Community, Not Consumption
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
October 17, 2012
A few weeks back in the Sunday lectionary, we ran into the
phrase “you ask only that you might consume
it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).
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 Ashland, 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.
Back in August, we read for the Sunday Gospel a story where Jesus
said something that really annoyed his followers, many of them left. 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 has been a subtext in many of the Sunday scriptures we have been reading
these last few weeks of Ordinary Time: in addition to the James and John
passages above, we also read Jesus’ condemnation of treating our personal
relations as disposable commodities two weeks ago (Mark 10:2-16), and his
telling us to sell our possessions to help the poor last Sunday (Mark 10:17-31).
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.
Peace and Grace,
Fr. Tony+
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