Winnerism

(I apologize for the smaller font size. Every time I tried to upload this, Blogspot kept messing with the font sizes, mixing large and small randomly. It does this from time to time inexplicably.)

The scriptures referred to are Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Luke 16:19-31.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't.” Humorist Robert Benchley was joking about the fact that we tend to see people in binary terms: male and female, black and white, rich and poor, friends and enemies, our side and the opposing side. Yet we keep finding out that human beings are not that simple. The DNA of the average African American is about 20% Caucasian, because of slave owners raping their slaves. And if you are a white supremacist, I am afraid that a DNA test is likely to show you are not a pure white European descendant. Socio-economic classes are somewhat permeable and not fixed. And to explore all the possible genders and orientations would take a book. I myself think that most things in the world are a lot more complex than having just two alternatives and I tend to mistrust the overly simple explanation. But I confess that I am going to get close to that in this sermon.

I have noticed that almost everyone tends to think that folks do fall into 1 of 2 categories: winners or losers. Folks are either succeeding at life or some aspect of it or they are not. They are doing well or doing poorly. And because of the competition we see in sports and business and in life, we see those doing well as winning and those who aren't as losing.

We can call it winnerism. Just as racism means people are perceived as superior or inferior and treated better or worse depending on their race, winnerism is the tendency of all humans to think of and treat people differently depending on whether they are perceived as winners or not. I think it underlies racism, sexism, ageism, nationalism, etc. We rank people according to whether we see them or their group as winners. And we attribute their success to their inherent qualities and virtues. And even when there are obvious flaws in their character or behavior, we make excuses for the winners. In fact we don't mind if they cheat to win, provided they are on our side.

One of the main things we us to keep score on winners and losers is money. In Jesus' day they thought the rich must have been blessed by God. When Jesus said a camel could squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle easier than a rich man could get into heaven, the disciples, shocked, said, “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:24-27) One problem is the causes to which we attribute wealth and poverty. Some people see it as a matter of black and white: smarter and harder-working people accrue wealth and dumber and lazier people do not. This interpretation falls apart if you look at it in any depth. Not all smart people and not all hard-working people become wealthy. For instance, college professors are generally considered very smart and they usually make more than the average person but they aren't necessarily rich, depending on their subject. According to salary.com if you are a law professor you are likely to make on average $70,000 more than a professor in nursing or biology. Because we need more lawyers than nurses?

And in the same industry other smart people make a lot less. Assistant professors, who don't have tenure but do teach lots of classes, usually make anywhere from half to 2/3s of what a full professor does. And a teaching assistant, who often teaches in place of the professor whose course you signed up for, makes a lot less. They are often poor, making from $7.95 to $15 an hour here in Florida. That's anywhere from 30 to 45% less than the median income in the US.

And we all know of people who are both lazy and dumb and yet are wealthy, especially if they inherited it. Sadly, the world is not a meritocracy. Hard work and smarts certainly increase the odds that you will get ahead but they don't guarantee it. They are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to become what the public sees as a winner.

The real dark side of winnerism is how it explains why people are losers, and it's usually by impugning their virtue or intelligence or their work ethic. And we often hang this deficiency on some superficial but easily identifiable characteristic, like their race, or their country of origin, or their religion or their socio-economic class. Yet should a member of one of these groups become an indisputable winner we hold them up as proof, ironically, that others in their category could do as well if only they tried. Yes, George Washington Carver was the child of slaves but he was also a genius. There are lots of perfectly good people of color who aren't geniuses and consequently can't use that to achieve a life on par with likewise ordinary white people, who are not burdened with going upstream against societal prejudice.

Usually a person who gets very far ahead of the pack has some advantages that are beyond their control. They may have inherited their advantages, be it wealth or genes. Even with the best trainer in the world, you won't win the regular Olympics if you have muscular dystrophy. You are also unlikely to become rich if you have a severe physical or mental disability. Sure, we can think of exceptions: Stephen Hawking had ALS. But again, if he hadn't been a genius, something over which he had no control, he would have died decades earlier in obscurity. Helen Keller's family was able to hire a full-time private tutor in sign language. Without the means to learn about the world and to express herself her gifts would have never been known.

Studies also show that where you are born profoundly affects how well you do in life. People born into impoverished areas rarely get rich; people born in rich areas rarely end up poor. Again there are exceptions. But they are just that: outliers to the norm, anomalies in the general trend of how things go. And the reason why geography has such an influence on people's mobility may be due to economic opportunities, schools, available choices of spouses, etc.

Your family is another thing that affects you but over which you have no choice. If you come from an upper class family, you will likely have connections that will help you get into better schools, give you introductions to powerful people, get you the inside track on a well-paying position or entry into a restricted field, like Wall Street banking.

Having factors that are beyond your control but very favorable to you can be a sufficient condition for worldly success. We all know of celebrities who become rich and famous merely for being good looking, another advantage in the real world. A large number of actors start as models. Not only that but behavior typically considered characteristic of the lower classes, such as sexual promiscuity, drug use, and the desire to party all the time, only makes a celebrity more infamous and thus a better subject for news coverage, reality TV and social media. The fact that such conduct in a poor person makes him or her an object of condemnation just goes to show that, again, merit has little or nothing to do with a person's position in society. We give “winners” slack that we deny to “losers.”

Race is also a factor, of course. Studies have shown that if you send both a person of color and a white person to apply for the same job, even if they have identical resumes, the white person is much more likely to get the job. The same phenomena can be seen in housing, loans and other vital areas of getting ahead financially. Consequently white households have on average 9 times the wealth that black households do. As someone pointed out, being white doesn't mean you won't have obstacles in life; it just means that race isn't one of them.

History, as they say, is written by the winners which is why it takes a while for their stories to cease being hagiographies. It may take decades or longer for biographers and historians to take a critical look at the person, or the group. And during that lag time the people they were “victorious” over get portrayed as total losers. The pilgrims, we were taught, conquered the new world because Native Americans were primitive savages. Yet we now have evidence of vast and intricate Indian civilizations, which were decimated by a plague that killed as many as 80% of the population, much as the Black Death had in Europe 300 years earlier. Ironically, the pilgrims would have starved in the very first winter had it not been for the kindness of the Native Americans. So it was not better brains or technology that made the colonists “winners.” They just arrived at a time when the native population was devastated by an epidemic.

Professor Jared Diamond wrote his book Guns, Germs and Steel to refute the idea that Europe and the West achieved their material success due to some sort of genetic or intellectual or moral superiority compared to the global South or the East. As a geographer he could see that the area of Europe had the advantage of a wider variety of plants to eat, of animals to domesticate and a more equitable climate. The relatively compact area of Europe and its connection with Asia and North Africa was better for spreading the knowledge of agriculture, technology and innovation than larger, less populated continents. The North and West simply had more resources to begin with.

Now how does this relate to our lectionary. In Amos, he excoriates the so-called winners in this life who have lots of luxuries and care about nothing else. Psalm 146 says, in part: “Put not your trust in princes...” In other words, the world's “winners.” And then it goes on to praise God, who not only creates everything but “Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the alien; he sustains the fatherless and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.” God is the champion of those the world sees as “losers.”

In our passage from 1 Timothy, Paul writes, “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” Then he goes on to speak of the pain and temptations and evil to which the pursuit of wealth opens a person. The person who has more must be generous and do good with what they've been given.

Finally, we get the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus begins this way: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.” Then both men die and Lazarus goes to heaven and the rich man ends up in Hades. But the rich man's fate is not due to his wealth but to his lack of concern for the poor. He who feasts well daily cannot be bothered to feed the poor man lying at his gate, nor get him care for his sores. He violates both the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated (Luke 6:31) as well as the second greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And you may remember that just 2 chapters ago, Jesus said that if you have a feast invite the sick and the poor, precisely because they can't repay you and you will be repaid in the afterlife. (Luke 14:12-14) In this parable, Jesus shows what the repayment is for neglecting to do anything for the disadvantaged, the least of Jesus' siblings (Matthew 25:31-46).

Why do we allow such blatant disparities in life? Because, as the saying goes, to the victor belongs the spoils. When we look at life as a competition, then we look for winners and losers. And we feel that the winner should take, if not all, then the lion's share of what is at stake. But as we've shown, winners rarely start off on an equal footing with others. They have a head start or an advantage. The Horatio Alger “rags to riches” story we've been sold is rarely true. Had Bill Gates' parents not been wealthy, he might not have been able to drop out Harvard to start Microsoft. Rappers often talk of gritty street life because that is where the art form began. But there are plenty of rappers like Drake, who grew up in middle class and upper class homes.

Some times it's a literal head start. Had Elisha Gray made it to the patent office a few hours before Alexander Graham Bell, the person we attribute the invention of the phone to would be different. Gray would have been the “winner” of that race. But we try not to think about that, lest it mean that factors other than merit determines winners. If it's hard work alone or following some set of rules, then maybe we can be winners too. The idea that factors beyond our control could determine such things scares us.

Another big problem with winnerism is, as we've said, once you are a winner, people tend to ignore or cover up or make excuses for your behavior. People at Miramar and the Weinstein Company were complicit in their boss Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults on actresses. Ditto those who worked for or were friends with millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. It is undeniable that Bill Cosby was a great comedian and educator. It is also undeniable, after 60 women accused him and after a court convicted him, that he was a rapist. It really hurts me to acknowledge that. But did we not have the attitude that winners are entitled to a lot more leeway than others, I don't think he would have gotten away with it for as long. Someone in the industry would have outed him decades ago.

The things the world highly values are not the things God values. He doesn't see this life as a competition. So, no, he who dies with the most toys does not win.

If God sees this life as in any way analogous to a game, the goal would be not competition but cooperation. God is love and we were created in the image of God. In love you don't compete; you work together. You are on the same team, so to speak. You each have different talents and gifts and you may take on different roles within the team effort but with the same end in mind: that everyone be well-served and no one be left out. On Team Jesus it is all for one and one for all. Jesus gave his all for us; how can we do less?

And if we stop looking at life as a competition, then we stop looking at others as the competition. They are not the enemy. They are either members of Team Jesus or potential members of Team Jesus. We don't exclude people; we invite them. We do not reject people; we recruit them.

And lest you feel that a life without competition would be boring, let me assure you there are a host of problems that we need to tackle together. Like racism, poverty, sexism, ageism and all the ways in which we have not yet gotten to the place where we treat every single person as we would like to be treated. There are challenges to face, such as how do we distribute the gifts God has given this world so no one is without the basics. If you want to defeat something, defeat ignorance by teaching others the truth and how to think clearly and critically and what is of eternal value. If you desire real stakes, rather than fighting aliens online, fight fires and flooding; fight injustice. Rather than wrack up scores of how many people you kill in a video game, concentrate on saving lives in real life. Always wanted to save the world? Work on countering the crushing climate crisis. Again the people who will be affected the most are those who have the least to start with.

No one created in the image of God is a loser. And if we did things right, everyone would have one major advantage: a worldwide family of people who will use their gifts of talent, time and treasure to help you overcome obstacles. Teammates look out for one another. 

Spoiler alert for a 30 year old comic book: In The Watchmen a very brainy superhero decides to save the world from eminent nuclear war by creating a convincing alien menace that threatens the entire planet. Every nation on earth stops fighting each other and focuses on their common enemy. In real life humanity is its own worst enemy. We divide ourselves into opposites and label one side “winners” and the other “losers.” And then fight about who's who. But we have reached the point where, as Ben Franklin put it, "we must all hang together or most assuredly we will hang separately." Besides the ever-present specter of nuclear war, biological warfare and cyber-warfare, which can cripple our intricately interconnected world, our exploitation and abuse of nature is coming back to haunt us. The situation is not hopeless but it requires immediate action, not just by a few people or nations but by all of us. And we on Team Jesus can lead the way. We can be the glue that brings humanity together to help one another and thus to help us all. Our Lord encouraged reconciliation, peacemaking, not calling people names or dismissing those who are not flourishing. We are called to be the ongoing embodiment of God's love. We can bring to each person the good news: "You are not a loser. God loves you and Jesus gave his life so as not to lose you. So join the side that is about love and life and saving and healing. Join Team Jesus. The entrance requirements are simple: offer up a limited and limiting life that is all about you and receive in return eternal life in Jesus that will give everything in it meaning. It's a win/win."