Community not Consumption (Paw Prints article)

 

Community, Not Consumption

Fr. Tony’s Paw-Prints Article

The e-zine of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Medford, OR

September 30, 2022

 

The letter of James says that praying for evidence of God’s love and blessing to us is wrong because it involves corrupt intention: “you ask only that you might consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).  Consumption in its very nature involves inordinate desire, lust. 

 

Having a robust demand for market goods is key in building a healthy economy, and having a good base of consumers is needed for this.  Our modern advertising industry is all about building consumer demand:  you won’t attract the right lover if you don’t smell right, and you won’t smell right without our product; you cannot achieve happiness without our product because you are too ugly to go out without using it to cover up your blemishes; you will not be part of the “in” crowd if you do not wear our brand of tennis shoes or underwear; etc.    The basic message is: YOU ARE INADEQUATE WITHOUT WHAT WE HAVE TO SELL.  SO BUY, BUY, BUY. 

 

Our scriptures don’t seem to be extremely keen on the idea of consuming or being a consumer for consumption’s sake.    They are much more affirming on the idea of community, and of relationship.  There is a lot of talk in the Bible about covenants and relationships:  God is the husband, Israel his wife; Christ is the bridegroom, the Church his bride; God is our father, we his children; Christ is no longer our master, but our friend.

 

I hear sometimes about one or another person who got fed up with something at their Church, and then left.  They supposedly now are shopping for a Church or a pastor that fits their needs better.  Here in the Rogue Valley, I often hear “spiritual but not religious” people talking about religious ideas and spiritual practices as if they were market commodities that they can pick and choose as they see fit.   

 

This way of seeing things captures an important truth about our freedom to choose in this free society, in this marketplace of ideas and personal association.  But if this is our only way of seeing life, religious ideas, and faith, it can be deadly for real growth, healthy relationships, and life in God.

 

In the Gospel of John, there is a story where Jesus says something that really annoys his followers, and many of them leave him.  At this point Jesus turns to his close disciples and asks, “Are you going to leave too?”  Peter answers, “And just where else would we go?  You have the words of Eternal Life” (John 6:68).   

 

Spiritual growth and life in God is not about consumption, not about finding what pleases us.  It is about relationship and commitment.    This is a subtext in many of the Sunday scriptures we have been reading during these last few weeks of Ordinary Time:  use “unrighteous Mammon” to help the poor  so that we may be welcomed, like poor Lazarus, into the realms of joy by those with whom we have created such bonds.  

 

In the burial office, we see the prayer, “For we consume away in your displeasure, and are afraid at your wrathful indignation” (BCP 472, Psalm 90:7).  This means, of course, “We are being consumed in your displeasure.”  But the Elizabethan words “consume away” are happy reminders that when we begin to treat all things, including faith and relationships, as commodities, we each are left as nothing but disposable commodities ourselves.    When we are nothing but consumers, we begin to suffer what feels like God’s wrath.  How could it be otherwise, given the unbridled and unquenchable desire that the consumer economy and it ad agencies must stimulate in our hearts?  Having a boutique approach to faith or relations destroys our own humanity.   

 

Being human, merely human, demands that we sink our roots deep into our faith tradition, and into our relationships, and persevere in them, despite occasional frustrations.  It also means the freedom to change traditions or end relations that are simply too painful or abusive to continue.  But let us not confuse this blessed freedom with unbridled and monomanic consumerism, with “consuming things upon our lusts,” or with, as Oscar Wilde wittily observed, “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.”  In order to grow and prosper, we must live in community and covenant, not in mere consumption.  It means living not with hearts of cold stone, but with warm living hearts of flesh.

 

Peace and Grace,

 

Fr. Tony+