Entitled: “1. a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract. 2 :belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges”. Thus says the internet dictionary. Thus also says my sense of the word and its usage.
However, it seems almost daily some highly acclaimed or greatly educated author writes or otherwise mentions a book and says the book is “entitled” such and such, using the book’s title. Really? Exactly to what is a book entitled? Good exposure at Barnes & Noble and Amazon so it can sell? Proper storage on a bookshelf? A careful reader who won’t spill coffee on its pages?
I’m not sure books are entitled to anything other than someone to read them. But that is not the real question. The real and more important question is this: To what are you and I entitled?
We can answer that question in various ways. We could say we are entitled to nothing except opportunity. However we know in this world not all have equal opportunity. While each year we seem to have a student or two who is the first from their family to attend college and receive a degree, I read a book filled with examples and statistics saying how much harder it is for someone to get into college if no one in their family or close circle had ever gone to college. Forms, loans, scholarships, entrance exams and the very vocabulary of college and admittance are foreign for those who did not grow up hearing and learning about such things. If the very expectation of attending college is not expressed, the incentive to even try is much less. Too often in my ministry I have heard, “We don’t go to college in this family. We work for a living. We are not one of those rich people that can afford college.” They are just unaware of what is out there in terms of loans and scholarships.
Entitled. To what is God entitled? The God who gives us all we have and are….much of which we often mistake as our entitlements….to what is God entitled? The God who shares God’s grace, forgiveness and new life…to what is God entitled? The simple answer is that God is entitled to us returning our best to God by serving God and serving others.
Ah, but you and I do not always give God our best. You and I too often are way too busy serving ourselves and our wants while giving token service to others. The simple answer there is our giving to God what God is entitled falls short of the mark. God does not receive that to which God is entitled. But you and I…..we receive far more than we are entitled.
All of this comes as a reminder both to the one writing this piece and those who read it: To what things in your life do you believe you are entitled? Why do you and I think such? What gives us the notion, not to mention the right, to think we have entitlements in life?
Another question…a very important one at that, is this: “What things do we believe others ought to be entitled?” Equality? Health insurance? Education? Opportunity? Justice? Peace? These are just a few, I know. However, I am convinced like you and I who have had much of the above list during our lives, these are not entitlements because of something we did or who we are. They are entitlements because of who we are. Likewise they are entitlements for others because of who they are: children of God; just like us.
It is God who grants the entitlements. It is you and I and all the people of God who are called to see that such gifts of entitlements are not hoarded among the few but distributed equally to all.
You can title your book or entitle it if you like. Just remember who ultimately is the one who grants life’s entitlements.