麻豆社

Good morning.

I live a pretty privileged life. In fact, when I rated myself against 15 dimensions of privilege, as part of a recent safeguarding course, I ticked every box bar youth and beauty. In itself, I see privilege as morally neutral, a mere matter of fact. It鈥檚 what I do with it that matters. Do I open or shut doors for others? Do I help the voiceless be heard, or shout them down? Do I use my influence in the cause of justice, or against it? In this Jubilee week, many of us will wish to celebrate how our Queen has used the particular privileges of her position in the service of nation, church and commonwealth.

But privilege can prove hard to prise from its evil twin, entitlement.

The bible tells how, long ago, God forged a close relationship with one specific people. That privileged status gave them a unique place in his plan. But it brought with it the call to be a blessing for all peoples, to exemplify hospitality to the stranger, and to work to redress disparities of wealth and status. Jesus chides those, especially the leaders of his day, who think and act as if mere ancestry and position entitle them to divine support.

Entitlement poisons our relationship to the world around us; affording exemption from applying to ourselves the same rules that we expect others to follow, whilst infecting us with a sense of impunity. It creates a culture which justifies the President who invades a neighbouring country, claiming its territory as his due, and the private soldier who sees looting and rape as part of his spoils of war. Less dramatically, it legitimates the man who perennially interrupts female colleagues, and the boss who touches junior co-workers inappropriately. Fail to set the right culture and otherwise high achieving, intelligent people can be led to indulge in the very behaviours they had crafted laws to ban, as Sue Gray reminded us last week. Frustrated entitlement, that sense of being deprived of our rightful superior place, fuels the fires of racism and twists some to terror.

The poison of entitlement has, I believe, one known antidote, humility. Never to be confused with the humbling that follows embarrassing revelations, freely chosen humility forms an abiding attitude to life. Jesus embodied it, St Francis of Assisi exemplified it. Holy women and men of many faiths seek it. From rulers to rough sleepers, anyone, privileged or unprivileged can, if they choose, possess it.

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