entitlement

A lot of what follows I was thinking on my walk home from the tube to my house last night. I've been thinking quite a bit about Jesus and entitlement given my devotion (hey, it's on my google homepage) to reading the inspiral blog (http://inspiral.org.au/WordPress/) and the mr jones and me blog (http://smoyle.blogspot.com/). Simon has posted recently on entitlement and the fact that Jesus shed many of his entitlements and to truly follow him, we should consider doing the same (hope I precise'd ok Sime).

I walk past a church on my way home every day and notice that often there are two black, shiny Mercs out the front. I don't know whose they are, but given how often they're there, I surmise they may owned by the pastors or staff of the church. Regardless of whose they are, it got me thinking about middle/upper middle-class Christianity and in particular attitudes I've heard and see lived regarding money. The most prevalent attitude I've heard and seen goes like this: "money's not a bad thing, it's how you use it." The practical interpretation/application of this is almost always "as long as I tithe, it's ok that I buy a new Merc/Commodore/whatever car every 2 years (as is common with many people I know)." To be clear, I don't just mean cars, I mean "stuff" and "things" generally.

One point Arundhati Roy made on Andrew Denton's "Enough Rope" last year (I'm stealing from the Mr Jones blog here) is that one person being paid masses of money is a symptom of something wrong with the world. With so many having so little (many having so little they can't survive), how can we justify one person being paid an amount that could solve 3rd world poverty? Or even a village's poverty?

I'm not sure if I feel it is wrong to buy a new car every year (or 2 or 3 years) [yes, a car is still a metaphor for "stuff" and "things]. However, there are two things I'm ready to stand on:

1) Our view of "masses of money" is awry. I don't believe "masses of money" is a north of $100,000 pay packet or a $1m house. Masses of money is a surplus to your need. I wouldn't want to put a figure on that as we all have different needs, but I think our concept of masses of money is being skewed by
a) the media (which shows us Paris Hilton and Richard Branson as monetary role models) and
b) by an inflated concept of need. Maybe I'll expand another time on those.

2) As is usually the case when society loses the plot, it's not that we have the answer to the question wrong, it's that we've been asking the wrong question. The question we ask is "how can I justify the money/stuff/things I have". To which we quote the Bible "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's" and then we draw a straight line to the Old Testament concept of tithing (giving a tenth of your salary). I think the question is less about justifying what you have, and more one of "Here's what I earn. Here's what I have. My contract with my employer/my parent's will/company's profits legally entitle me to this money. But what will I do with that entitlement?"

Before this post turns itself into a book, let me explain point 2. What do we do with our worldly entitlement to surplus money? First of all I would say that it is exactly that, a worldly entitlement. I'm not sure that Godly principles go into drawing up employment contracts/wills. In fact I've signed a few now and I can tell you they don't. Second of all, we have a choice. Do we grasp that entitlement, or do we forego it for others' benefit? This is an open question worth the asking I believe. It's one I'm asking myself at a time when I'm madly saving for travel, arguably a selfish indulgence, and also thinking about going home to a potentially well paying job.

We are metaphorically the glass at the top of a champagne fountain. The bottle is continually pouring and when we are full, we simply buy a bigger glass. But what if we settled for a smaller glass and when we overflowed the champagne flowed down to the empty glasses, which in turn did the same, until all the empty glasses were full? Or even better, what if we pricked a hole in the bottom of our glass so that the champagne flowed out before we were full?