Mine, Mine, Mine

Entitlement, much?

Opening confession: as a kid raised on Disney fare and a parent who raised kids on Disney fare, I’m not happy with the more recent dreck spewing from the studios of that once august brand.

But I still love some of the show tuney numbers worked into various Disney flicks. Not only singable and well arranged musically, but witty to the point of guilty pleasure.

The video clip above, from Pocahontas (1995), captures a majestic sense of entitlement. The interplay of the imperative (mine, as in “I’m ordering you to dig”) and a pronoun (mine again, as in “Whatever treasure you excavate belongs to me”) is clever and expresses two nasty habits of the entitled: ordering others around and expecting all the benefit of their efforts.

While he doesn’t provide a musical score, Jesus uses words to witty effect in a takedown of the entitled. The Lord’s little story is recorded in Luke 16:19-31, which will be heard in many churches this Sunday.

There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

The contrasts are pronounced. Purple dye was hard to come by and thus expensive, often reserved for the robes of public officials unless wealth entitled one to sport the color. The rich man wears purple trappings and fine linen; poor Lazarus is “covered” in sores.

The rich man feasts; scavenging dogs get tastes of Lazarus.

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

Death comes to both. We can presume both were buried but then the soul of Lazarus, previously laid at the rich man’s gate, is lifted by angels to be with Abraham, who Jesus tells us elsewhere has received eternal life with God. The soul of the rich man makes something of a lateral move from his grave to the underworld of the dead, and is in torment.

Why? Well, it’s quickly revealed that the rich man is being done in by his big ol’ sense of entitlement,

And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

He’s still presuming to order people around — he tells Abraham to send Lazarus to fetch the water, while expecting Lazarus to run an errand that will bring pleasure to the rich man. Mine, Mine, Mine.

Then Abraham points out that the entitlements are being flipped upside down — for good.

But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

When Lazarus was laid at the rich man’s gate, there was no “great chasm.” The rich man could have walked over (or even sent a servant over) with table scraps that Lazarus would have received with gratitude. Now, there’s no opportunity to give or receive help.

Too late, the rich man realizes he’s toast, and is reduced to what Lazarus once was, a beggar,

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

Abraham tells the rich man that God has already provided the warning,

But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’

The rich man is affronted. He is entitled to signs and wonders.

And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

Jesus ends the story with Abraham’s warning: those who feel entitled will have disdained what God has already provided.

He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’

Mine, Mine, Mine is overthrown by God’s, God’s, God’s.

Jesus himself showed the way of unentitlement, going low like Lazarus only to be exalted to heaven:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:3-11)

Where do you bump into your sense of entitlement? Is it clackety-clacking away to have the last word on social media? Is it your rage at that too-slow driver who kept you from rolling through the yellow light? Is it the assertion of your title, degree or academic pedigree against the unlettered person who disagrees with your pronouncements? Is it in your tongue let loose to criticize and demean, or to “cancel”?

It can be anything by which we place ourselves in the center of the universe, braying, Mine, Mine, Mine, instead of bowing to the radiance that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And it can be anything by which we set aside the word of God to ignore the sore-covered neighbor at our gate.

Let us pray in the tradition of St. Francis,

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is error, truth; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.