As
believers, we are called to a life of worship- to love God and love neighbor
with our whole being. We believe that
the Kingdom of God is an abundant community.
Therefore, ours is also a work of resistance- opposition to the Empire,
scarcity, consumerism, and corruption. Resistance requires friction. Friction involves heat. Practicing resistance is a fierce and fiery vocation. It is not easy.
Society
trains us to believe that satisfaction can be purchased. We are taught to believe that our identity is
attached to our capacity to purchase. “Consumer
society begins at the moment when what was once the province or function of the
family and community migrates to the marketplace. It begins with the decision to purchase what
might have been homemade or neighborhood produced. This is how citizens begin to yield their
power to the lure of consumption. To
overstate it a bit, consumption is like an addictive drug, one cultivated not
in foreign poppy fields but in brainstorming sessions on Madison Avenue.”[1]
The
strength and longevity of our economic system is so great that often times, we
find ourselves forsaking our calling to abundant community for one of consumer
culture. In order to break through our
barriers to the abundant community, we must take seriously our life’s vocation
of Divine worship and Resistance to evil.
“For many of us,
raised to believe that money is the real source of security, a dependence on
God feels foolhardy, suicidal, even laughable.
When we consider the lilies of the fields, we think they are quaint, too
out of it for the modern world. We’re
the ones who keep clothes on our backs.
We’re the ones who buy the groceries….We want a God that feels like a
fat paycheck and a license to spend as we please. Listening to the siren song of more, we are
deaf to the still small voice waiting in our soul to whisper, ‘You’re enough.’”[2]
We
are not the only ones being lured by the temptations of consumerism. The Israelites kept being drawn back to the
narrative of Totalism too. In Exodus 16,
they take 2 verses into the wilderness after crossing the Red Sea and then say
“let’s go back.” We tend to do the same
thing. The Church is partially to blame
for our entrapment. She generously
repeats Pharoah’s predatory economy by complacence and conformity.
What
would it be like if the Church chose to:
·
Respect
and enhance life on a small scale
·
Understand
that people’s gifts are more valuable than their deficiencies and needs.
·
Recognize
that the power of community grows out of ever-increasing cooperative local
relationships and connections
·
Understand
that a local place called neighborhood
has unique, irreplaceable value.
·
Recognize
that local resources are vital to the well-being of a community.
·
Understand
that the economy and community each derive their power from maximizing
opportunities for all the local residents to use their skills and contribute
all their gifts.[3]
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