Entitlement

Septuagesima

The Strouse House

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  We live in an age of entitlement.  And we are, in a way, the victim of our own success.  The generations that came before us created great wealth and success, and kids grew up seeing the results, rather than the sacrifices it took to get to those results.  And I certainly cannot claim that I have not lived a privileged life.  First of all, I live in the most prosperous country in the world, a gift I did not earn, but which came to me simply by birth.  Secondly, I grew up in a middle-class family, who didn’t have it all, but we never wanted for anything.  I never knew true hunger (despite what I may have said during my teenage years); I never worried about having a nice home (I grew up in a two-story log cabin).  If I grew out of my clothes, we went to the store to get new ones.  Now, my dad, being the fiscally conservative man that he is, never bought us the most expensive clothes or shoes, and always used coupons to save money for the food we needed (not necessarily the food we wanted) from the grocery store.  So I learned the importance of stretching a dollar and not spending more than I could afford.  But it was normal for our family to go camping in an RV in the summer, and even to take trips to Florida every five years or so.
    But these days, many people I know presume that, when they start out, they have to have everything I had (or more) from the beginning.  They need streaming services; they need nice vacations every year; they need brand-name clothes and the most recent electronics; they need a nice house in a nice neighborhood before they can get married or have kids (though couples seem to get dogs very quickly).  Those are nice, but those are not needs.  If you can afford them, great!  But you can do just fine in a first home that maybe only has two rooms, and needs some TLC; you don’t have to have every streaming service to watch all your favorite shows; you don’t have to go on tropical vacations every year, or even every five years.  And, most importantly, no one owes you any of that.
    But more dangerous that our natural entitlement mentality is the supernatural entitlement mentality that we heard in the Gospel.  The master promises a just payment for a day’s work.  And the people who started at the beginning of the day shouldn’t have expected anything more than what they received.  But when they saw the master handing out what they agreed to, even though they only worked for a smaller amount of time (sometimes only a couple of hours!), they felt that they were entitled to more, since they did more work.  And when they didn’t get more, they complained.

Me as a seminarian

    In seminary, our rector (think president and principal in one job) warned us early on about thinking the Church owed us anything.  “All you are entitled to as seminarians,” he would say, “is a Christian burial, the same as anyone else.”  Here we were, giving up at least a portion of our lives in the prime of our life, for God and His Church, but that did not entitle us to anything special.  It was the call God gave us, and following God’s will should have sufficed in itself.
    In the parable those who started at the beginning were those who had it all together.  They were probably the holy people of the day, who didn’t do anything majorly wrong.  There were probably Pharisees and scribes in this group, but probably not just Pharisees and scribes.  Those who came later were those who came to follow God, though they had not always done so.  These were the people like Jewish tax collectors and sinners.  Those who came at the end of the day may have been likened to the Gentiles, non-Jews, pagans, who heard the message and started to follow our Lord (we hear a couple of times in the Gospels about Greeks who wanted to follow Christ).  To all, Pharisee, sinner, and Gentile, the Savior offered eternal salvation if they followed Him.  But some felt they should get more because they followed more faithfully or for a longer period of time.
    But salvation is not like money.  And all that our Lord has promised us is eternal salvation, as well as our daily crosses; no more, no less.  What seems like a lighter cross to one, may be heavier to another.  We cannot compare.  What seems like a shorter time for one to accept the faith may have come about through many years of strenuous searching, whereas the faith may come more naturally for others and not require as much, even though it’s lived out longer.  It’s like being given a free, all-expenses paid vacation in Aruba, where it’s sunny all day, eighty-four degrees, with a slight breeze to keep us from getting hot, and complaining because our chair isn’t as close to the pool as another person’s.  

    Spiritually, God promises to give us all we need to get to heaven.  And as Catholics, we have it a bit easier.  We have seven primary ways, the Sacraments, that God gives us His sanctifying grace, including the Sacrament of Penance which cleanses us from sin if we do go astray in minor or major ways.  We have the Church to help us know what believing in Christ and following Him should look like.  We have sacramentals and devotions like Rosaries, Stations of the Cross, and blessings that help us in our daily life to strengthen our relationship with Christ.  We have the entire Word of God, both in Scriptures and in the teachings of the Church to assist us in responding to the offer of eternal life that God gave us in Holy Baptism.  What else do we need?  
    But how often do we look at another person and what he or she has, or what he or she doesn’t have to endure, and we get spiritually jealous.  We complain because it seems like God loves that person more.  But if we have the love of God, then what does it matter what the other person has?  Is God’s full love not enough for us?
    God, strictly speaking, doesn’t owe us anything.  But out of His goodness and love He gives us everything we need for salvation, starting with the perfect gift of His Son who died for us, so that we wouldn’t have to be slaves to sin and suffer eternal death.  God chooses to bind Himself to us as a loving Father so that, if we respond to that love, we can be with Him for ever in heaven, in perfect happiness.  May we not be entitled, in any way, but be grateful for all that God has given us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.