First a shout-out to the
three women I live with on this International Women’s Day! Thank you, Luisa, Natasha and Talia for all
the blessings you bring, and all the blessings you are.
I’ve been thinking about
extravagance lately, partly because we have some hard budget issues in our
family, and we are taking a real look at what we spend our money on, and what
that actually brings us. We love to eat
out, we love to go to the movies, and that has to be cut back. Luisa and I were
talking at breakfast about how to bring—or build—other kinds of extravagance in
our lives than ones that cost more money. Like actually harvesting all the food
we plant each year in our gardens. Like
getting extravagantly simpler with the stuff that is in our house. The paradox of our society right now is that
we are literally drowning in all the crap we purchase—including the crap we put
in our eyes and minds through these little screens, and yet by our actions show
that we fundamentally believe in scarcity, rather than abundance.
For those of us Christians
who follow Lent, the gospels for the next two Sundays are about
extravagance. Which of course, pissed
off Jesus’ opponents. And his disciples
too! The first is the Prodigal Son, who
blew his inheritance on on-line gaming, trips to Vegas, hot cars and single
malt scotch. When he wises up—starvation
in the midst of feeding pigs will do that to a young man—he decides to go back
to his father and say, “I have really blown it. I know I can’t be your son
anymore. Please let me work in your fields,
where I can earn my keep.”
So he goes back, broke, hungry
with swollen feet and empty belly. Does
the father yell at him? Does he tell him “I told you so”? Does he give him a lecture on responsibility? No-he puts a ring on his fingers, the best
shoes and best robe on him, and throws a big party! With the
fatted calf. The one calf that is being
saved for that year’s wedding or other big celebration. His welcome back is an extravagance beyond
all measure. It really ticks off the
elder brother, who is righteous and does everything he is supposed to. (I can
imagine the inner dialogue in his head.)
In the next week’s story,
Mary, the sister of Lazarus who has been raised from the dead, anoints Jesus’
feet with expensive perfume. It fills
the whole room with its fragrance, and probably cost a bundle. Pretty darn extravagant. That makes one of the disciples—ok, it’s
Judas, but still, he is one of the 12 at that point—get all huffy about how
they could have fed the poor with the money “wasted”.
Of course today, if you want
to feed the poor in our country today, that’s considered extravagant, if not
downright socialist. Oh, it’s fine to
have soup kitchens, and candidates will make sure that they are filmed “giving”
to the poor before each campaign. But to
use a small portion of our shared abundance to actually help people survive is
cut, because, as the saying goes “we can’t get the deficit under control
without dealing with entitlements.”
"Entitlements" is a
much more sophisticated word to pick on the poor than previous words, isn’t
it? “Welfare queens” comes off a pretty
mean-spirited, while “entitlements”—which still blames recipients of government
programs for receiving what is, at least in terms of social security and Medicare
due to them—sounds technical. Like if we just get derivatives or entitlements
or secondary market streams in control, we’ll be all right.
Leave off for a moment that
most of the world sees food as a right, sees health care as a right, sees
caring for elders as an obligation.
Leave off for a moment the fact that the main driver of the US federal
deficit is that we started (and kept going for a decade) two wars and didn’t raise taxes to pay for them. No, we cut taxes! Leave off for a moment that our military
budget is greater than the next ten countries combined. Just look at who really acts entitled and who
fights to keep that entitlement.
The one who feels the most
entitled in the Prodigal Son story is the older brother—who has everything that
is the father’s. The one who feels most
entitled in the anointing story is Judas—who holds the common purse; who has
control of the money. The ones who act
entitled in our country today are not by and large the poor, the elderly, the
disabled, but those who have and want to keep what they have. Businesses who whine every time taxes are
mentioned, because—get this—not only will they suffer, but we’ll all suffer because
they will have to stop making money and will have to lay off people. Wealthy actors, sports stars, investment
bankers who resist considering paying their fair share. Ball clubs who feel entitled to have
cash-strapped governments pay for their new facilities. Oil companies. Lobbyists. The NRA. Those are the real entitlement
junkies. I’m entitled to my money. I’m entitled to my gun. I’m entitled to my stuff.
Look at the ads tonight if
you watch TV, and see how many tell us that we deserve to be “unlimited”, to
have what we want when we want it.
I’m not saying there’s no
entitlement thinking on behalf of unions or non-profits or the like. Nor am I saying that those who don’t have as
much don’t ever act that way. It’s a
national disease that effects all of us.
I want to see some real
extravagance in our country. What if we
made it a priority that all people will eat healthy food? That all people will
have health care? That we will work our
tails off to eliminate poverty? That’s
extravagant thinking, and it also says something about our character. Our care
of our elderly, our poor, our disabled and our children is what defines us as a
people. (I would add immigrants as well, which is what the Hebrew Scriptures do
over and over: treat immigrants fairly
because you were foreigners and slaves in Egypt, and now you are free. That’s to be developed in another post).
Extravagance in this sense
only comes from a depth of spirit that trusts rather than fears. That sees other humans—especially those different
from us—as part of us. That believes in
generosity. That’s willing to risk. Even to sacrifice. That’s the kind of God I believe in, and
that’s the kind of people I believe we can be.
Be justice. Be beauty. Be extravagant
Patrick
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