A Deeper Understanding of Thanks

I remember so many times when I was growing up in rural Indiana, one of my parents (or even grandparents) would ask, “Did you thank him?”  They drilled into my head that I owed someone a word of thanks if I were given something or if I were told something special.  I suspect that I did not fully appreciate what they were doing for me.          

I am sure they were teaching me this lesson long before I could register what they actually were doing.  I know with my own kids and, now with grandkids, I am watching that age-old lesson being taught.  No doubt, the kids are too young really to grasp why saying “thanks” is all that important.  I know when I was young I was just happy to get a gift.  I am sure I was driven by pure self-interest.  In a one or two-year old, that is normal and fine.           

But learning to say “thanks” is an early lesson in self-transcendence.  That is a big word, which simply means, you are not the only one in the world!  What’s more, the world does not revolve around you and your interests.  Of course, I believe you and I are important.  In my theology we each bear the image of God.  We are precious children of God.  But we are not gods!          

I appreciate my parents instilling this habit of saying “thanks.”  I grew old enough finally to realize what they were doing.  They helped me see that people are often gracious to me.  More times than I could count, someone has given me a gift, said a nice thing to me, praised me---all these deserve a response like, “thanks.”  In many instances, saying “thanks” is the only appropriate response.  Not to respond seems like the epitome of selfishness.           

I would like to take “thanks” to a deeper level.  Little did I realize this would happen when I studied classical Greek language in graduate school.  However, I was pursuing a degree that required being able to read the New Testament and early Christian theologians in their original Greek tongue, so I learned Greek.           

I remember the day I hit the Greek word, eucharisteo.  This is the verb.  It also comes as a noun.  Being a Quaker---a non-Catholic---I did not see the inherent connection to our word, eucharist.  If I had been more savvy, I would have known that is the word for Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist---all synonyms for what many Christians still do today when they gather for worship.          

What I learned about that verb, eucharisteo, was more revealing than something about communion.  The Greek verb really needs to be translated, “to give thanks.”  The Eucharist---Holy Communion---is at its heart a “Thanksgiving.”  To put it the other way, “Thanksgiving” becomes a sacrament!  Communion sacramentalizes the simple, “thanks.”           

To me this came like a revelation.  It was as if the Holy One had spoken---had offered me an insight as profound as those writers of the biblical stories.  “Thanksgiving” is at its deepest level a sacrament.  Of course, as a Quaker I would not have been able to define precisely what a sacrament was.  But I learned what St. Augustine would say and I liked it.  A sacrament is a “visible sign of an invisible reality.”           

To say “thanks” is to create a momentary sacred bond between the giver and the receiver.  The one to whom something is given says, “thanks”---the visible reality (a sound, a word) of an invisible reality (gratitude, a sense of being graced).  On the surface this might seem like much ado about nothing.  Surely, saying “thanks,” if someone merely opens the door for me, is not sacramental.  But why not?  Why does a sacrament have to be large-scale, like baptism and Holy Communion clearly are?  What about the little, sacramental moments?           

I would like to think any time we say “thanks” (if it is sincere and authentic), we have created a sacred moment.  “Thanks” is a reciprocal, closing the loop between the giver and the receiver.  You give me something and I say, “thanks.”  My “thanks” loops back to you, the giver, and bonds us momentarily in a sacramental connection.  It is a sacred exchange.           

This is profound because we all know the sadly secular nature of our world.  We live in a time when folks are out to rip us off, take advantage of us, grab while the grabbing is good, etc.  It is a dog-eat-dog world, you know.  All these betray an attitude of selfish initiation and competition.           

The attitude of “thanks” and “thanksgiving” is an attitude of openness, receptivity and appreciation.  This attitude allows the Sacred into the middle of our dealings with one another: a gift, a recognition, a sacrament.  Knowing all this gives me a deeper understanding of thanks.  Thank God!