upstairs and down

Written for the church newsletter (last Sunday, before the season finale of "Downton Abbey" aired.)

           It’s 4:44 p.m. on a Sunday and I am feeling antsy because it’s Downton Night!  And more than that, it’s Downton FINALE night, and I can’t wait to learn what intrigue lies ahead, complete, no doubt, with cliffhangers meant to keep us waiting with bated breath for Season 6.  (Assuming there will be a Season 6, which I will refrain from verifying because I don’t want to come across a spoiler in the process.)

            “Downton,” of course, is shorthand for the PBS blockbuster “Downton Abbey.”  I’m a bit of a fan.  Last summer when we were in England we toured Highclere Castle, where the program is filmed.  My friend brought me an “I [heart] Downton Abbey” sticker from OPB headquarters last time she volunteered at the radio fund drive.  My life aspirations include “become as witty as the Dowager Countess.”  (This isn’t going to happen.)

            Anyway, for those less, um, obsessed, the program follows the saga of an English noble family and its servants from 1912 through, at this point, the mid-1920s.  The Crawleys and their servants have dealt with the tragedies and disruption of World War I and are presently negotiating the increasingly complex social environment of postwar Britain. 

Born into a system of clearly defined social roles and little social mobility, this confusing new world of women’s suffrage, increasing opportunities for the lower classes and Britain’s first Labour government is giving the fine folks of Downton much to ponder.  Their clearly defined world is no longer so clearly defined.  As Daisy the scullery maid-cum-assistant cook would put it, “I didn’t know we had options, you know.  I never knew we had options.”

            While dressing for dinner or heading to London on the morning train would have been foreign to residents of first century Palestine, in many ways this story of upstairs and down would have rung truer to them than to us.  Social hierarchy?  Sure.  Lack of mobility?  Obviously.  People have their places in society—the “natural” order must be preserved.

            Enter Jesus.

            Jesus has a disconcerting way of upending this “natural” order.  With shades of Tom Branson, the Crawleys’ chauffeur, he asks uncomfortable questions.  He tells revolutionary stories.  The last shall be first.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  The homeless and dispossessed will be the ones at the wedding.  I can almost hear a first-century Daisy speaking the Aramaic for  “I didn’t know we had options!”

            It’s easy, from the perspective of 21^st century America, to sit back and view each of these social milieus with a sense of self-satisfaction.  I’ve never met anyone with a scullery maid.  We speak proudly of meritocracy.  Our politicians carefully groom a “folksy” touch.  

            But you know, those folks at Downton didn’t think there was anything wrong with their system, either.  The Crawleys (mostly) thought things were fine—and just as much to the point, so did Carson the butler.

            Where does our system preserve privilege and status?  How might our own presuppositions about “natural” order camouflage injustice?  

The fine folks of Downton spent a king’s ransom on dresses, but they also provided affordable housing for the local village.  The picture is never quite so simple.  And so it is with us.

The last shall be first.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  The homeless and dispossessed will be the ones at the wedding. 

What do these lessons look like in our world?