Month: July 2012

Materialism (Part 1.5)

/ skatka / 1 Comment

There is some song that comes on the radio in the store every now and then. I don’t endorse the song or the musical style, but the lyrics get stuck in my head because they are repeated ad nauseum:  “I am a material girl and I live in a material world.”  When it comes on I get all over metaphysical angst, because–well, yes–I am material being in a material world; but I’m not.  Or, as C. S. Lewis put it, “You don’t have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body.”

Frankly, living like a material girl (or guy) in a material world is much easier than living as a Spiritual being in a Spiritual reality while existing as a material entity in a material universe.  Our materiality is as easy as breathing (literally!), as easy as walking barefoot on the carpet, drinking coffee, stubbing your toe.  Our materiality is not a bad thing. Our materiality (both our physical selves and the world) are God-given — even God celebrated!

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Psalm 19:1-4

But our fallen materiality makes Spiritual living really tricky! Our material existence is immediate.  It is impressed upon us every second of everyday. But it takes an act of the Holy Spirit and a dedication to meditating on the Word to live with Spiritual values in mind and to interpret the material world in a Spiritual light.

I think this is why I love Ecclesiastes so much. There is a lot going on in the book, but in amongst it all is this struggle between appreciating the wonderful material universe provided to us by a loving heavenly Father and the dangers that materiality can pose to us due to our fallen nature.  Ecclesiastes offers a really “simple” breakdown of the whole problem:

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”  Ecc. 12:13-14

I am always surprised by this conclusion.  I want it to be more complex.  God knew I couldn’t handle more complex.  The bottom line is that until heaven, until our glorified bodies, the inherent tension of our dual existence is here to stay, and that’s the way God planned it.  His plans are always perfect.

This is a little scattered, but as always thanks for listening.

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”  ― C.S. Lewis

The Insidious Work of Materialism (Part, 1)

/ skatka / 1 Comment

In the most reductive terms (this is not to imply that being reductive is of necessity bad any more than a sketch is less valuable/correct than a realistic, colored painting) materialism is the belief that the world is comprised solely of material, tangible, quantifiable components;

OR, from Google, because the internet knows everything (Just kidding! But in this case the internet is fairly enlightening):

MATERIALISM (noun) A tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.  The doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.

Within the materialistic worldview any kind of spirituality is at best a delusion or perhaps only the misfiring of an under-evolved brain. The church has too long attempted to inoculate its constituents to the work of materialism by attacking the most obvious flaws of the system with truisms like:  “Don’t live for things”; “Don’t let money rule your life”; or “Be heavenly minded.”  (All good ideas based in Scripture, so please don’t read this as a dismissal of the value of these truths.)  However, these fail to address the complexity of the dangers of materialism.  They only address the most obvious danger. The more alarming danger of/from materialism comes when the church, either individual or corporate, lives as if responding to the material world like the unsaved were normal. When we as a church act like the unsaved world’s normal (which in our current cultural climate is almost completely materialistic) is normal, we are in trouble.

INDIVIDUAL MATERIALISM–

When it becomes normal for church members to live like everyone else–in comparative ease, pursuing activities for personal gain/enjoyment, assuming having a career/home/healthy family/money/anything is to be expected–we have become Practical Materialists because, frankly, this kind of lifestyle is found nowhere in the Bible.

Consider Hebrews 11:

  • Noah spent one hundred years, give or take, building a boat. He gave up, literally, the entire world he knew.
  • Abraham left his family and his home to wander around a land he had never seen. (Now Abraham was wealthy, but this tended to be as much a problem as a blessing. Consider Genesis 13:3-7, for instance.)
  • Sarah believed against all human odds that God could provide her with a son.
  • Joseph made slavery into a lucrative career by obeying even when obedience seemed to mean career-suicide. (Not that Joseph was thinking of a career, but that’s sort of the point.)
  • Moses exchanged life in a sophisticated, urban, cultured palace to lead a bunch of whiny, rebellious people around the wilderness.

The point of all this is that these people chose to live in the realization that the material world around them was insignificant in comparison to the Spiritual world to which they were called.  And you don’t have to take my word for it:

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)

And if you don’t favor OT examples (shame on you) consider:

  • Paul at God’s call left his cultured, religious world to join the group he had made it his lifework to persecute.
  • Aquila and Priscilla followed Paul to minister to him even when it meant facing persecution and discomfort.
  • Peter left his cultural “home” as a Jew within the Jewish nation to preach peace to the Gentiles–a move with ramifications beyond the ken of us Gentiles.
  • Barnabas, Silas, Philip (one of my personal favorites), all the women who housed the church in their homes even when the church was facing persecution, etc.

I don’t know what living above/beyond/without consideration for the material immediacies of life means for you. I’ve read about it and felt like a worm in comparison:  Hudson Taylor, George Mueller (and his wife, who is seldom mentioned, but I bet she was incredible), Mary Slessor, etc.  I’ve seen it on occasion and it’s breathtaking.  A missionary who took a trip to Albania and stayed because God called him there. Friends who sold their beautiful home so that they would be free to follow God’s call more easily.  But it’s so rare, which is heartbreaking.

To conclude this part let me just put out a general reminder to myself most of all:

Normal people, people who live giving too much value to material concerns, don’t tend to fare well in Scripture: Jonah, Ananias and Sapphira, Lot, Samson, Cain, etc.

More to come, but, as always, thanks for listening.