GroshLink

I found We’re wise to look, listen, kneel, pray, an opinion-editorial by a Brethren-in-Christ pastor, in my email box this morning. Quite strong (except for the mispelling of cavalry early on in the piece), I'm still thinking about it as I look at the kitchen trash bag ready to go out of the house, am reminded of the upcoming public comment meeting for the landfill expansion (a construction and demolition waste landfill which sits about a mile down the road from us), and consider how to wisely spend our rebate check in building a deck out of our door to nowhere (note:  currently has a wood fence across it on the exterior). 

We live in a world where people suffer deprivations impossible for affluent North Americans to comprehend, yet we exhaust our lives acquiring trinkets that will ultimately be discarded. Here today, gone and forgotten tomorrow. At the altar of consumerism, our self-esteem becomes determined by our income; our self-worth is tied up in the vehicle that we drive, even though the final destiny of the flashiest model will be a scrapheap. Keeping up appearances has never gone out of style, so we willingly sacrifice relationships to maintain a debt-ridden lifestyle that inflates our ego and makes us feel important.

The false god of consumerism has no grace or mercy. It has a voracious hunger that requires more and more offerings. To satisfy its requirements, we accumulate possessions on top of possessions, seemingly unaware that we are collecting fodder for junkyards. Our landfills are overflowing with all the vital gadgets and baubles that at one time were deemed necessary or even indispensable.

Are we just consumers? Or are we relational beings designed to be in community with each other? Not surprisingly, Jesus of Nazareth had something to say about consumerism: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

One more comment: Each evening as our family reflects upon our day, I remind them our identity comes in and through Christ alone. Last night Ellen beat me to it and repeated my litany of those which love us and with whom we are in community as part of the people of God.