Materialism - No. 55

Materialism, I have heard the word my whole life. There is no question that we live in a materialistic age. For most of my life, that word conjured up images of people who have amassed wealth in order to acquire more things. More houses, cars, planes, boats, and toys. A friend recently spotted Mark Zuckerberg's $300 million mega yacht in Alaska. It made him feel weird to see the product of so much wealth being held by one man. That is how I used to think of materialism: lavish, unnecessary, and decadent. Let me be clear, I am not bashing super yachts, as Larry Mills says, “your 8-foot Jon boat is another man's dream boat.” Many of us are guilty in some measure of being the man with the super yacht in a world where most men dream of Jon boats. After all, over 2 billion people still cook over an open fire every day and half the world's population lives on less than $10 a day. I can’t afford to judge someone else for something I am also guilty of. 

Materialism is so much more than just acquiring more stuff, it is the attachment we have to finite things. That extends far beyond our possessions and includes the way we think and the life we live. The real heart of materialism is not primarily what we have or how much we have of it, it is the relationship we have with the material world. In philosophy, materialism often refers to the view that the physical world is all there is. That means a materialistic person would not believe in the spiritual world or anything beyond what they can see, touch and smell. Usually that looks like treating money, status, and consumption as the main measure of the quality of their life and their sense of happiness. We have all seen and known people who believe and live that way. I have met men on the verge of death who still think that way even though everything they have lived for is so clearly about to abandon them. 

Here is where the concept of materialism gets really important and starts hitting close to home. I can say all day long that other people are materialistic, but based on the expanded definition of materialism I just shared, I quickly must come face to face with my own materialism. Sure, I am not buying super yachts or giving my life to amassing a fortune, but I do often find my security and sense of well-being too closely attached to material things. When I have enough financial security, enough food, pleasure, physical health, and safety, I tend to feel pretty good about my life. Take one of those things away though, and I can start to struggle; take a couple away at a time, and I can quickly find myself very discouraged. Thankfully, I have had to walk through seasons where I didn’t have enough, and in those experiences I chose to wrestle with overcoming my own materialism. I think we often times just ignore these opportunities to work through something rather than embracing them. 

“We have more houses, more clothes, more holidays, more prescription drugs than ever before. We live longer, and in more luxury than our great-grandparents could likely imagine. We have more ‘stuff’ than ever, and yet something often feels missing. What could this mean?” - Martin Shaw

We have been marinated all our lives in a consumerist culture. Everywhere we look, all we see is the same lie subtly screamed back to us: you deserve to have what you want when you want it. Simply put, you need more, more success, more things, more status, more pleasure, more experiences. Whether you are a manual laborer or a titan of industry, the message of consumption is, whatever you have, it is not enough; you need more. And we, feeling inadequate and incomplete, buy into this. Perhaps a little more will make me feel like I am enough and I have enough. 

You might be thinking, well, I am pretty content, I don’t need more to be happy. More doesn’t mean only jets and houses, it can be the small things: a trip, an outfit, repainting your home or getting a tool you really want. It doesn’t matter what the more you want is, it is just the fact of wanting, or perhaps needing more than we have right now. Still feeling content? Let me challenge you another way: would you be ok with less? What if you lost the house, your job, or your savings? Would you be ok? Would you wring your hands at God and fall into despair, or would you hold material things so loosely that you would just thank God for entrusting you with those things for a time and joyfully follow Him into your new career as a Walmart greeter? I ask myself these questions often. 

Last night I sat there listening as my wife read our kids a chapter out of The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. In the section she read, Corrie was in prison talking about a nurse giving her some small pieces of real soap and small books containing the Gospels, and how what she was most thankful for was the Gospels. Once again I had to come face to face with my materialism. If I had been arrested, separated from my family, and had everything I owned taken from me in WWII Germany for hiding jews, would I be able to rejoice that I could read the gospels in prison as I prepared to be shipped to a concentration camp? I hope so, but I doubt it. Gospel means "good news,” I am not sure how many days that good news brings more joy and thankfulness out of us than an Amazon package or a good meal. 

At this point, you either recognize materialism in yourself or you think I am over the top and too intense. So I would like to simply invite you to pray this prayer with me. 

Prayer 

Father, I repent for my need and drive to hold onto the things that I can touch, own, and understand. I so desperately desire certainty that I will be ok, that I will be able to hold onto the things that I love, the possessions, the lifestyle, the positions of prominence, influence, and respect. I repent for wanting to be in control; when I am really honest, I can see that I don't truly trust you.

I struggled to trust you because there are so many things in my life that haven't made sense. Times I trusted you and felt let down. I asked you to protect, provide, and guide, but what happened felt like abandonment. You could've done something to help me, but you didn't. I still choose to trust you, but parts of my heart and mind are still wounded from the times I felt abandoned by you and others. 

God, I have held you hostage to my understanding. I put myself on the judgment seat, and I declared you unfaithful based on my limited understanding. Without truly understanding, I have acted as if I did. Forgive me for my ignorance.

Forgive me for wanting control, to hold onto what I have, what I wanted. Forgive me for holding so tightly to meaningless things; forgive me, Father, for loving the finite over the eternal. Forgive me for being materialistic. 

You made me for connection with you. You made me for mystery, transformation, and journey. You beckon me beyond myself, beyond my understanding. You call me into the wilderness with you. You call me to the place where I must abandon control and materialism. I repent for ignoring your call and hiding in the material from the spiritual. I declared to myself that your spiritual is more real than anything else in my life. You are inviting me into the timeless, infinite dance of the divine union with you. I accept that I can't fully understand that, only surrender to it. I choose here and now once again to dive into this glorious unknown with you. I choose a life where the spiritual is more real than what I can see and touch and own.

I thank you for inviting me out of the prison of self, and the prison of materialism, the bondage of my own need for understanding. I believe, Lord, forgive my unbelief.

Question to Ponder

• Do I see myself as a steward of what I have been entrusted with (possessions and positions), or do those things rule my imagination, identity, and self-worth?
• If I lost all that I have, would I be able to truly rejoice over the gift of the Good News?

- John Walt

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