy, God set it in the very center of Christianity. The Eucharist is the central symbol of Christianity. Glynn, doesn’t the continual repetition of beginning our week at the table of the Eucharist clearly place the whole of our lives into the context of thanksgiving?
One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks.
This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.
Why? Why is remembering and giving thanks the core of the Christ-faith? Because remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust; to really believe. Re-membering, giving thanks, is what makes us a member again of the body of Christ. Re-membering, giving thanks is what puts us back together again in this hurried, broken, fragmented world.
So Thanksgiving is connected to grace, faith, joy, Christ, and Holy Communion! In that spirit, have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Illustration: Holy Eucharist by stephencuyos via OpenClipArt, CC 1.0
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