On this day saturated in the praise, worship, and deification of consumerism, I thought it be good to reflect on an old film that gets at the heart of where a society is embedded. When California is at a 22% unemployment rate (that figured factored by looking at the state average of unemployed plus those whose unemployment benefits have run out, those who have worked multiple jobs who do not have unemployment insurance, those are considered “discouraged” workers, and those who are small business owners who do not “show up” on the economic map), a national average of at least 15% unemployment (same equation used above, but we’re not considering those who are also too sick and or incapable of working due to mental illness), and an economy that does not seem to be “restarting” as quick as the propagandized pundits would hope, you would think that people would think twice about buying that iPad or X-Box. Yet, people have been camping out for the last week just to get “50%” off of something that was marked up to begin with.

Moreover, much of society has become increasingly selfish and self-centered as it relates to actual sharing and the spreading of wealth. Folks see the “poor” as lazy, ineffectual and a scourge on societal resources; of course until they themselves end up there, which seems to be happening more frequently these days.

We seem to capitulate to the insanity of spending more while numbing ourselves with the material goods of our day; only to need the next hit once the “second edition” is revealed. Now, I make no bones about me being a consumer as well. However, over the last few years my family and I have had a chance to step back and look at some of our spending habits in contrast of our love for people. As I have stated prior, our society and American Dream has become less about “life” and more about the love of things and the use of people; rather than the other way around.

This clip below is from the 1976 film Network. In an almost prophetic voice, the clip illustrates where our culture has gotten in relation to consumerism, materialism, and the dis-enlightenment of the American mind. As Neal Postman has articulated eloquently we as a society have “Amused ourselves to death.”

Thus, as we sit back and reflect on food, family, and friends, let us also begin to peer deeper into the habits of our American mind in relation to community and those who “have not.”

I don’t know about you, but I find the whole Gulf spill to be very overwhelming. Crabs in oil, boats in oil, the entire southeastern United States in oil. A friend recently posted an app that super-imposes the current dimensions of the oil slick over any region of the US. It’s crazy, seeing a black shadow stretch from Philadelphia to Boston. It provides perspective of the disaster that continues to unfold, and it brings home the devastation.

But then again . . . .  It’s nothing. I’m sorry, but just think about the numbers with me. There are, on the high side, twenty thousand barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf every day. Terrible! Insane. A certified disaster of historic proportions. And we consume, in the United States alone, twenty MILLION barrels of oil . . . a day. At the current rate of discharge, the broken well would have to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 2.7 years, just to provide for one single day of America’s consumption. That may be more horrifying than the ever-spreading oil slick that is clinging to Florida like hot Saran Wrap.

 In Exodus 20, the very first of God's ten commandments is His declaration that we must "have no other gods", and right on the heels of that, we're warned against "graven images", which is a warning against fabricating gods out from our own creativity as representations of the true God. God warns against this, of course, because He knows that our attempts to represent God will always, mis-represent Him, as we can do none other than make God in our own image. If you'd like an example of this 're-shaping of God', you don't need to go to a new age bookstore, though you can find it there. Just jump over and check out the Conservative Bible Project, where God's character and truth is being reshaped according in the image of American political conservatism. Idols, it turns out, can thrive on the left AND the right.

                Does consumerism have a cost?  We could talk about the environment. We could look at the UN’s recent study that showed, between 1954 and 2004, 80% of the world’s population became poorer, and 20% became wealthier. We could look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how marketing always pushes consumers to the two lowest levels of need (safety and belonging), and then wonder about how that constant push messes with our minds, our faith, and our relationships. In Evangelical circles, “spiritual warfare” is often defined as God blessing us with stuff (“God blessed me with a new car!”) and the Devil busily taking stuff away (“I’m being attacked! I’m going to lose my house!”). We pursue oil in Iraq to fuel our SUV’s, as part of a moral crusade (“battling Evil”).