THe Most dangerous words

Last Sunday, I opened my sermon with a quintessentially Midwestern scenario: the last piece of pizza sitting untouched because everyone's too polite to take it. It's a small example of giving something up for others, but it points to something deeper about human nature and our relationship with power.

We all know the everyday acts of sacrifice: moving to the guest bed when you're sick to let your partner sleep (I might be speaking from recent experience), lending money to family knowing you'll never see it again, or giving up your evening to help a friend move. These small sacrifices matter. They create ripples of kindness in our communities. But what about the bigger picture? What about when we're faced with systemic problems that seem too vast for individual actions to matter?

This is where I want to talk about power, privilege, and the most dangerous words in the English language: "I deserve."

These words are particularly deceptive because they start from a place of truth. We do deserve dignity, honor, worth, and safety. These are fundamental human rights. But watch how quickly "I deserve" mutates: I deserve two-day shipping. I deserve the latest technology. I deserve fewer taxes. I deserve to live in a society where I don't have to learn a second language. I deserve to not use my turn signal.

This is how society begins to fray at the edges. When we hoard an "I deserve" mentality with just a little bit of power, it becomes exponentially harder to resist when we have more power. The billionaires currently reshaping our government and society never practiced saying "no" to "I deserve." They never learned to question their entitlement. Forgoing power and privilege doesn't get easier when you accumulate more – it gets harder. "I deserve" quickly mutates into "I exploit."

Let's look at an ancient example that might help us think about this differently. In the Christmas narrative, we meet Joseph, a man faced with a choice about power and privilege. His fiancée is pregnant, and not by him. In his cultural context, this was more than just scandalous – it was a direct threat to his honor, the primary currency of his society. Joseph had options. He could have publicly disgraced Mary (the nuclear option). He could have divorced her quietly (the respectable option). Instead, he chose to give up his social standing entirely to protect someone vulnerable.

What's particularly striking about Joseph's story is that after making this choice, he largely disappears from the narrative. He doesn't become the hero or make himself the main character. He simply does what needs to be done and steps back. This is a radical model of using privilege to protect others without centering yourself in their story.

The early Christian writer Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, makes an interesting linguistic point that's often lost in translation. He writes about divine power using language that's usually translated as "although he was in the form of God..." But the original Greek doesn't include the word "although." Modern translators are increasingly rendering it as "because he was in the form of God..." This subtle shift changes everything. It suggests that giving up power for the sake of others isn't an exception to having power – it's the proper use of power.

This brings us to a challenging truth: love, real love, isn't safe. As Bell Hooks wrote, "The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss and hurt and pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control." But the alternative – refusing to risk, refusing to love, refusing to give up power – creates a far worse kind of pain. It creates a world where power accumulates in the hands of those least willing to share it.

Jewish mystics speak of Tzimtzum, the idea that the world was created through God's self-limitation – by withdrawing just enough to make space for something else to exist. This is a profound metaphor for how positive change happens. When we who have privilege withdraw our need to control everything, we create space for others to exist fully.

Every single one of us, regardless of our position in society, has some form of power we can leverage for others. For those of us with more privileged identities, we have significant power to leverage for change. For those who have been pushed to the margins, we have the power to claim dignity and use that dignity to help others. The world gets worse when we hoard our power and resources, even though we all want to believe we're the exception.

I believe the invitation before us is clear: we need to identify where we have power and privilege, and then figure out how to use it for others rather than ourselves. This isn't about guilt or shame – it's about creating the kind of world we actually want to live in. Every time we resist the "I deserve" mentality, we create more space for love, for justice, for human flourishing.

The truth is, we do deserve a lot. We deserve to live in a world where everyone has enough, where dignity is universal, where power is shared rather than hoarded. But getting there requires us to constantly examine our relationship with power and privilege, to practice saying "no" to entitlement, and to risk the vulnerability that comes with real love.

It might start with something as simple as the last piece of pizza. But it certainly doesn't end there.