Many, many people have observed that we live in a culture of entitlement. People live expecting to be served and to be granted what they think they deserve. Perhaps the most obvious evidence of this right now is the fact that federal unemployment benefits have been extended for the past 2 1/2 years, instead of the normal 6 months. President Obama would like to see them extended again, making them last for over three years. I know the economy's in the toilet and jobs are really hard to find, but when did people get the idea that they were entitled to be paid by taxpayers for three years?
Yet the sense of entitlement buried deeply in the human psyche goes far deeper than unemployment benefits. I can see its pervasive influence in my own heart: I think I am entitled to a wife who does everything exactly as I would expect her to. I think I am entitled to perfectly obedient children. At the Drive-Thru, I am entitled to quick and accurate service and good food.
Entitlement has a dark side: resentment. Again, it's easy to think of those who would be the poster child for resentment. I remember a few years ago when a woman on welfare was complaining about the quality of the hard-wood flooring in her government-subsidized housing while standing in front of her large, flat-screen TV. Or we can think of those who are resentful that they did not qualify for disability after they were caught scamming the system.
Yet resentment, like entitlement, is more widespread and more deeply rooted in the human heart. Any time I do not get what I think I deserve, the response of my sinful heart of resentment. You really don't want to be in the car with me when I get a mile down the road and realize the I did not receive a straw with my drive-thru order. ;) But seriously, how often is my frustration over my children's behavior more connected to my own sense of entitlement and resentment than to a true concern for their character and growth in obedience?
Yet as I look outward and think of my neighbors, I am concerned with how entitlement and resentment are poisoning our culture. It seems to me that politicians on both sides of the party divide feed on their supporters' sense of resentment, which in turn feeds and grows those feelings of resentment. The Occupy Wall Street protesters resent the profits of corporations and think those profits should be distributed equally among all the people. The Democratic Party responds to this feeling of resentment by proposing a new "Millionaire's Tax." The solution to our country's ills? Tax the rich! They're not paying "their fair share." This is asserted despite all evidence to the contrary which shows that wealthier Americans pay higher tax rates than lower-income Americans, many of whom pay no income tax at all.
On the Republican side, the Tea Party was formed over anti-government resentment. They claim we are "Taxed Enough Already" and blame the country's ills on Big Government. Big Government does not keep parents from talking with their children about sex and drugs, and it is those parental conversations that are most desperately needed. Big Government did not keep anyone's child from studying math and reading books instead of watching hours of TV and spending even more time on the Internet or playing video games.
This gets us closer to the heart of the issue: Resentment feels so good because it allows us to shift blame onto others for our problems. I don't have to own my own failures. I can simply blame the rich, blame the government, blame the Tea Party, blame Obama, blame anyone but myself.
Contrast this with the response of British philosopher and novelist G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton wrote a letter in response to a newspaper article addressing "What's wrong with the world?" Chesterton's letter was the one of the shortest in history:
“Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton"
And so we must begin with a clear and full acknowledgement of our own failures. We must then bow our knees before the Lord and cry out for His saving grace. For it is only the grace of regeneration which can grant us a new heart and it is only the grace of sanctification which can nurture that new heart within us and grow us, slowly but surely, to be more like Christ.
Christ had more reason to be resentful than anyone else who ever walked the planet. If anyone deserved anything, surely it was Christ. As the Creator and Sustainer of everything, He deserved worship, admiration and honor from His creation. As the wisest teacher who has ever lived, He deserved full attention and a ready responsiveness from His students. As the very incarnation of divine love, He deserved to be loved and received in love. Yet what do the Scriptures tell us?
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not . . .
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth. - Isaiah 53:3, 7 (ESV)
When He did open His mouth, what did He say? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
While there is no doubt that resentment, even envy, is fueling a portion of this season of discontent, I don't believe that explains this moment in our country's history. The Tea Partiers and the Occupiers are expressing a real feeling of despair and fear permeating our country and I wonder if we are all missing the point.
ReplyDeleteWho knows? Maybe the critics are right, maybe they'll soon fade away and leave the real work to us adults. But what if the scoffers have got it all wrong, what if these Occupiers are harbingers of a coming eruption, not the eruption itself? Maybe the Occupiers, and yes the Tea Party, are just plumes of steam, much the way a volcano begins emitting steam and gasses, sometimes years before it erupts?
I began experiencing a feeling of anticipation, almost dread, the other day as I visited the blog We Are The 99 Percent. I saw the faces of nearly a thousand people posed next to handwritten explanations of the troubles they're dealing with, and the sense of desperation and fear they're facing almost leaped off the page. And there's millions more like that out here in America. Virtually every social eruption in modern times began with enormous financial hardship, huge gaps in income between the rich and well off and those struggling to feed their families, and a ruling elite scoffing at the suffering around them.
So, is the eruption we're witnessing just envy and resentment, or are the Occupiers and Tea Partiers merely signs of an eruption still to come? How that question gets answered will have a lot to do with America's future. God Bless us all.
I really like where this article goes, even if it doesn't start out too great...
ReplyDelete"I know the economy's in the toilet and jobs are really hard to find, but when did people get the idea that they were entitled to be paid by taxpayers for three years?"
I think it is not the idea that they are entitled to be paid by taxpayers for three years, but rather the idea that they don't want to live on the street and they'll take what they can get to avoid that.