everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy

While sitting around the fire pit in my backyard with some friends and roommates on Wednesday, we began discussing the unfairness some Christians feel toward those who accept the Lord at the end of their time on earth after having lived horribly sinful lives. While the Christian has spent his whole life “being good” and pursuing the ways of Jesus, the so-called sinner has done the opposite and gets the same treatment. What gives?

The conversation continued this morning with my roommate Becca. While talking about entitlement, she asked me if I’d ever seen the “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy” video on YouTube. I hadn’t seen it, but as soon as she showed me I knew it would be a perfect intro for today’s post!

The video is so funny, mostly because it’s so true! Why do we feel so entitled to our comfortable lives? Why do we feel like the world owes us something?

It makes me think of store discounts. Until yesterday, I’ve been working at an athletic clothing store that gives discounts to members in the community who are trainers, fitness instructors or professional athletes. It’s called the Research & Development program, and it exists for two reasons: (1) so that people who are excellent in their sport can test out the clothes and let us know what worked and what didn’t, and (2) as a form of inexpensive marketing and PR for the brand. It’s a great program that is such a gift to the athletes in our community, yet it so easily becomes a thing of entitlement. Just last week, I had a guest come up to the register with a pair of shorts and a tank top. She said, “Hi, I’m in your R&D program,” so I started typing in her name to apply her discount. Then she said, “I’m just going to gift these items.” I really wished she hadn’t said that. My integrity got the best of me, and I decided to stick to my guns.

“Oh gosh,” I said. “Unfortunately I won’t be able to give you the discount on these items if they’re not for you. You see, the reason why we have this program is to get feedback from you about the clothes since you’re in the fitness community. I’m sorry about that.”

She wasn’t having it. Her entitlement swooped in.

“Well, they are for me then.”

“But they’re not your size. Your purchase history shows that you’re a size 6, but these are size 12,” my co-worker Chris chimed in.

“Well then, let’s say I’m pregnant and I’m going to wear them in a bit once I gain weight,” she said, with her size-12 friend standing next to her, sheepishly looking away.

She was a sassy one, but like I said, my integrity was keeping me in the game. I wasn’t going to yield to her demands.

“I apologize, but I really can’t give you this discount. This same policy applies to us who work at the store–I can’t even buy things for my friends with my discount, let alone give you one for items that are for someone else.”

“Fine then, I guess I won’t purchase them,” she huffed. She walked away with her friend, no doubt griping about the terrible service she felt she received. A part of me felt bad, but the rest of me knew that what I did was right. You see, the R&D program at the store is an added bonus–it’s a gift, not a right! Yet she (like many others) had come to expect that she deserved anything in the store at a discounted price. God forbid she paid what everyone else had to pay!

Not surprisingly, Scripture is filled with stories like this. The most evident one is The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:

1″For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3″About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.

“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7″ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8″When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9″The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12′These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13″But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16″So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The workers agree to their wages, yet they were so quick to demand more when those who worked less were paid the same. Had those other workers not come, their pay would have been sufficient, but instead demanded more out of their feelings of entitlement.

In what ways have you seen others (or yourself) act with entitlement?

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