Special thanks to M.H. for the reflection and discussion leading to this article.

Gratitude means “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

However, oftentimes two vices, which represent opposite extremes, get in the way of us practicing gratitude.  These extremes are envy and guilt.

Envy is when you go to the extreme of deficiency with respect to thanksgiving by having zero gratitude.

By guilt, I mean feelings of unworthiness.  Feeling unworthy is the opposite extreme, the extreme of excess, where one feels they do not deserve the grace they were shown, so it results in a diminished gratitude that takes away our focus from the gift-giver and turns it inward onto us.  This is a type of egoism.

The ideas of grace and gratitude are inherently connected.  In most of the languages I have studied, both grace and thanks are based on the same word. In the English language, the word “gratitude” comes from the word “grace.” Even in Greek the word grace is charis and gratitude is eucharistia.  In Coptic grace is ehmot and gratitude is shepehmot

Grace, by its nature, cannot be reciprocated, but only responded to.  The one who gives a gift (that is a grace) gives to one who has the choice to receive it or not.  When you choose to receive it, the response is to give grace back in the sense of expressing the disposition of your heart.  Gift-giving causes two things: first, the relationship between the gift-giver and recipient to grow, and secondly, it causes you to see the world, the other, and yourself in a different way.  It reveals something about reality.

I have a friend of mine, from Nigeria, who shared a story with me about his education. When he was a student, he had a teacher throughout middle and high school who taught him so many subjects.  Later, my friend immigrated to the West.  Decades later, he went back to visit Nigeria with his wife, and he tracked down his former teacher.  When he found him, he knocked on his door, and when his teacher opened, he prostrated himself on the threshold of the door of his teacher.  I asked him why, and he reflected that what his teacher gave him, he could never repay his teacher.

And I realized that teaching is an analogue for grace.  The teacher speaks and all at once enriches those hearing him, and forms those hearing him, and gives them a foundation to stand upon.  The students can never reciprocate this act of formation for their teacher, but they can respond with gratitude.  They can also pass it down to others, but more on that at the end of this article.

It is the same with God, the Church, and us.  But two things can get in the way of gratitude; two extremes: envy and feeling unworthy of grace.

Envy as Ingratitude

Envy as a type of ingratitude is portrayed in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20 and how that envy destroys gratitude and its effects.  In the Parable, a landowner hires laborers to come work on His vineyard and agrees to give them a denarius for their work at the end of that day.  Then he hires other workers at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours of the day due to the magnitude of the work.  He tells these newly hired workers that he will give them “Whatever is right” (Matthew 20:4, 7).

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard,

by Jacob Willemszoon de Wet

17th Century

When evening had come, that is the twelfth hour, the landowner summoned the hired laborers beginning with those whom he hired at the eleventh hour, and he gave them a denarius.  But when those hired at the first hour came, they thought they would receive more (because their eyes had turned to what their fellow laborers had received instead of what the landowner promised them), but they received a denarius like the others who came later.  They complained, but the landowner said,  ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ (Matthew 20:13-15).

And thus our Lord Jesus shows us something of gratitude.  The landowner, in his graciousness, gave to the workers who joined in the eleventh hour more than what they deserved out of his own goodness.  It was a totally free act on his part.  The workers of the eleventh hour did not show feelings of being unworthy but accepted their wages.

Feeling Unworthy as Diminishing Gratitude

The other vice that can affect our gratitude is feeling unworthy of the grace we were shown. In this case, it is a sort of guilt where one feels they have let the community down by receiving grace. This guilt diminishes our gratitude because we focus too much on ourselves and our current state, and it affects our relationship with the Gift-Giver and does not allow our vision to be transformed to see ourselves and the world in a different light due to grace.  It is a sort of feedback loop that causes stagnation in our spiritual and personal lives.

Feeling unworthy and or guilty is also a sort of inverted pride.  Instead of expressing itself externally in an explosive manner by some type of show of superiority, envy, or anger at seeing someone better than them, it instead expresses itself in an implosive manner, by doubting God’s grace.

An example of ingratitude due to guilt from the New Testament is Judas the former apostle.  When he betrayed Christ, he had his own selfish goal of getting rich in mind.  Did he know that if he delivered our Lord Jesus to the chief priests that they would kill Him?  Most likely so.  This is because the apostles knew for some time that the chief priests wanted to kill Him. What he probably did not know was that his conscience would wake up on him and convict him in the middle of our Lord Jesus’s trial.  So he regretted his actions, however he did not remember God’s grace.  Our Lord Jesus Christ taught that all sins are forgivable except one, which is to be interpreted as apostasy. Apostasy is continual standing away from the faith. How can one be forgiven, if they no longer believe or live in the faith on a continual basis? However, if they return, God will be waiting for them.

Our Lord Jesus had forewarned the disciples that they would all stumble this night, but that He would see them again. This indicates that He had already forgiven them ahead of their abandonment.  This is grace.  Judas wasn’t the only one at the trial.  We know that the apostles John and Peter were there.  The others were nowhere to be found, having already run as far away as possible. We know that Peter, even though he was courageous by following our Lord Jesus to the trial, eventually fell by denying knowing Him three times.  Judas could have chosen to join Peter and John and find some type of hope in that.  But he chose to go to the chief priests instead and give them their money back.  What good would that do?  This is the inverted pride.  He could not handle holding on to the money that betrayed our Lord Jesus, even though the damage was already done.  So he went instead and committed suicide.  His feeling unworthy, feeling guilty toward our Lord, toward the chief priests and Pharisees, and toward the apostles did not allow him to perceive the grace that was still available to him.  Feeling unworthy (as a sort of inverted pride) clouded all that.

I can’t help but see in this example an analogue in our current cultural and political environment in the West with the idea that one should feel guilty for the abundance they have.  But this kills gratitude and it toxifies the social environment.  I mean, most people today are not grateful; they are entitled, whether rich or poor.  This has led them to jumping to the extremes of feeling unworthy for the good they have (usually the rich) or envying those who have more than them (usually the poor, and oftentimes the rich).

What do I mean by abundance and entitlement?  In the West, both the “rich” and the “poor” have way more amenities available to them that have drastically improved the quality and length of life that were not even available to the richest people 100 years ago.  These include electricity, air conditioning, central heating, smart phones, and the abundance and ease of choices in shopping.

So what is the solution to the attitudes of envy and feeling unworthy?  The solution is learning to give cheerfully from what we have, and with conviction, and not just out of a sense of duty.

The Paradox of Gratitude

There is a paradox of gratitude.  Those who are thankful for what they have share abundantly what they have, whether it is money or a resource.  And this enriches those around them.  Abundance and gratitude do not go hand in hand.  Just because someone has any type of grace does not mean they see this as a gift.

An example from the Old Testament is Jonah the Prophet.  God commanded him to go east and preach repentance to the Ninveites to prevent their destruction.  The Ninevites were not Israelites; they were Gentiles.  Jonah did not like this, probably due to pride in being an Israelite, from the chosen people of God.  So he found a boat and went west, with Tarshish (modern day Spain) as his destination.  This was the farthest known country to the west.  What a level of disrespect!

So God sent a storm on the ship, and when each of the sailors prayed to his god to reveal who was being punished by this storm, the lot fell on Jonah and he confessed to them his sin.  He told them the storm would stop if he were thrown overboard, but the sailors tried their best to get to land, but when there was no hope, they did as he said, and threw him over.  He was then swallowed by a whale, and in the belly of the whale he repented and prayed a prayer to God.  Toward the end, he said,

“When my soul fainted within me,

I remembered the Lord;

And my prayer went up to You,

Into Your holy temple.

“Those who regard worthless idols

Forsake their own Mercy.

But I will sacrifice to You

With the voice of thanksgiving;

I will pay what I have vowed.

Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:7-9).

Here he finally responded to the Lord with gratitude, and showed the repentance that he himself was commanded to go preach to the Ninevites.  He was now able to give to them, because he himself acquired what he was to give.  At that point, the whale vomited him out and he went to Nineveh as the Lord commanded.  He preached to them and the people took his word to heart and began to repent.

Then, in a regression Jonah became angry that they heeded the words of God and repented.  “‘Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!’” (Jonah 4:2-3)

So he sat on the east side of the city and made himself a makeshift shelter and watched to see whether God would destroy the city, meaning he hoped that the people had not heeded the words of God.  So God caused plant to grow over him and shade him, and Jonah was well pleased (that is grateful) for this.  But the next morning, the plant died due to a worm damaging the plant and the sun causing it to wither away.  Then God caused a wind to come from the east, strong and hot and it beat on Jonah.  So again, Jonah expressed ingratitude saying “It is better for me to die than to live.”

God asked him whether it was right for him to be angry about the plant and Jonah replied, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

At that point God shows him that he did not work on this plant at all, but the city of Nineveh was huge and God was not going to overlook it which is why he sent him to preach repentance to them.

Just like in the VeggieTales episode on Jonah, they sang, “Jonah was a prophet who never really got it.”  What did Jonah not get?  He did not get that God can show grace to all.  And because his eyes were focused on himself and his nation, he shifted between the extremes of envy (of the Gentiles receiving grace) and guilt (for preaching to the Ninevites) and both led him to be ungrateful to God’s grace.

So what?

As I mentioned earlier, while people cannot reciprocate grace, they can also pass it down to others.  This is because God’s grace is intended to begin a genealogy of giving.  When God grants to us something (such as a resource, a job, a house, or money) or someone (such as a friend, a spouse, or a child), it ends up transforming us and we gain personally and spiritually.  This gain could be confidence in belief, ability to give, ability to share, or the patience, care, communication, love, and understanding that comes from receiving a person into your life.  These gains then equip us to show the same grace to others and share these abundances with them.  And when we do, they will share too, and God’s grace will multiply in the world and we shall become the city on the hill that our Lord Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount and we shall “let [our] light so shine before men, that they may see [our] good work and glorify [our] Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Otherwise, the world will become a lot worse than what it’s like now.  And it’s already not pleasant.

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