“They have ears but do not hear, and they have eyes but do not see.”My whole life, I have lived in privilege. I am a white American middle-class male. I grew up in a rich suburb of big city and went to a wealthy public school. Everyday I drink fresh filtered water and eat genetically altered foods and sleep in my own bed in my own room. Some days I shower multiple times and wear multiple sets of clothes and eat multiple meals and drive multiple cars and watch multiple TVs. It’s interesting though, because the language I would have used to describe my situation before my trip to Uganda is that I am blessed. I would say things like “I am so thankful that God has blessed me with so much.” In considering how much I may have in comparison to others I may offer up a prayer, “Thank you God for everything you’ve blessed me with” or “Thank you God for the abundance of blessings you’ve given me.” Without realizing it, I developed a consciousness that put me as the receiver of God’s many blessings, mostly all material, despite having done nothing to deserve them. They are all simply a blessing. The error of my perhaps subconscious conclusions is that they were made without even once considering others who may not live in the same place I live, who may not experience the same things I do or may not be able to boast in the same wealth I have. I merely looked at the poverty of some of the rest of the world as a means of measuring just how blessed I am and just how much more thankful I need to be because of my many blessings.

I feel it necessary to challenge this type of language, mostly because of what I believe to be a false consciousness that has followed years of using it.
One thing that I’ve learned from Uganda is that my view of life, of people, of the world, and especially of God has been clouded by my privilege. Using the language of God’s blessing has come to partly mean material wealth to me because I have material wealth and haven’t bothered considering the material poverty of so many others. But to experience the poverty that I did in Uganda leaves me no other rational explanation than to conclude that God’s blessings have nothing to do with material possessions. How could God bless me and not the people I met living in poverty? Why do I have clean water running out of my faucet and the family I met one month ago has to spend their entire day walking miles and miles to draw dirty water from a local water source just to cook their meal or bathe. Is it because God has blessed me and not them? Was I born to a mother who lived in comfortable and secure home in the U.S. and not to a mother who died of AIDS before I turned two because I was blessed by God and not others? Or are both situations blessed by God? Are the poor supposed to be poor and the rich supposed to be rich because of God’s blessing and purpose? Since I started asking these questions, my theology has taken a radical alteration.

I never thought I would come home back to America and not be relieved I am back in a free country with the security and safety and privileges I’ve known. I never thought I would come back to the “Bible-belt” of the United States and fear I would lose sight of what the Kingdom of God looks like and what the gospel of Jesus Christ really is.
For the first time in my life, the gospels in the Bible actually made sense. I saw a place where there was good news being told to the poor, and those held in bondage to the culture and structural systems were being set free. The weak were being made strong. Those who were mourning were learning to laugh. The people who were once abandoned were now finding community and belonging. And most importantly, those who had come to know only pain and despair where finding hope. God has truly blessed them. The Lord of justice had given them a new song to sing.

I do not mean to make the theological claim that God’s blessings cannot be material or that some material possessions are not blessings from God. For I do believe that all good things come from the Father above. However, we need to realize that though we may think we’re blessed by things, that gives us no right to claim those possessions as our own. It gives us no right to excuse our life of extravagance with no regard for others absence of basic necessities, the ignorance and inactivity we live in, merely because what we have is a blessing from God.

When I sit in my multiple room home and watch my TV or surf the web or check my Facebook or read my books or play my music or whatever, I am told that as long as I believe and have faith in Jesus, I will find abundant life and go to heaven. Yet now I know that is so far from the actual work of following Christ. If I am not doing justice, loving those who no one else has loved, giving grace to those who don’t deserve it and actually seeking to imagine and enact God’s kingdom on earth, than my petty beliefs and faith mean absolutely nothing.
I am not blessed by my abundance of things, rather I am cursed. “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal and disown the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:8-9) When as Christians living in abundance will we realize we have too much? When will we realize we have disowned our God? When will we realized that we saw God naked, or hungry, or in prison, or sick, and failed to do anything about it because we were clouded by our privilege?
Are we willing to let the poor, the sick, and the uneducated teach us? Are we willing look at God from the perspective of those in the margins? Are we willing to let go of the privileged position we think we are blessed with and surrender our pride? If we are, how then are we to live in response?

This is merely one small slice of the pie. What I have come away with and reflected on and thought about since coming back from Uganda encompasses a wide range of things. This question however has haunted my mind the most. This question is the one question that if I answer honestly, requires not only a radical change in thought but in lifestyle and in values. There’s still so much more to ask and so much more to learn.

By Matt Smith

15 February 2009