The Privilege of the Prodigals...

Field Slaves do not get to ask their owners for any type of party, this includes ones with as simple a menu as goat.

Hired Hands do not get to abscond with half their employers wealth and then come back and get hired.

Field Slaves and Hired Hands who do such things get told off, beaten, and lynched.

Today we have a tale of three exceptionally privileged men going about their lives of privilege. Today we have a tale of a group of slaves and hired hands whose very reality is ignored by those who own them and control their lives. Today we have a tale where the privileged party and bicker while the slaves and hired hands are given more work to do.

Both brothers construe themselves as being on a level with the hired hands or slaves of their father's house. Interestingly enough it is the brother who all but owns the slaves that considers himself like unto the slaves... One can just imagine an actual slave overhearing this comment and stifling laughter to ensure his future owner does not beat him to near death. This is a man who has no comprehension of his privilege or awareness of the reality of others.

The other brother has actually encountered a touch of reality. He is aware of the fact that he is, if nothing else, not a slave. He is aware of the fact that he has remaining to him the privilege of familial connections. A privilege that his brother would like to see stripped from him but that his father is willing to still recognize.

Then there is the father. The father who still has lands, hired hands, and slaves. The father who still has enough luxurious cloaks that he has to specify which one he wants. The father whose wealth is such that he can place a jeweled ring on the hand of his son and not consider the balance of the inheritance owed to his other son. The father who had lost one son but still had another to whom to give all his worldly privilege. The Father who now has the privilege of a second chance to have a family reconciled and whole.

The story ends at this point, with the father struggling for the reconciliation his privilege cannot provide him, one brother fuming amidst his privilege, the other being granted overwhelming luxury because of his privilege... and the slaves and hired hands forced to suddenly put all their other work on hold to organize and implement a party and its clean up.

If one wants to ask who is God in the midst of this the answer is simple. God is the slaves and hired hands, the ones the brothers readily compare themselves to but do not truly understand. God is the one working and striving all around us for our well being, and pleasure, despite our lack of thanks, praise, and honor. God is the one we are separated from because of the privilege we refuse to leave behind. God is the one we would find if we took the time to recognize the dignity of the hired hand and slaves in our midst and responded to it with the love that we are called, again and again, to respond with.

The Church Shorn (Penitential Advent 2 of 2)

John the Baptist
St. Mary's Episcopal Ashe County

The Episcopal Church is not John the Baptist. The Episcopal Church is the sheep, or in this case maybe the camel, that needs to be shorn to provide clothing to the prophets in our midst. The stark reality being that if we look at the balance of the Episcopal Church in our history and our current culture we do not live in the valley that must be filled... we live in the mountain and hill that must be made low. We exist in the space that must be shorn.

The issue is that too often we want to focus on the context of the individuals in our pews. Without any doubt in each of us, no matter how privileged we are in the system we inhabit, there are distinct valleys that must be lifted up. Places that the cycle of systematic violence we all inhabit have worn raw. These places need to be filled and must have a time of fulfillment. Part of Advent's call is to provide a space for that.

This cannot happen, however, in an individual context unless it happens on a systematic context. If a machine is consistently wrenching a set of cogs too hard, forcing them to wear down to nubs much faster than expected, to replace the cogs will not solve the problem... the entire machine needs to be recalibrated if it is to be sustainable and safe. This is why in Advent we have to ask ourselves how are we, as individuals and a church corporate, needing to recalibrate our own places in the machine in order to prevent the wearing down of others. What mountains and hills create our foundations that are denying foundation to others?

This is a question of how do we need to be shorn, how do we need to be worn down, how does part of us need to be taken away... so that others might be clothed, so that others might be brought up, so that others may have vital realities added. This is the question of how do we confront and dismantle the privilege so often inherent to the Episcopal Church, and many Episcopalians, and bring an end to the oppression that such maintains. This is the Penitence of Advent.