Serving Bread

It shouldn’t require too deep a reading of scripture to come to the conclusion that the Kingdom of God operates differently than the kingdom(s) of the world. While there are elements of earthly kingdoms that resonate with or reflect the Kingdom of God, they are a mere shadow of the fantastic Kingdom into which God invites us.

One particular aspect of humanity on which I’ve been reflecting is that of privilege. In our world (in all human societies, including the United States), some people have privileges that others do not. In India, for example, the Brahmin class has privileges to government or religious institutions, marital options, and career choices (to name a few), that the Dalits (untouchables) do not have.

In our own country, studies have shown time and again that Whites have certain privileges that people of color do not have. And men have access that women do not have. And for all Americans, we have privileges about which most of the world would only dream.

In the kingdoms of the world, privilege leads to luxury. The greater the privilege that we have (whether it be monetary or influence) the greater our level of luxury. The world invites us to buy luxury with our privilege. But the Kingdom of God stands in contrast to such use of our privileges. In the Kingdom of God, privilege calls us to responsibility. The greater our privilege, the greater our burden of responsibility.

Stewardship is a fundamental element of Christianity. In the garden, God called the first humans to be stewards of creation. And through parables and teachings, Jesus calls those who have much, to be faithful with much (Luke 16 & Matthew 25).

It is easy for me to be carried away and enjoy my privileges without paying any attention to stewarding those privileges toward blessing those who have less. To pursue such stewardship, we need to be aware of the world we live in (poverty is becoming more and more as the rule rather than the exception in our world), recognize our privileges (I would presume that most people do not have any significant levels of self-awareness), and prayerfully take practical steps toward using turning our privilege toward responsibility.

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Leighton Ford’s description of Jesus:

The most spectacular cross-cultural leadership in the history of humanity took place when the Son of God became a first-century Galilean Jew. In that identification he renounced the status and the rights that he enjoyed as God’s Son. Among them, Jesus gave up any right to independence; he was born in a borrowed manger, preached from a borrowed boat, entered Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, ate the Last Supper in a borrowed upper room, died on a borrowed cross and was buried in a borrowed tomb. In renouncing entitlement he exposed himself to temptation, sorrow, limitation and pain, and yet, “although Jesus identified himself completely with us, he did not lose his own identity. He remained himself.” And so his incarnation taught “identification without loss of identity.” (Transforming Leadership, 32-33)

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