Blessed or privileged?

Jon Tyson- Unsplash

Whilst mindlessly scrolling through Facebook one night, I came across a post telling Christians off for the use of the hashtag ‘blessed’.  The post was calling readers to question their privilege and not to mistake it for the blessing of Christ.

I struggle with how to talk about the good things in my life.  The book of James states that ‘every good and perfect thing is from above’ (1:12).  Taking this verse all by itself, one could be led to believe that my stable and secure upbringing, my education, my husband, my children, home, car and the plethora of other good things I live with are blessings.  I’ve always thought of them in this way but, knowing that many aspects of my life are drenched in white, middle-class privilege leaves me in a bit of a pickle.  

Am I attributing all my stuff and status to God?  Is he in on the inequality of the world, heaping blessings and favour on privileged me and overlooking many others? My family and I are safe and secure; some families travel across the oceans in shitty blow up boats because it’s their best option.  Is God in on this sort of painful inequality?

The way I see it, when I consider my middle-class comfort as blessing, what I’m actually doing is shifting the question from one of semantics to one of suffering and how a good god could let it happen. If God has blessed me he has, by implication, not blessed others and thus he is actively perpetuating social inequality.  Thus begins a separate post….

But this doesn’t fit with the Jesus of the gospels.  This Jesus is my anchor; when God the Father seems intangible to me, I go back to the person of Jesus; he was a real man and we have reliable documentation of how he lived and what he said.  From the beginning (birth in stable) all the way to his earthly end (a criminal’s execution) Jesus made no effort to seek out riches or comfort. Rather he lived as a poor man and spent his thirty-three years reaching for those at the bottom of the social heap.  Luke six records Jesus teaching ‘blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God’ (6:20). 

So it seems God isn’t preoccupied with material wealth and status.  With this in mind I went back to the verse in James I mentioned at the start and found something wonderfully refreshing: I’ve been reading this verse like an absolute moron. 

Here it is -  ‘Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…’ James 1:12

Those good and perfect gifts are not the things the world gives.  Prior to this section, James talks about God promising to give us his wisdom when we ask for it (v.5) and the joy we should experience in trials (v. 2). In fact, riches and wealth only get their mention when James tells us that, while those in ‘humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position’ (v. 9), the ‘brother’ who is rich will ‘pass away like a wildflower’ (v.10).  And again- ‘the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business’ (v.11).  James is certainly not describing blessing in terms of the things that make me rich and my life comfortable.  After telling us twice that wealth doesn’t equal spiritual favour, James tells us that ‘the man who perseveres under trial (is blessed), because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.’ (v. 12). Those in humble circumstances and those who are going through trials

are the ones blanketed in God’s ultimate blessing.

My reading of Jesus and my re-reading of James chapter one has led me to believe that God’s main concern isn’t sustaining my rich and comfortable lifestyle. In terms of my stuff and my lifestyle, I now see myself as more ‘hashtag privileged’ than ‘hashtag blessed’. However, in the process of writing and rewriting this post and reaching this conclusion, I have realised that I do still see myself as immeasurably blessed. This is just not as much to do with my stuff as I thought it was before.