Rodney Reeves: The entitlement mentality stifles generosity and ignores grace

“Our sense of entitlement steals away any chance for us to be generous. We are entitled to the money we earn. So only those who are entitled to our help receive it. How soon we forget that most jobs require able-bodied persons, that there are no guarantees to good health, and that no one owns their daily bread–all are gifts from a very generous God–something we call “grace.” Indeed, if the power to work is a gift from God, how much more the fruit of our labor.”

Rodney Reeves in Spirituality According to Paul: Imitating the Apostle of Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011) 155.

“Do not waste any part of so precious a talent merely in gratifying the desire of the eye, by superfluous and expensive apparel, or by needless ornaments. Waste no part of it in curiously adorning your houses, in superfluous and expensive furniture; in costly pictures, painting, gilding, books: in elegant (rather than useful) gardens. Let your neighbors, who know nothing better, do this.”

John Wesley (1703-1791) from “The Use of Money” 53.3, in Sermons on Several Occasions, 562-563.

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 2 Corinthians 9:8-10

“When we give to others we are fundamentally imparting what has been entrusted to us as a gift. The more we recognize that all we have–indeed, all we are–comes from God’s goodness, the more we will be inclined to share what we have with others.

Paul’s teaching about God in these verses inculcates two virtues: gratitude for the many ways we have been blessed, and trust in God to continue to provide us with what we need and what he wants us to share with others.”

Thomas Stegman, S.J. in Second Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), note on 9:8-10.

“When our lives are shaped by gratitude, we’re more likely to notice the goodness and beauty in everyday things. We are content; we feel blessed and are eager to confer blessing…

Our capacity for gratitude is not connected with an abundance of resources but rather with a capacity to notice what it is that we do have…

Today it is often countercultural to take the posture of a grateful recipient. Some of us operate with a well-developed sense of entitlement, quite certain that we deserve good things and are entitled to the best that “life” has to offer. Others of us, because we work hard, are convinced that we have earned the good that has come to us…

If we think that we deserve the gifts and blessings we have received, it is easy for us to become greedy for more benefits and to overlook the needs of others.”

Christine Pohl in Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 22-28.

“Be thankful for the least benefit and thou shalt be worthy to receive greater. Let the least be unto thee even as the greatest, and let that which of little account be unto thee as a special gift. If the majesty of the Giver be considered, nothing that is given shall seem small and of no worth, for that is not a small thing which is given by the Most High God.”

Thomas à Kempis The Imitation of Christ 10.5.

“Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts he has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) in Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954) 29.

“There is nothing riches are so likely to breed as pride. Every fruit, every grain, every kind of corn, every tree, has its own proper worm. There’s one worm for apples, another for pears, another for beans, another for wheat. The worm in riches is pride.”

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) in Sermon 61.10 (cf. 1 Timothy 6:17, Luke 12:13-21, trans. Daniel Doyle and Edmund Hill (New York: New City Press).

“Communion with God in prayer is the primary way for us to receive His generous love and mercy, and to learn to love ourselves in ordered ways so that we can give of ourselves in truly generous ways…It can be helpful to ask the Lord who He wants us to love more generously and how. It is important to spend daily time with the Lord in silence, so that we can receive all that He has for us, and so that we will know how He wants us to pray for and to serve others.”

Catherine Lynn Forsythe in “Receiving and Giving God’s Generous Love” in Under His Mercy: Newsletter of the Franciscan Sisters (Spring 2008).

David praised the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, O LORD, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. 
In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name. “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 1 Chronicles 29:10-14

“For it was thou [O Lord, my God] who didst cause me not to want more than thou gavest and it was thou who gavest to those who nourished me the will to give me what thou didst give them. And they…were willing to give me what thou hadst supplied abundantly. It was, indeed, good for them that my good should come through them, though, in truth, it was not from them but by them. For it is from thee, O God, that all good things come.”

Augustine, Confessions VI.7. English trans. Albert Outler.

For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me—the breath of man that I have created. I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him. Isaiah 57:15-18

“We have been blessed with abundance. But instead of living in grateful generosity, our hearts have been seduced by the mirage of material things. We have consumed more and more, fattening our souls so that our appetite for material things is distorted and warped. Look on us. Expose our unjust ways. Please heal our wounded, wandering hearts. Re-calibrate our desires so that we rejoice in what You have given. Lead us in your ways of blessing and restore us to the joy of simplicity.”

Stephen Hawthorne, Prayer for the City: A 40 Day Prayer Adventure, Day 20.