Enjoyment — Entitlement — Idolatry

Today, while reflecting on John Piper’s words on enjoyment and idolatry (from yesterday’s post), I read the sickening and saddening article in the Oregonian on Deborah and Ariel Levy.  While I’d love to take time to comment on all of Piper’s points, I’d like to focus on #5:

Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right. It may be that another person ought to give you this delight. It may be right to tell them this. But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising.

Essentially, enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it leads to entitlement.

So as you know Jeff and I are in the process of building a house, and trying to sell our small rental home in Corvallis.  While we’re still approved for our loan without our house selling, it would be financially irresponsible (in my opinion)  to go ahead with the house purchase if we still have a mortgage payment for our Corvallis house (which is vacant).  This past week, I began to feel anxious. Everyone asks if we’re so excited about our new house (which now has a roof!), and I suppose I am but more than anything I just felt anxous that our house hadn’t sold.  It was then I realized that my enjoyment of the prospect of a house had led to entitlement, “What if we don’t get this house? We’re supposed to have it!”

Secondly, while we were out running one day we walked through the new house and found that they’d framed it wrong, leaving out one bedroom and instead making it an open loft area.  Since that room is supposed to be our guest room, our space for grandparents and friends, etc. we made sure to let the builder know that it was wrong. They assured us it would be corrected.  When we checked back today it hadn’t been fixed, even though the roof was now on.  I told Jeff that if they didn’t correct it we’d need to make sure we insisted they give us our money back.  Hear it?  Entitlement.  If they don’t do it like I want they better make it right because I am entitled to have the enjoyment that I deserve.

When we got home from our run, Jeff sent me an article from the Oregonian (Read in full here).  Here’s the gist of it, suing for “wrongful life”:

In the months before their daughter was born in 2007, Deborah and Ariel Levy worried the baby might have Down syndrome. They say a doctor at the Legacy Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine assured them that a sample of tissue taken from the placenta early in the pregnancy ruled out the developmental disability, despite the results of later testing that showed the fetus might have it. But within days of the birth of their daughter, the Southwest Portland couple learned the baby did have Down syndrome. Had they known, they say, they would have terminated the pregnancy. Now they’re suing in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking more than $14 million to cover the costs of raising her and providing education, medical care, and speech and physical therapy for their daughter, who turned 2 this month. The suit also seeks money to cover her life-long living expenses … In addition to seeking money for the child’s future care, the couple ask compensation for the depression and emotional distress Deborah Levy has suffered and for her inability to go back to work as a dental hygienist. Ariel Levy, a civil engineer, also seeks compensation for the effect his daughter has had on his relationship with his wife.”

Does anyone else want to throw up right now?  I read this article as I held my own precious Heidi in my arms, smelling her sweet baby neck, kissing her round cheeks moist with milk.  Of course the Christian community is up in arms that such a sick lawsuit would even be taking place.  But you know what I realized as I reflected on this sad case? We are all guilty.

This case is simply the natural progression, the natural result of a society that is infested with a sense of entitlement.  First, the guy at Burger King forgets to hold the onions on your Whopper.  You march back in and demand they make it right.  Well, of course you do, I mean you paid to have it your way, right?  I mean that’s their slogan.  So then while you’re building a house they mess up the framing and you get three bedrooms instead of four.  Well then stomp in there and demand that they fix it (I’m not saying you shouldn’t kindly alert them…please hear me here. There is a heart issue at stake here).  You demand your money back.

The Levy’s sad case is entitlement to the extreme. Yes, there are sanctity of life issues here, but I believe entitlement is the underlying theme even to the issue of who controls the giving and taking of life.  Deborah and Ariel Levy demand money for their “emotional distress” because they were unable to kill their unborn daughter.  Their sin is more extreme. But at the root, it is my sin as well.  It is the sin of idolatry.  Idolatry of one’s own happiness and comfort.

After asking God for forgiveness for my own sickening sense of entitlement and idolatry, another friend sent me a link to this story–a refreshing contrast to the Levy Down Syndrome story (Read in full here).  This father, who also has a child with Down Syndrome, insists he is no saint.  He simply loves his son. Do you see the difference?  One humbly receives a gift with joy and gratitude, insisting he is no hero.  The other receives a gift of life and shakes their fists at doctors, demanding compensation for their “heroism” in raising a handicapped child. He’s unknowingly obeying Jesus’ words in Luke 17:10, “¹⁰ So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” Receive with thankful hearts.  Give without applause.

Oh Jesus forgive us!  Forgive the Levy’s and draw them to yourself.  Forgive us for how we’ve allowed our enjoyment to lead to entitlement and idolatry.  Help us to simply receive from your hand that which You’ve deemed good.  Sort out all the “mistakes” that aren’t really mistakes and help us to glorify You in word and deed.  May our enjoyment be in You. Forever. Amen.