Taking a Private Jet To Beg – A Parable

I read this a few days ago, and couldn’t help but to read a profound parable on the state of the western worldview. The article was originally written for the Washington Post, but I found it at The Age.

THERE are 24 daily non-stop flights from Detroit to the Washington area. Richard Wagoner, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli probably should have taken one of them.

Instead, the chief executives of America’s Big Three car makers opted to fly their company jets to the US capital for their hearings this week before the Senate and House — an ill-timed display of corporate excess for a trio of executives begging for an additional $US25 billion ($A38.6 billion) from the public trough this week.

“There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, DC, and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands,” Democrat representative Gary Ackerman advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. “It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo … I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

The Big Three said nothing, prompting another Democrat, Brad Sherman, to rub it in.

“I’m going to ask the three executives here to raise their hand if they flew here commercial,” he said. All still at the witness table.

“I’m going ask you to raise your hand if you’re planning to sell your jet … and fly back commercial,” Mr Sherman said. More stillness.

“Let the record show no hands went up,” he said.

Bosses go begging, but keep the silver spoons | theage.com.au

I’d recommend that you read the entire thing, there’s a bit more in there that illustrates the point further. But basically, a bunch of rich guys who are asking for money from the US government, but not ready to recognise that it ought to cost them something. Now upon reading this story, you’ll likely have had the same initial reaction I had – one of indignance at how such an intelligent group of people could be so detached from reality as to not think taking a flight on a private jet would be a bad idea; and likely give a little tut-tut at the greed of corporate executives. But we can’t look too closely – the log in our own eye will get in the way of that. Because this is a story that speaks loud and clear to the heart of my own consumption-driven lifestyle. That deeply ingrained belief in entitlement.

We’ve embraced the message we hear from every single television advertisement: that we “deserve” what we have (or the things we want), and thus when bad things happen it is someone else’s responsibility to bail us out of trouble. When we receive our paycheck, we’re more than happy to accept that this is what our time and effort  is “worth”, and that anything less is somehow unjust, or ripping you off. And we’ve set our bar for what an acceptable lifestyle looks like ridiculously higher than the level we’re willing to accept for people living in other countries. The feeling of entitlement that caused these executives not to see the ridiculous disparity between asking the government for a bailout whilst travelling by private jet, is the same heart that causes us to believe that we deserve to own a house, deserve to have an iPod to listen to on our train journey, deserve to have a financial safety net, so that misfortune doesn’t have to cost us anything.

So please, read this article again. And get indignant, allow the ridiculous hypocrisy to make you properly mad. But then let that dissatisfaction resonate with your own lifestyle, and the ways you’ve allowed your own life to mirror the messages of a consumeristic worldview, rather than hearing the voice of Jesus, telling a young rich ruler in no uncertain terms that unless he sold all his stuff, that he would struggle to ever be a part of God’s kingdom.