Potlicker: A derogatory term referencing a person’s low-class social status that comes from the deep American South. This insult arose from the depression era when people were so poor and hungry that many of the destitute children would knock on people’s doors at dinnertime and beg to “lick the pots” just to get a little bit of food to eat.
An urban term for “ungrateful pest.”
I know a man who really loves his children. However, he often refers to them in the oddest of terms; he calls them a bunch of “potlickers.” I will secretly listen in on the conversations he has with his children and at the points when they are really driving him crazy he says, “Shape up you little potlickers!” Or when he buys his children some candy at Speedway and they complain that he bought the wrong kind he says, “Just eat it you ungrateful potlicker.” One time my kids came walking down the hallway and he turned to them and said, “What are you potlickers up to today?”
Potlicker? What in the world is a potlicker? Boy, it sure doesn’t sound too good.
After doing some extensive research I have found that the basic idea of a potlicker is an “ungrateful pest.” The image that comes to my mind when I hear this term is a dirty orphan kid who is starving, and he goes from house to house just asking to lick the bottom of his neighbor’s pots while wearing a downcast look. But in his pitiful pleas what he really is expecting is a full meal in return. And then after he gets a full meal or a loaf of bread out of pity, he then steals some eggs from the person’s chicken coop as he runs away: “You little potlicker, get back here!” (If you have ever seen the “Little Rascals” you may have seen the one episode where some criminal midgets dressed as orphan babies and stole ladies jewelry — that is the image I have when I hear “potlicker.”)
An ungrateful pest — that’s what he is.
I have a funny feeling that many moms and grandmothers feel this same way about some of their children on Thanksgiving Day. After slaving all morning over the turkey, and then putting the final touches on the giant Thanksgiving spread; the family comes to the table, stuffs their faces, and then most of them fall asleep on the couch while watching the Lions lose on TV. Guess who gets to clean up? Mom. And while she is scraping off the last of the congealed mashed potatoes into the garbage disposal, she has one thought flash across her mind…”My lousy kids are a bunch of potlickers!”
What does the mom want? Gratitude, simple unprovoked gratitude. Is it too much to ask to have the kids come kneeling before her in humble submission telling her how great a cook she is, how wonderful the meal was, and how “thankful” they are for being able to eat to their heart’s content while the rest of the world starves? Is that too much? Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about?
Actually….no! That anger and expectation for gratitude is not gratitude at all, it is a demand for payment for services rendered. Gratitude is something completely different – – it is something that comes from an informed mind and changed heart; it rises above feeling and actually sets the calibration for how a person looks at life. It is more than just offering a “thank you” to make mom feel better while you go back to the couch to snooze. It is the realization that everything I have, every good gift, is a direct touch of love towards me from the “Father of the Heavenly Lights!” (James 1:17)
Let me explain this from a theological position. I am a pastor and I know that just mentioning the term theology always impresses the potlickers who read my blog. Just kidding.
THE DEBTORS ETHIC
What mom wants is the child to respond to what theologians call the “Debtors Ethic.” Listen to how John Piper explains the “debtors ethic”:
“The debtor’s ethic says, ‘Because you have done something good for me, I feel indebted to do something good for you.’ This impulse is not what gratitude was designed to produce. God meant gratitude to be a spontaneous expression of pleasure in the gift and the goodwill of another. He did not mean it to be an impulse to return favors. If gratitude is twisted into a sense of debt, it gives birth to the debtor’s ethic—and the effect is to nullify grace.”
Gratitude is like love, I shouldn’t love my wife because it is my duty. Nor do I love my wife simply because I am emotionally stirred and enamored by her face over a candle-light dinner. I love her because I both want & will to love her. Love, in this case, is an act of the whole self: Mind, heart, will, emotion, decision and soul. I love her expecting nothing back in return. It is unconditional.
Thanksgiving operates in the same way. I am not thankful because God wants me to be, I am thankful because of who God is and what he means to me. Consider for a second the “Christmas Card Dilemma” every woman faces around this time of year. (Men don’t seem to worry about this too much!) The question arises around the holidays, “Should I send out the same 500 Christmas Cards, or not worry about it so I can use that time to do other things? Hmmm, if I don’t give Marcia a card and she gives me a card I will look ungrateful, so I better get her a card. But every time I get a card from Marcia it has the same silly Christmas tree on it, so I know she is just sending it to be nice. But if I don’t send back to her the same silly Santa card she will think I am a jerk. So, I guess, I better send my 500 cards?”
Don’t you see, this Christmas Card exchange is often done mainly out of guilt and not gratitude. It is not thanksgiving, it is paying back a debt for services rendered. Some people do it out of genuine delight, but many don’t. In the same way, I don’t say thanks to God because he will think I am an “ungrateful potlicker” if I don’t; I give thanks to Him because I want to.
But it gets better, God asks us to give thanks ultimately for our own good. Giving thanks changes us, makes us better people, happier people. In the same way, loving him turns out to be for our own good as well. How can giving thanks actually be something good for the one saying thanks?
Read Psalm 138 and come to church this Sunday to find out. Unless of course you are an “ungrateful potlicker” and decide not to come!
