Justice and gratitude

A friend recently reposted on Facebook a tweet that made the very worthy point that people who build accomodations for the handicapped in churches shouldn't expect effusive thanks from the people they've helped, since the act was a simply the duty of justice. It's a great point! But it made me reflect more deeply on the tension between justice and gratitude.

Justice of course is mandated by God. We need to treat our brothers and sisters justly. But gratitude is also mandated by God, and in fact is arguably the central Christian virtue. We need to give thanks, not only for what is granted us gratuitously, but also for what we receive that is simply our due.

These days everyone has rights. But (to vastly simplify) back in the day, all the rights belonged to one man (typically male), a monarch, or a small set of people, an aristocracy. Everyone else served them and received at their will. Whereas most people had to express gratitude for everything, the rulers got whatever they wanted, as their right, and thus had no need to express gratitude. The latter had no need to build the virtue of gratitude. So a small subset of people were designated with a tendency to lack a key virtue necessary for salvation, but the bulk of the population was given to exercise this virtue often.

These days of course, everyone is equal: we have all been elevated to the level of the rich rulers of the past. But our wealth is not primarily in money or real estate, but in rights. We all have equal rights, and thus we all equally are handicapped in the virtue of gratitude. Modernity has damned us by giving us nothing to hope for.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:23-24)

So while there can be no argument that everyone should have justice, it is also clear why we moderns have such difficulty with Christian faith.