Does God expect gratitude and obedience from us for all the blessings we receive?

October 5, 2025

The parable of the master and the slave in today’s Gospel is essentially reminding us that doing good is not something that we need to be praised or rewarded for, but rather is just something that we ought to do. This is a theme I have taken up in an earlier blog (Why should we do good? Oct. 20, 2024) in which I had spoken of how good that is done in order to gain a reward is not really good, but a business transaction, as it were.   Being good, as I have said earlier, is essentially being our best selves, aligning ourselves with our essential nature, and so do we really need praise or a reward for doing that?

And if that parable applies to us, then does it also apply to God?  Wouldn't we agree that God loving us is just God being God’s true self? And if we apply what the master in the parable tells the slave, can't we say that there is no recompense or reward that God expects of us, just because God loves us.   Jesus expresses this powerfully in the parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father doesn’t expect anything from his son, but only longs for his return.  So God will not, even can not, stop loving us, whatever we do.  And God too does not expect us to ‘pay God back’ by worshipping God, praising God etc, just because God loves us. This lesson is repeated by Jesus a number of times, as for example when he teaches that God sends his rain on the just and the unjust (Mathew 5:45).  Loving all of us is just who God is. 

But then haven’t many of us grown up to believe, that we must thank and praise God for all the beneficence, bestowed on us? Don’t many of us also  believe that if we show ingratitude for God’s love by disobeying God, then we will even be punished by God?

But in the light of today’s parable, and this understanding of what it means to be good, is that a belief we need to reflect further upon?  I am, of course, referring only to suffering (punishment?) that we think comes to us because of our 'sins'.

When we see someone with addictive behaviour, we understand easily that it is their addictive behaviour which ‘destroys’ them; their own choices which bring harm to them. It is not God who punishes them. Sometimes,  too, our suffering is caused by what could be a conscious, even perhaps valid, choice. I am currently in touch with an aged person who is near destitute. He managed to get admission into a relatively comfortable Home for Aged, but he chose to leave the place soon after, because he preferred his freedom to the regimentation that was demanded in that Home. This choice to be unfettered, whatever the cost, has become a pattern in his life, and has affected how he has dealt with his own family, his jobs, his entire life. Anytime he felt somebody was controlling him, he walked out of that ‘situation’. Is he suffering today?  Yes, of course.   Has anybody punished him? Not really.  

To continue with this thought, in my previous blog, I had referred to the Northwestern University study which pointed out that certain empathy centres in our brains are damaged as we strive to become increasingly rich, or more involved in the pursuit of power. And it is this damage that we have created that harms us. That damage is the suffering (punishment, if we want to call it that) that results from that choice. It influences and affects everything in our lives. Similarly, the Prodigal Son harmed himself by choosing to go away and live a life filled with self-gratification.  It is not the ‘father’ who punished him.  He punished himself by the way he lived.

And so, just like God is not interested in doling out punishment, neither is God interested in collecting admiration and gratitude.  Because by blessing us, loving us, God is just being God's true self.  Thanking God for the beneficence bestowed on us could, of course, help us connect with God - and that of course helps us by making us more at peace, more happy individuals. But it does not do anything for God; it does not change God's relationship with us. God will always love us whether we thank God or not.  Our choices, our character, the things that make us who we are, that is what leads us to our punishment, and our reward!  

But aren’t there many people who do evil, who succeed and seem not to suffer at all?  It all depends on what one means by success, what one means by ‘not suffering’.  The events that played out in Jesus’ life were the result of his choices. It led him to suffering and death on a cross. Did he suffer? Yes. Was he successful? 

Perhaps we need to reflect on who we consider successful.   Our understanding of what is success tells us much about how we have developed as persons, what are the values we hold dear, and even how Christ-ian we have become.

First Reading: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2: 2-4

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?  Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?  Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

Write the vision;
    make it plain on tablets,
    so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
    it speaks of the end and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
    it will surely come; it will not delay.
Look at the proud!
    Their spirit is not right in them,
    but the righteous live by their faithfulness.

Second Reading: 2 Timothy:6-8, 13-14

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands,  for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, in the power of God. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Guard the good deposit entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

 

Gospel: Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”  The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’?  Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ”