Edwin R. Garrison - "The Hazard of Privilege" (March 25, 1973)
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| - | In his forgiveness, we are forgiven | 0:03 |
| and enabled to grasp the opportunities before us. | 0:08 | |
| And so, in the name of Jesus Christ, I declare unto you, | 0:12 | |
| we are forgiven. | 0:16 | |
| Let us pray. | 0:19 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 0:22 | |
| thy kingdom come, thy will be done | 0:27 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 0:31 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 0:34 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 0:38 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 0:41 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 0:45 | |
| but deliver us from evil, | 0:49 | |
| for thine is the Kingdom, and the power | 0:52 | |
| and the glory forever. | 0:55 | |
| Amen. | 0:58 | |
| (bright organ music) | 1:00 | |
| (bright organ music) | 2:06 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 2:19 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 3:32 | |
| (bright organ music) | 3:52 | |
| (bright organ music) | 4:12 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 4:36 |
| Let us pray. | 4:40 | |
| God of holy love, you have poured out living water | 4:42 | |
| in the gift of your son, Jesus. | 4:47 | |
| Keep us close to him and loyal to his leading | 4:51 | |
| so that we may never thirst for righteousness, | 4:56 | |
| but live eternal life through our savior, Christ the Lord. | 5:00 | |
| Amen. | 5:06 | |
| Listen for the word of God. | 5:09 | |
| The gospel according to Saint Mark, the 10th chapter, | 5:12 | |
| the 17th through the 27th verses. | 5:16 | |
| "And as he, Jesus, was setting out on his journey, | 5:22 | |
| a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, | 5:26 | |
| 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' | 5:30 | |
| Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? | 5:36 | |
| No one is good but God alone. | 5:40 | |
| You know the commandments. | 5:43 | |
| Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, | 5:44 | |
| do not bear false witness, do not defraud, | 5:48 | |
| honor your father and mother.' | 5:51 | |
| And he said to him, 'Teacher, all these I have observed | 5:55 | |
| from my youth.' | 6:00 | |
| And Jesus, looking upon him, loved him, and said to him, | 6:03 | |
| 'You lack one thing. | 6:10 | |
| Go sell what you have and give to the poor, | 6:12 | |
| and you will have treasure in heaven, | 6:18 | |
| and come follow me.' | 6:21 | |
| At that saying, his countenance fell. | 6:26 | |
| And he went away, sorrowful, for he had great possessions. | 6:29 | |
| And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, | 6:36 | |
| 'How hard it will be for those who have riches | 6:40 | |
| to enter the Kingdom of God.' | 6:43 | |
| And the disciples were amazed at his words. | 6:47 | |
| But Jesus said to them again, | 6:51 | |
| 'Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God. | 6:53 | |
| It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle | 6:57 | |
| than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.' | 7:01 | |
| And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, | 7:06 | |
| 'Then who can be saved?' | 7:10 | |
| Jesus looked at them and said, | 7:14 | |
| 'With men, it is impossible, but not with God. | 7:18 | |
| For all things are possible with God.'" | 7:23 | |
| Amen. | 7:27 | |
| (bright organ music) | 7:29 | |
| Let us say what we believe using | 8:12 | |
| the affirmation of faith in your bulletins. | 8:14 | |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 8:19 | |
| who has come into true man, Jesus, | 8:25 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 8:28 | |
| who works in us and others by his spirit. | 8:31 | |
| We trust him. | 8:35 | |
| He calls us to be in his church | 8:38 | |
| to celebrate his presence, to love and serve others, | 8:41 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 8:46 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 8:49 | |
| our judge and our hope in life and death, | 8:54 | |
| in life beyond death, God is with us. | 8:59 | |
| We are not alone. | 9:04 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 9:05 | |
| Let us pray. | 9:08 | |
| Be seated. | 9:09 | |
| Oh, God, our father, in Jesus Christ you have ordered us | 9:23 | |
| to live as loving neighbors. | 9:27 | |
| Though we are scattered in different places, | 9:32 | |
| often speak different words, | 9:34 | |
| or descend from different races, | 9:37 | |
| give us, your human family, brotherly concern for each other | 9:41 | |
| so that we may be one people | 9:46 | |
| who share the governing of the world | 9:49 | |
| under your guiding purpose. | 9:51 | |
| May greed, war, and lust for power be curbed. | 9:54 | |
| And all men enter the community of love | 10:00 | |
| promised in Jesus Christ our Lord. | 10:03 | |
| In Jesus Christ, oh God, | 10:12 | |
| you were despised and rejected by men. | 10:14 | |
| Watch over people who are different from us, | 10:18 | |
| who cannot copy well-worn customs | 10:22 | |
| or put on styles of life which are popular with us. | 10:27 | |
| If they're left out because narrow men and women | 10:32 | |
| fear different ways, | 10:35 | |
| help us to welcome them into the wider love of Jesus Christ, | 10:38 | |
| who is the brother of us all. | 10:43 | |
| You give us prophets, holy God, | 10:49 | |
| to cry out for justice and for mercy. | 10:52 | |
| Open our ears to hear them | 10:58 | |
| and to follow the truth they speak, | 11:01 | |
| lest we support injustice to secure our own wellbeing. | 11:05 | |
| Give prophets the fire of your word, but love as well. | 11:11 | |
| Though they speak for you, | 11:18 | |
| may they know that they too stand with us before you, | 11:21 | |
| and have no Messiah other than your son, Jesus Christ, | 11:26 | |
| the Lord of us all. | 11:31 | |
| Righteous God, you have taught us that the poor | 11:35 | |
| shall have your kingdom, | 11:38 | |
| and that the gentle minded shall one day inherit the earth. | 11:41 | |
| Keep your church poor enough to preach to poor people, | 11:47 | |
| and humble enough to walk with the despised of this earth. | 11:53 | |
| Never weigh us down with real estate | 11:59 | |
| or with too much cash on hand. | 12:03 | |
| Save your church from vain display or lavish comforts, | 12:07 | |
| and help us to travel more lightly, | 12:12 | |
| that we may move through this world | 12:17 | |
| showing your generous love, | 12:19 | |
| made known to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. | 12:23 | |
| Oh, God the Father of us all, | 12:29 | |
| minister to each one of us and to all men and women | 12:33 | |
| according to our needs and according to your grace. | 12:37 | |
| Be with those of us who mourn, that we may be comfort. | 12:43 | |
| Be with those of us us who are comfortable, | 12:48 | |
| that we may be disturbed by our lack of stewardship | 12:50 | |
| and concern for those who have so little. | 12:55 | |
| Be with those of us who need to know that someone cares. | 13:00 | |
| Be with those of us who need to be challenged | 13:05 | |
| by new opportunities and new demands | 13:07 | |
| upon our time and interest. | 13:11 | |
| Be with all of your people who worship this day. | 13:16 | |
| And help us to offer up to you the gratitude | 13:20 | |
| of those who know that we are forgiven, and cleansed, | 13:22 | |
| and invited to a new way through Jesus Christ our Lord, | 13:26 | |
| in whose name we pray. | 13:31 | |
| Amen. | 13:34 | |
| - | In the name of the Father, and of the Son, | 13:47 |
| and of the Holy Spirit. | 13:50 | |
| Amen. | 13:53 | |
| - | Jesus had a way of capturing attention | 13:57 |
| by the use of hyperbole. | 13:59 | |
| Some of his sayings might be characterized | 14:03 | |
| as verbal cartoons, whose thrust no listener could miss. | 14:06 | |
| So to the people who tried to reform those around them, | 14:12 | |
| he says, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust | 14:16 | |
| in your brother's eye, with never a thought | 14:20 | |
| for the great plank in your own?" | 14:23 | |
| When he twitched the Pharisees | 14:27 | |
| about their preoccupation with petty legalisms | 14:29 | |
| while neglecting the weightier matters of justice and mercy, | 14:32 | |
| he says, "You strain a fly out of your drink, | 14:37 | |
| but swallow a camel." | 14:41 | |
| In this morning's lesson, he comes out | 14:44 | |
| with that startling and blunt dictum that it's easier | 14:46 | |
| for a camel to go through the eye of a needle | 14:50 | |
| than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. | 14:53 | |
| In spite of all the clever attempts to explain it away, | 14:58 | |
| the saying is an authentic part of the teaching of Jesus. | 15:03 | |
| His audience was startled of course. | 15:10 | |
| Had they not learned the story of Joel | 15:13 | |
| who was a very righteous man, | 15:15 | |
| and therefore very prosperous? | 15:17 | |
| Moreover, like some of us, they have come to believe | 15:22 | |
| that there was an inevitable connection | 15:24 | |
| between goodness and wealth. | 15:27 | |
| And also, like some of us, | 15:31 | |
| they have learned to read it backwards, | 15:32 | |
| that is if you're prosperous, | 15:34 | |
| it is a sign that your righteous. | 15:37 | |
| If you're better off than somebody else, you're better. | 15:41 | |
| As Harry Emerson Fosdick used to say, | 15:45 | |
| "When a man has sat in the jewelry | 15:47 | |
| of comfortable circumstance, | 15:49 | |
| it is easy for him to imagine that he's a jewel, | 15:51 | |
| when he may be in fact only paste." | 15:55 | |
| Of course, wealth is a relative matter. | 16:00 | |
| I was riding with a pastor near the Canadian border | 16:04 | |
| in North Dakota on a winter day | 16:07 | |
| when we were suddenly surrounded by a pack of snowmobile. | 16:08 | |
| These young fellows were having the time of their lives | 16:13 | |
| as they went bounding over the frozen fields | 16:16 | |
| like jackrabbits. | 16:19 | |
| The pastor told me that he'd had a problem | 16:22 | |
| in the youth fellowship because 9 out of 17 boys | 16:24 | |
| owned their own snowmobiles, | 16:28 | |
| and the other eight were jealous. | 16:31 | |
| And as we rode along, I felt a bit sorry | 16:34 | |
| for those poor, deprived eight who didn't own a snowmobile, | 16:37 | |
| until I thought of the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation | 16:43 | |
| not far away, where the infant mortality rate runs to 50%, | 16:45 | |
| where the life expectancy is about 39, | 16:51 | |
| and where the average annual family income | 16:54 | |
| is less than the cost of one of those snowmobiles. | 16:57 | |
| Wealth, you see, is a relative matter. | 17:01 | |
| Moreover, we may safely assume that this saying of Jesus | 17:06 | |
| was no part of a campaign against people of wealth. | 17:10 | |
| Jesus made friends among people who were well to do. | 17:15 | |
| Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, for example. | 17:19 | |
| It is doubtful that Matthew, | 17:24 | |
| the tax collector who become a disciple, was a poor man. | 17:25 | |
| On the other hand, Jesus was frequently | 17:32 | |
| across purposes with the Pharisees, | 17:34 | |
| and they were present on that day | 17:37 | |
| when he was making his statement about the rich man | 17:39 | |
| who had just gone away. | 17:42 | |
| Of course the Pharisees were not international bankers. | 17:46 | |
| They were usually people of some means, | 17:51 | |
| or they would not have had the leisure | 17:53 | |
| to keep up with all the religious celebrations of Judaism. | 17:55 | |
| But most of them were not rich. | 17:59 | |
| What Jesus did know was that | 18:03 | |
| they were the privileged people thereabouts. | 18:05 | |
| They were constantly lording it over others. | 18:09 | |
| So I think Jesus was saying, in effect, | 18:14 | |
| I tell you, it is easier for a camel | 18:17 | |
| to go through the eye of a needle | 18:19 | |
| than for a privileged person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. | 18:22 | |
| There's no dodging the fact that Jesus put his finger | 18:28 | |
| on financial wealth as the problem of the young ruler. | 18:32 | |
| But money is not the only basis of privilege. | 18:36 | |
| We're all privileged, privileged because of education, | 18:41 | |
| privileged because of election to office, | 18:44 | |
| privileged because of professional skills, | 18:47 | |
| privileged because of social success, | 18:50 | |
| privileged because of possessions, | 18:52 | |
| or a combination of all of these things. | 18:55 | |
| It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle | 18:59 | |
| than for privileged people like us | 19:03 | |
| to enter the kingdom of God. | 19:06 | |
| Often I find myself under this judgment. | 19:10 | |
| While I was the resident bishop of the Dakotas area, | 19:16 | |
| the district superintendents reported | 19:18 | |
| that one of the officers of the annual conference | 19:21 | |
| was showing a tendency to throw his weight around, | 19:23 | |
| and they thought it would help if I were to talk with him. | 19:26 | |
| When he came into the office, I was ready. | 19:30 | |
| A light shown resplendently through the windows. | 19:33 | |
| The office was beautifully carpeted. | 19:37 | |
| My desk was in orderly array. | 19:40 | |
| My swivel chair carpet was property adjusted. | 19:42 | |
| And my voice was resonant with righteousness and authority | 19:47 | |
| as I talked to this man about what he'd been doing. | 19:50 | |
| It was not until he arose to go | 19:55 | |
| and I saw the stoop in his shoulders | 19:57 | |
| that I realized what I had been doing. | 19:59 | |
| He was not the only person | 20:04 | |
| who had been throwing his weight around. | 20:05 | |
| There were two camels there that morning, | 20:09 | |
| and I was the bigger one. | 20:12 | |
| So a hazard of special privilege is that it causes us | 20:17 | |
| to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. | 20:21 | |
| For another thing, generally speaking, | 20:28 | |
| we privileged people are not good listeners, | 20:31 | |
| especially to persons whom we consider to be of lesser rank. | 20:34 | |
| It's the old story, better off, better. | 20:39 | |
| The scripture says, what does the Lord require of thee? | 20:46 | |
| That we deal justly, and love mercy, | 20:50 | |
| and walk humbly before thy God. | 20:54 | |
| But, my friends, humility is not the most conspicuous badge | 20:59 | |
| of the privileged. | 21:04 | |
| We equate humbleness with servility. | 21:06 | |
| But if we really want to understand humility, | 21:13 | |
| we need to look at it opposites, | 21:16 | |
| conceit, pride, | 21:20 | |
| insolence, arrogance. | 21:24 | |
| Certainly these qualities are not keys to the Kingdom. | 21:28 | |
| As Hoekendijk says, "The most dangerous manifestation | 21:32 | |
| of the old superiority complex occurs | 21:35 | |
| when the European enters the scene, | 21:38 | |
| as what the Bible would call, a rich man, | 21:40 | |
| somebody who is really somebody | 21:44 | |
| and he thinks he can prove it. | 21:46 | |
| Draped around him, he displays his impressive possessions, | 21:49 | |
| culture, techniques, spending power. | 21:53 | |
| He has everything except the contrite heart. | 21:58 | |
| Another hazard of privilege is that we privileged persons | 22:06 | |
| frequently assume that we are competent, | 22:10 | |
| uniquely competent to prescribe for the underprivileged. | 22:13 | |
| A badge sometimes worn by people says, | 22:19 | |
| I fight poverty, I work. | 22:22 | |
| It's based of course on the self-righteous assumption, | 22:27 | |
| I work, but poor people do not work. | 22:31 | |
| Now, the simple truth is that four out of five | 22:36 | |
| of the poor people do work at bottom wages. | 22:38 | |
| And today, in the slums of our cities, | 22:43 | |
| 50% of the people who work full time | 22:45 | |
| do not earn enough to put them above the poverty line. | 22:48 | |
| Or again, we hear somebody say, nobody gave me anything, | 22:54 | |
| let them dig for it like I had to dig. | 22:58 | |
| Well, I might boast of my own digging, | 23:03 | |
| but I desist because I am privileged. | 23:06 | |
| We never had much money in my parental home. | 23:12 | |
| But there were books, | 23:15 | |
| the love for learning, and love for people. | 23:18 | |
| There were marvelously able teachers, | 23:22 | |
| kind neighbors, good ministers. | 23:26 | |
| Nobody gave me anything. | 23:31 | |
| Everything I am or have, I owe. | 23:35 | |
| Still another hazard of privilege | 23:42 | |
| is that we tend to build fences | 23:44 | |
| in order to deny privileges to others. | 23:46 | |
| There's an old saying that used to go around, | 23:51 | |
| or at least I used to hear it as a boy, | 23:54 | |
| that it really isn't too bad to begin | 23:56 | |
| at the foot of the ladder | 23:58 | |
| if your old man owns the ladder. | 24:00 | |
| Well, my friends, most of us here today | 24:04 | |
| own a piece of the ladder. | 24:07 | |
| And how busily we kick up those we suppose are not our kind, | 24:09 | |
| who are trying to get a foothold | 24:14 | |
| on the bottom rung of the ladder. | 24:16 | |
| From professionals to hard hats, | 24:19 | |
| we do not intend to share our prerogatives. | 24:22 | |
| It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle | 24:28 | |
| than for privileged persons to enter the Kingdom of God. | 24:33 | |
| This tendency to arbitrary exclusiveness | 24:39 | |
| has disastrous economic and social repercussions | 24:43 | |
| in our nation. | 24:45 | |
| Not long ago, a team of 12 psychiatrists | 24:48 | |
| made a mental health study of little children in Manhattan. | 24:50 | |
| The study revealed that negro children | 24:55 | |
| between the ages of six and nine are mentally healthier | 24:57 | |
| than the White and Puerto Rican children of the same age. | 25:02 | |
| But by the time they have reached their teens, | 25:06 | |
| one out of four of those Black children | 25:09 | |
| suffer serious psychiatric impairment. | 25:12 | |
| And this is not limited to those | 25:16 | |
| whose families are on welfare. | 25:17 | |
| Said the doctors, and I quote, "The Negro child | 25:21 | |
| does not start out emotionally disadvantaged, | 25:26 | |
| but becomes so around age 10, | 25:30 | |
| when the reality of his situation has closed-in, | 25:34 | |
| and his original zest and enthusiasm for life | 25:37 | |
| is finally beaten down." | 25:40 | |
| Said the psychiatrists, "There obviously must be drastic | 25:44 | |
| and immediate changes in environmental conditions | 25:50 | |
| because of the enormity of the problem." | 25:53 | |
| And pray, what is the most important part | 25:58 | |
| of those environmental conditions needing drastic change? | 26:01 | |
| Ruthless, privileged people who are beneficiaries | 26:08 | |
| of things as they are. | 26:12 | |
| If we think the teaching of Jesus has any relevance for us, | 26:18 | |
| and if our observance of Lent is to have any moral meaning, | 26:24 | |
| we might well ask ourselves whether the predicament | 26:27 | |
| of the rich young man who faced Jesus is our predicament. | 26:31 | |
| If it is, what can we do? | 26:37 | |
| Well, for one thing, we can try to realize | 26:44 | |
| the power inherent in our privileges. | 26:46 | |
| When our young people learn to drive the family car, | 26:51 | |
| we are greatly concerned that they will at least | 26:54 | |
| have some imagination of what it means | 26:57 | |
| to have this combination of weight and velocity underfoot, | 26:59 | |
| making the automobile the most lethal weapon of our day. | 27:05 | |
| It's hard to believe that the car is dangerous | 27:11 | |
| as it quietly purrs along. | 27:14 | |
| But if we are wise, we keep that danger in mind. | 27:17 | |
| So it will help if we remember | 27:23 | |
| what power there is in our privilege | 27:25 | |
| and hold ourselves responsible to God for its use. | 27:27 | |
| In the next place, we should remember that all people | 27:35 | |
| tend to make their decisions | 27:38 | |
| on the basis of class interest. | 27:40 | |
| And we are no exception to that rule. | 27:43 | |
| So it's a case of the haves against the have-nots, | 27:47 | |
| employee against employer, White against Black, | 27:50 | |
| educated against uneducated. | 27:54 | |
| It will help if we can learn to recognize | 27:57 | |
| our class beliefs and prejudices for what they are, | 28:00 | |
| class beliefs and prejudices, | 28:05 | |
| and take our own pretensions with a grain of salt. | 28:09 | |
| But above all, my friends, we must not miss the punchline | 28:16 | |
| in this gospel story. | 28:19 | |
| To God, everything is possible. | 28:23 | |
| Having done everything humanly possible to overcome our sin, | 28:29 | |
| we still come to our own personal cul-de-sac. | 28:33 | |
| For man, it is not possible. | 28:38 | |
| The disciples voice our thoughts when they ask, | 28:43 | |
| well, then who can be saved? | 28:47 | |
| As Jesus spoke to them, so he speaks to us. | 28:51 | |
| For men, it is impossible. | 28:57 | |
| But not for God. | 29:01 | |
| To God, everything is possible. | 29:05 | |
| Can we believe that this morning? | 29:09 | |
| We, in our accustomed pride and self assurance, | 29:12 | |
| commonly refuse to believe that our only hope is in God. | 29:16 | |
| That even in a secular society, | 29:21 | |
| it has become axiomatic that there is no future | 29:24 | |
| for the alcoholic, for instance, | 29:27 | |
| until he gives up this bootstrap philosophy | 29:30 | |
| and knows that his only hope is in a power outside himself. | 29:33 | |
| Why do we so often forget that no person | 29:40 | |
| blots out any sin by his own effort? | 29:44 | |
| The fundamental point of the gospel | 29:48 | |
| is that God alone sets us on our feet. | 29:51 | |
| Whether our sin is arrogant pride or greed or sensuality, | 29:55 | |
| our hope is not in our own strenuous efforts, but in God. | 30:02 | |
| Let us have done with all our self-righteousness | 30:11 | |
| and remember that nothing but the grace of God can save us. | 30:15 | |
| As the old hymn puts it, | 30:19 | |
| in my hand, no price I bring, | 30:22 | |
| simply to thy cross I cling. | 30:26 | |
| The one fitting prayer for each one of us this morning | 30:32 | |
| is the prayer of the sinner in the gospel story | 30:36 | |
| who dropped all pretense and simply said, | 30:39 | |
| God, be merciful to me, a sinner. | 30:44 | |
| Amen. | 30:51 | |
| (bright organ music) | 30:57 | |
| (choir singing indistinctly) | 31:40 | |
| (bright organ music) | 34:43 | |
| (bright organ music) | 36:04 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 36:39 | |
| (bright organ music) | 37:24 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 37:29 | |
| (bright organ music) | 37:42 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 37:44 | |
| (bright organ music) | 38:06 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 38:23 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 39:10 | |
| (vocalist singing indistinctly) | 39:40 | |
| (bright organ music) | 40:12 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 41:45 |
| Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 41:47 | |
| help us to dedicate more and more | 41:52 | |
| of what we are and what we have | 41:54 | |
| to the causes and the persons | 41:57 | |
| for whom Christ lived and died. | 42:00 | |
| We pray in his name. | 42:03 | |
| Amen. | 42:05 | |
| Now, may the grace of God, | 42:08 | |
| the fellowship of his Spirit, | 42:11 | |
| and the love of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you all | 42:13 | |
| now and forevermore. | 42:17 | |
| Amen. | 42:19 | |
| (bell ringing) | 42:22 | |
| (bright organ music) | 42:36 | |
| (bright organ music) | 45:18 | |
| (bright organ music) | 46:52 | |
| (bright organ music) | 48:52 | |
| (bright organ music) | 51:13 | |
| (bright organ music) | 54:18 | |
| (footsteps thudding) | 59:39 |
