what do we "deserve"?

WHAT DO WE “DESERVE?”

Again this morning I heard another commercial which claimed that I deserved something. It was a tax preparation company claiming that their product would help me get back all the money I deserved. This was not the first time somebody wanted to sell me something because “I deserved” it.  I have hear vacations of a life time being pushed towards me because “I deserve it.”  I have been offered automobiles of outstanding excellence because “I deserve it.”   Some may remember the music, “you deserve a break today, so get up and get away.”

Where did we get this impressive notion that we deserve anything?  Teachers tell me that there students think that because they showed up and took the test, they deserve a good grade. It appears that many colleges and universities, especially the more selective ones, have a problem with students and parents who think they deserve great grades.  If we are paying $40,000 a year tuition, then our child deserves to get all A’s seems to be the argument. 

When did we start thinking that our mere existence on this earth entitled us to all of these benefits?  What did we do to deserve these blessings?  It seems like this attitude is showing up everywhere. The passengers on the crippled cruise ship are now suing the owners because “nobody deserves to have to be in those conditions.”  But what makes them special? Why do they deserve not to be in those conditions and people in Katrina were in those conditions, people in the Northeast are in those conditions after Sandy, and a billion people around the world live in those kind of conditions every day.  Granted the passengers paid money for the trip, and expected something different and better, but the people in New Orleans and the Northeast had paid for their homes and their communities and expected something better of life. Stuff happens. How come the passengers “deserved” not to be subjected to life’s unpleasant surprises? 

Don’t you have to do something to be able to claim that you deserve something? Isn’t a pay check only given if you work?  The people working hard at terrible jobs for minimum wages do have a right to argue they deserve a higher wage. They have earned it, but it is amazing how much some people are paid who do not deserve even minimum wages. They have harmed their companies and still get paid amazing salaries.

The idea that we are entitled, that we deserve what we get, that we deserve even more than what we have already has a horrible impact on our ability to be grateful and thankful for what we have been given.  There is no way anyone in the developed world can claim to deserve the life he has and that those in the developing world deserve the kind of life they have. All we can do is say a thank you, to be humbled by the immense blessings we have been given, that we did not earn, and to enjoy what we have without the constant unpleasantness of thinking that we have been cheated or denied something we were supposed to be given.  Just because we are alive does not mean we deserve anything. Lots of people in this country have been blessed by gifts, by opportunities, by help from others, by luck, by circumstances, and by timing. There is little place for this “deserve” attitude, and a much large place for “thank you, thank you thank you.”

Sanitize Faith - A Blind eye to the human side

From time to time I have seen and read some of those descriptions of the physical pain that would have been inflicted upon Jesus during Holy Week.  I was reading this morning a sermon about the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual pain that Jesus must have endured.  It caused me to reflect upon the fact that in my Presbyterian experience we have exhibited our intellectual tradition by ignoring or downplaying the grimy and bloody part of the story.  We might talk about the pain of being betrayed by one of the people you had picked and trusted. We might mention the torture of the guards with the crown of thorns, and we might talk a little about the sweat of blood in the garden, but we would not be comfortable, I don't think, with a focus of the sweat, the strain, the stumbling, the fatigue of Jesus as he carries his cross. Certainly to spend a lot of time talking about what happens to the body of a human on a cross would not be appreciated, I don't think, by a Presbyterian congregation.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think that many Presbyterians would want a preacher to dwell too much on the labor pains, the sweat, the hurt, the blood, the afterbirth of Christmas either.  The human reality, the spit, the dust, the dirt, the tired, the frustration of teaching disciples who do not get it, the git and grim of the ministry of Jesus is not something that has been a big part of years in the church.

And I wonder if that has been a loss to us or a matter of little consequence?

A soft voice, a gentle heart and a quick word

It is not so much that things were better "back in the day." The McDonald's commercial speaks to that issue with its morning breakfast biscuit. It is just that I have been reading some of the sermons of a few of the minister who had retired by the time I had begun to do ministry.  I bought a lot of books of George Buttrick, Paul Scherer, Arthur Gossip, James Stewart from Scotland, Ed Steimle, Gardner Taylor and others.

There are a few things that seem to be consistent in a lot of their sermons that I am just now getting around to reading. Too late to do me much good, but there is a joy in reading them.  They do have their different styles and some of them have a voice of conviction and confidence that is interesting to hear. Paul Scherer has a wonderful way of dismissing the false and misleading ideas of faith and worship. Buttrick had a quality of voice and writing that put things simply and directly.  He was not heavy handed or overbearing.

Gardner Taylor is most impressive for his great pastoral heart that keeps showing up in paragraph after paragraph.  He does not try to pretend that everything is well. He constantly is reciting the things that may be wrong in our lives. If he is talking about the problems in society most of the time it is from how those challenges affect the reader.  His tone is gentle and sympathetic.  And what is even more impressive is that he quickly makes his point about what God in grace and do and leaves it there. He seldom tries to convince and "argue" you to faith.

If he were to preach on the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, he would talk about how faith can disappoint. How you have had faith in an elect official and he has failed you. How you have had faith in education and you still are looking for a job. How you have been kind and gracious with charitable acts and the people who have gotten the gifts are not thankful.  How you have sacrificed for you children and they have turned out poorly. We have had faith, hope and love, but they have not lived up to their billing, but the love that Paul is talking about is not your Love, but God's love for you. God's love for you never fails. Never ends.  And he is through.  No long attempt to defend or validate his claim about God's love. Just the statement.

I am not sure that our society is prepared or receptive for that kind of preaching now, but I know it is vastly different from what I heard.  I just know I am ready to read those kinds of gentle simple words.