Thanksgiving Day is an occasion to reflect on gratitude and what it means to us. It raises questions such as: Am I thankful for what I have received? Am I not thankful because I wanted more? Should I be more grateful for what I have? All good questions.

In Deuteronomy, the Israelis are instructed to bring the first fruits to where God will have a dwelling place (the Temple ) in gratitude both for the deliverance from the Egyptians at the Red Sea and for the produce of the land which Yahweh has given them. (Deut. 26: 1-11) They are also reminded of their frailty as former aliens so that, in their gratitude, they will be generous to others in need. This is an ideal vision of gratitude for what God has done for us.

In Philippians, Paul urges his congregation to make their requests known to God with prayer “and thanksgiving.” (Phil. 4: 6) That is, we thank God with anticipation before we have received what we ask for. The implication is that we are to be thankful for what we receive, even if it isn’t everything we asked for, and possibly nothing at all of what we wanted. That is, we are to be thankful to God, trusting that God does give us what we most truly and deeply need, which might not be what we think we need, at least not at the time. Most of us find ourselves grateful later on for some of the things we asked for that God did not grant us.

In John’s Gospel, in the aftermath of Jesus feeding the multitude in the wilderness, (Jn. 6: 25-35) several dynamics of thanksgiving, and the lack thereof, come into play. The people want more, but more what? Are they grateful or greedy? Jesus perceives that they just want more bread; what they received was not enough. He urges them to see the feeding as a Sign, a Sign being an act with a deeper meaning than the surface action. “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (Jn. 6: 26) The people themselves then refer to the manna their ancestors received during the desert journey. This inadvertently gives Jesus an opening for explaining the depth of the Sign. The bread came from Heaven as a gift of God. But this allusion to the manna in the desert also recalls the ingratitude of their ancestors, who complained about the manna. Will the people Jesus is talking to end up complaining with ingratitude as well?

At first, it seems that maybe they will receive the sound teaching. When Jesus says “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.,” (Jn. 6: 33) the people ask him to give them this bread always. But when Jesus responds to this request by declaring that he himself is the Bread of Life, they complain bitterly, because they do not see how a man they think they know, a man from nearby Nazareth, can be the Bread of Life who will sustain them in anything at all, let alone Eternal Life. So, we don’t see from the people in this Gospel story a very good example of gratitude.

Being modest in what we ask for is a good ingredient in a recipe for gratitude. If less is enough to make us thankful, chances are we will be thankful more often than not. But the quality of what we want has even more to do with thankfulness. If we want Jesus Himself, the Bread from Heaven, then we will receive what we ask for and we will be grateful. We don’t need quite so many material goods if we are more interested in receiving Jesus, and we are more likely to be generous as Jesus is generous. This is the way to “ the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” (Phil. 4: 7)