Most 21st-century Americans have a lot to be grateful for in the context of our country. For one thing we enjoy freedom. In our national anthem we call ourselves "the land of the free."

But freedom isn’t the capacity to do whatever we want. Rather, freedom is the capacity to make basic choices for ourselves. We are free to decide where we are going to live, where we are going to work, where our children are going to go to school, where we are going to worship on Sunday, or even if we are going to worship on Sunday. No agency of government can make these decisions for us. We are a free people.

There are other things for which to be grateful, too. Most of us live very comfortably, probably more comfortably than any large group of people in the whole history of humankind. Food is abundant. The vast majority of us never has to worry about whether we will be able to find food for tomorrow or whether there will be enough food to go around.

Most of us are comfortably housed. Our homes are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Generally our employers provide us with time for an annual vacation and with a pension when we retire. (Most people who have lived on this earth never had the chance to retire!) We enjoy a certain level of security. Most of us don’t have to worry a lot about being beaten up or robbed. There are police forces to protect us.

Comfort and safety and political rights and all kinds of freedom seem as ordinary to most of us as the air we breathe. Yet there are millions of people throughout the world who do not enjoy these blessings. There are also many people in our own country who find that their participation in these blessings is limited in one way or another. There are some whose very lives are threatened before they are even born.
All of this has consequences for us. All of this presents some things that call for our consideration, some demands that the Lord makes of us in giving us this kind of country to live in.

First of all, we are called to be aware that the gifts we enjoy do not happen spontaneously. Our freedoms and our civil rights and our resources do not come to us out of the blue, on their own. They come to us as the result of human effort. It takes effort to keep our country free and to defend all human life. It takes thought and reflection to use our political rights to their best effect. If we are going to enjoy food in abundance and appropriate working conditions and personal security, somebody has to see to it that there are laws and directives and restraints that make it all possible.

And where does all that come from? What makes it all possible? The ongoing efforts and personal contributions of a free citizenry. We are all responsible for making our country what we want it to be, and we exercise that responsibility by participating thoughtfully in the political and social life of our country. None of us is allowed to sit back and let others do it all. All of us are called to vote, to help form public opinion, to collaborate in bringing about the kind of country we want to live in.

We are all responsible for justice. We are all called to participate in seeing to it that all the men and women of our country have their rightful share of what our country provides, that they have what they need in order to live a decent and comfortable life. The fact that many in our land are hungry or ill-housed or unemployed, the fact that the unborn are threatened is not just their problem. It’s our problem, too, because we are all in this together and no one should think that he or she is privileged to receive without being expected to give.

Our call to participate in the social life of our country, our call to help bring justice to the threatened and the poor is not something we should look upon as a burden. Granted, we are obliged to vote and influence public opinion and work for justice for everybody. But that’s not just an obligation. It’s a privilege. It’s a gift from God to be called to collaborate in God’s loving plan for His world.

It’s a gift from God to share responsibility for making the best possible home for God’s beloved creatures. The ability and the call to share in God’s work in the life of our country and its citizens calls for gratitude. God wants us to be grateful citizens as well as grateful believers.