What could those people have been thinking? How could the tenants think for one moment that killing the vineyard owner’s son would entitle them to inherit the vineyard? How could they possibly put those two things together? This question took me to the dictionary. Entitlement, according to Webster, means having a right to benefits. A right to benefits. What right to benefits did the tenants have? To what were they entitled? As tenants, they had a right to live on the land and to receive some share in the fruit of their labor. That’s it. That was the extent of the covenant they had made with the landowner who planted the vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower.
I have heard it said that we live in the Age of Entitlement. I look around me, I listen to the news, and I think that’s probably as good a description as any. I’m not sure when it began, but there are signs that it may be ending as the ongoing ramifications of our current economic situation begin to have more impact on our daily lives. I’m not sure when this pervasive sense of entitlement began, but I remember the moment I became aware of it. I was in a movie theatre watching the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, surrounded by small children and their parents. It was at that point in the action where Charlie has lost hope that he will find the golden ticket that will let him enter Willy Wonka’s fabulous chocolate factory. Grandpa Joe says to him, “Listen to me, Charlie. You’re going to find that ticket. You know why? Because you want it so much.” Because you want it so much. I listened to those words, I saw all the little heads around me nodding in agreement, and I thought to myself, This is not good. Now please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to blame our economic issues on Willy Wonka, but it has occurred to me that some of the kids in that theater are now old enough to write no asset-no income loans, get their commissions and sell the loans and their problems to someone else.
Doing things because we can in order to get the things we want—the things we feel entitled to—has become part of life among those who are not struggling to find food for the day. In many ways, we have forgotten how to say no to our children and we have forgotten how to say no to ourselves. The lesson from Exodus reminds us that entitlement is not ours for the taking. The Ten Commandments remind us who we are as individuals in relationship to God and our neighbor. We are not entitled to make gods of ourselves and the things we become addicted to. We are not entitled to take anything we want. We are not entitled to behave any way we want.
So—what is our entitlement? What right to benefits do we have as the children of God? What rights does our covenant with God give us? Some time ago, I got completely wrapped up for a while in an absolute frenzy of scholarly research about that question, flipping back and forth between the dictionary and the scripture and the Greek concordance. I got pretty whipped up about the whole thing. And then, I was brought up short by the realization that I was trying to prove something. As soon as I noticed what I was doing, it all fell into place. Bits of our covenant with God began flitting through my mind. God said, “I will take you as my people and I will be your God.” Moses said, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Jesus said, “I have come so that you will have life and have it abundantly.”
Our relationship with the God who creates us is not about our rights. We have none. We have no rights. We have something much greater. We have the gift of God’s grace. God’s loving care and nurture, freely given. Grace that cannot be earned. Grace that is given before we ask. Grace that holds us in love. Grace that is offered to guide us as we tend the vineyard where we live as tenants.
We have no rights, but in response to God’s grace, we have obligations—just as the tenants did. We have an obligation to care for the world we live in and to care for the others—both humans and animals—who share in abundance with us. Today we give thanks for a portion of that abundance—for the animals with whom we live and who—if we leave cats out of the picture for a moment—usually model for us a relationship where entitlement has no place. The animals who bless our lives are a gift to us. They ask so little and give us so much. As we ask God’s blessing on them, let us remember with gratitude how deeply blessed we are.
Thanks be to God.