“There is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another.”
There’s a word that has been spoken a lot recently.
It is a powerful word. A word we need to hear if we are to come closer together and a word that has the power to tear us further apart. A word that resonates with some of us as deep truth and for some of us feels like an unbearable personal attack.
It is a word I have heard more in the 50 days since Mike Brown was killed than in the 500 or maybe even 5,000 days before.
The word is privilege.
Privilege is the power that is given to some and not to others. It is all the unearned advantages some of us have and others of us do not merely by how we were born. The obstacles some of us don’t have to overcome and others of us do only by virtue of our race, class, gender, sexual orientation, the list goes on and on and on.
The conversation about privilege is one of the hardest conversations we can have because those of us who have privilege usually don’t realize it. That means the burden is almost always on those of us who don’t have privilege to point it out to those of us who do. And when someone does confront us with our privilege, we generally don’t react too well. Because often what we think they’re saying is:
“You’re a bad person.”
or “You didn’t work hard to get where you are.”
or “You’ve had it easy.”
And we get defensive.
And if that was what privilege meant, we’d have every right to be defensive. Because we are good people. And most of us did and do work hard. And as we struggle with jobs, kids, relationships, aging parents, financial worries, and on and on and on, if we feel like someone is telling us how easy we’ve got it, well it kind of makes us mad. It kind of makes us want to say “You think I’ve got it easy? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But that’s not what privilege is about.
Now, I can say this because I am an authority on privilege. I am a white, heterosexual, educated, upper middle class, American man. This entire planet is structured to my advantage. Privilege is real, and I oughta know because I have more of it than 99.9% of the people on earth. And acknowledging that does not change the fact that I am a good person. It does not change the fact that I have worked hard and continue to work hard. It does not mean that I’ve had it easy.
It does mean there are obstacles I have never had to overcome that others have. It does mean that even though I don’t have it easy, I have it so much easier than many, many others – mostly in ways I cannot comprehend.
It does mean that I have incredible power and access to systems of power and so that means I have some choices to make.
Will I acknowledge that power?
Will I claim that power?
Will I spend my life trying to hold onto that power and exploit it for my own gain, or will I give it up and use it to work for a world where no one is privileged over the other just because of how they are born. Will I use my privilege to work for a world where, as Jesus exhorted last week, all are given the privilege of work and wage, a world where, as Paul writes, there is “no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female for all are one in Christ Jesus.”
Will I realize the greatest privilege is the one we all have. The privilege of being able to love? And will I use every ounce of my privilege to do just that?
A few minutes ago, I read you some words from one of my favorite 21st century Episcopal theologians, author John Green. Let me read those words again:
“There is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another.”
John Green is preachin’ it here.
“There is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone. Love is the privilege of being responsible for another.”
That’s a pretty good summation of the Gospel. Love is the privilege of being responsible for one another. Love is the privilege of giving up our lives for one another.
It’s why in our marriage liturgy we say to one another “with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you.” It’s why in our baptism liturgy we all promise to “do all in our power to support (the newly baptized) in her life in Christ.”
As followers of Jesus, our entire faith is built on this foundation. This morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of the oldest Christian texts and it is the oldest Christian hymn. For my money, you could throw out the entire New Testament save for this passage, and we would have all that we need.
The passage is called the Christ Hymn … because it literally sings all we need to know about who Christ is and who Jesus yearns for us to follow him in being. And at its heart, it is about privilege, about our acknowledging it and about what we do with it.
It is about not seeing privilege as something to be grasped and protected and exploited for ourselves but about giving it away for the greater privilege of love.
Paul writes this hymn to the church in Philippi, but he really sings it to we who would follow Jesus throughout time and space. And in singing this hymn, Paul lovingly holds a mirror up to us. Paul and Jesus invite us to look at our own individual lives and our life together as a nation, as a region and as a Cathedral congregation. And Paul’s plea is to us when he sings “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.”
That’s our challenge this morning. For us to look at ourselves in this mirror. To see ourselves for who we are. With all the power and privilege that we have. And seeing it, not looking to the world for examples of how to use that power and privilege but letting the same mind be in us that is in Christ Jesus.
To look at all that we are and all that we have. Those of us who have more – more money, more power, more access to better education, more property value, more voice and at the same time have fewer barriers to sustaining those things we really need to survive. To ask ourselves are we seeing both those advantages and lack of barriers as something to be exploited for ourselves or do we look across the chasms of race, class, gender, sexual orientation and say “with all that I have and all that I am, I honor you.” And “I will do all in my power to support you in your life in Christ.”
But this hymn does not just sing us out into this St. Louis region with its yawning chasms of race and class as reconciling ambassadors of Christ. It holds that mirror up to us within this community as well.
What does it mean for us as Christ Church Cathedral to have the mind of Christ?
We have been blessed and gifted with so much.
Just look at this beautiful space. The incredible gift of these buildings that have stood here for nearly 150 years. Do we see them as something to be grasped, to be exploited for our own personal ends? Or do we have in us the mind of Christ Jesus and ask ourselves “what does emptying ourselves look like?” What does it look like to give these beautiful spaces for the life of the world, humbling ourselves and even when we consider how these spaces are used, privileging the needs of others over the desires and needs of ourselves? Giving up the privilege of control for the greater privilege of love.
Do we use our money with the mind of Christ? Do we see our money as something to be grasped and exploited for our own personal needs and desires? Or do we have the mind of Christ Jesus and with our money in our hands ask ourselves “what does emptying ourselves look like?” even boldly privileging the needs of others over the desires and needs of ourselves? Giving up the privilege of control for the greater privilege of love.
Together as a Cathedral, we have an endowment of close to eight and a half million dollars. Do we see that only as a pile of financial security for our own survival? Do we see our treasure as something to be grasped and exploited for our own personal needs and desires? Or can we have the mind of Christ Jesus and with this incredible gift ask ourselves “what does emptying ourselves look like?” even in how we invest that money boldly privileging the needs of the world over our own desires and needs. Giving up the privilege of control for the greater privilege of love.
Perhaps most challenging to face is the privilege accorded to those of us who have been a part of this Cathedral community the longest. The leadership of our longtime members has been, continues to be and will always be crucial to the life of this Cathedral. AND we are at a time when we are blessed with the gifts of so many new and often younger people in our midst. For those of us who have been here the longest, who currently hold most of the positions of authority at Christ Church Cathedral – do we see that power and privilege as something to be grasped and used for our own desires? Or can we have the mind of Christ Jesus and ask ourselves “what does emptying ourselves look like?” What does it look like to share the privilege of leadership and to invite the wisdom of others, knowing that it will mean change. Knowing that the Body of Christ always means heart-breaking change. Giving up the privilege of control for the greater privilege of love.
Jesus had the ultimate privilege. He was in the form of God. You can’t get more privileged than that. But he saw something far greater to do with that privilege than to use it for his own ends. He knew that there was a greater privilege – the privilege to love. The privilege to use all he was and all he had to be responsible for and care for one another. The privilege to empty himself in love into human form and, being found in human form, humbling himself even to unto death upon the cross. And this morning he looks us in the eyes and says, we can do it, too. Really, we can.
In John Green’s most famous work, The Fault in Our Stars, two cancer-riddled teenagers, Hazel Grace and Augustus, are falling in love, but Hazel Grace is afraid to let Augustus love her because if her cancer ends up killing her she fears it will break his heart. That her death will be like a grenade lobbed onto his heart.
“I don’t ever want to do that to you,” she tells him.
“Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace,” Augustus replies with a loving smile. “It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.”
Having the mind of Christ, seeing our privilege not as something to be grasped and exploited but emptying ourselves for the sake of one another is the riskiest, hardest, most painful and most glorious thing we will ever do with our lives. It is taking our hearts out of their safe prisons and putting them on the table with Christ’s and each other’s, knowing that as that bread is broken, so was Jesus body and so our hearts will be also.
Jesus is bidding us this day to sacrifice the privilege of the world for the privilege of love. To know the joy of being responsible for one another across the barriers that divide us. To welcome our hearts breaking not as a wound to be feared but a privilege to be embraced.
Amen.
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