Posted: 11/10/06
RIGHT or WRONG?
A materialistic lifestyle
Our church increasingly reflects the materialistic culture around us. How can I address this issue and help people in our church recognize the incongruities between a Christian lifestyle and how they are living?
How appropriate it is for this question to appear just before Thanksgiving. How ironic it was for me to receive it several months back, about the same time Christmas merchandise began appearing in local stores, in late September.
Many people deplore the commercialization of Christmas. Its trappings have changed drastically since a humble maiden, married to a simple carpenter, gave birth to a son in a Bethlehem stable. Yet I believe we can recapture that simplicity despite living in a materialistic culture. I have three suggestions.
• Start by reading the fairy tale, "The Fisherman’s Wife.” The story tells of a fisherman who catches and releases a fish when it claims to be a prince. The fisherman tells his wife about the fish, and she sends him back to ask the grateful fish/prince for a cottage to replace their hut. She is dissatisfied with the cottage after several weeks. She wants a castle, then to be king, then emperor and finally lord of the universe, at which time the fish reverses all the gifts and returns the couple to their hut. This tale illustrates the biblical teachings regarding the danger of possessions, greed and the love of money. No person can serve God and mammon.
Our wish for more may lead to impulse buying. Giving in to advertising’s enticements may become easier. We may find ourselves burdened with overwhelming debt.
A simple lifestyle frees us from the anxiety that life consists in the accumulation of material things. Adopting a simple life overcomes attitudes and actions that limit our effectiveness as Christians. It reminds us of the importance of a simple life.
• Sing the simple Shaker melody, “Simple Gifts”: “’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free, / ’tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, / and when we find ourselves in the place just right, / ’twill be in the valley of love and delight. / When true simplicity is gained / to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed, / to turn, turn, will be our delight / till by turning, turning we come round right.” I think Jesus would have liked “Simple Gifts” because he embraced and modeled a simple life.
John Wesley’s advice regarding material matters illustrates a simple lifestyle. “Make all you can,” that is, be productive in your work. “Save all you can,” or in other words, waste nothing. He taught that to use more than one needs is to waste on self. His final admonition is the third suggestion for recapturing a simple lifestyle:
• “Give all you can.” Be generous with what you have earned and saved. And there’s no better time to give than at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Giving to meet others’ needs demonstrates a wise use of wealth (Matthew 25:14-30) and ministers to Christ by using your possessions to meet human need (Matthew 25:31-45). Giving something away shows that you are not enslaved to material things. We show that we have turned and “come round right.”
“Simple Gifts” is a song of dance that celebrates the joy we experience when we demonstrate a simple life by giving to others. Let’s sing and celebrate the gift of a simple life.
David Morgan, pastor
Trinity Baptist Church
Harker Heights
Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.
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