People of Privilege

A few weeks ago, I gave everyone in worship that Sunday $5. The Gospel reading that day was about bearing fruit, so I said, "Here's something tangible. Go bear fruit. Do something that brings the reign of God closer."

Yes, it made me a little nervous. There are now a few dozen $5 bills floating around with my church's web address on them (chalicechristian.com, in case you're wondering). Most people did what they were asked. I know, because I asked them for the stories of what they did with the little bit of extra cash they had in their pockets and purses. 

A tip to a crew installing a new washer. A gift to a landscaping crew member on a morning walk. A tip to a waitress at a Kiwanis dinner. Notice a theme here? With two exceptions, every gift went to someone in a service industry. The two exceptions were to a friend in need and some kids at Sonic. The majority of those $5 bills, though, went to waitresses and landscapers, people working in the heat, or those actually asking for money. 

Somehow, I'm bothered by this. Not because I wanted the money to go elsewhere, but because it became so evident that most people in my congregation are people of privilege. They are generous people. They are gracious people. They care for and worry about the poor, both the individual and the systems that perpetuate poverty. They are beloved children of God, seeking God's reign for themselves and for others. But they are people of privilege.

As am I.

My $5 also went to a waitress, making the tip nearly 100% of the bill since I added it on to my usual 20%. (Yes, I like Waffle House. We can talk about issues with that establishment another time.)

We are people of privilege.

Before this, I knew how great my privilege is, at least on a intellectual level. This time, though, I felt it. And I have to say, as a person of faith, I didn't like the way it felt. At all.

You see, this exercise in stewardship and evangelism of sorts has created other questions for me. Questions that I can't quite formulate and can't begin to answer.

Those questions are somewhere in the confession of a Messiah who spent a great deal of his time with the very poor and was poor himself. Those questions are wrestling with the spiritual difficulty that wealth brings, at least according to Jesus, who talked a lot about rich people being unable to enter the kingdom of heaven; the problem was their attachment to their wealth. And those questions have to do with power, which I find most disconcerting of all. Because in the vast majority of the interactions, there was a hierarchy. There was one who gave and one who received. There were amazing conversations that went with most of the interactions, but the power was almost all one way. The call to bear fruit, it seems, just pointed out those systems of power that much more.

I don't know what to do with all those questions, the ones I still can't boil down to succinct question of only a few words.

But I do know this: I think it has something to do with how very far we are from the kingdom of God.