Superbowl Sale on Dissatisfaction
OK. I’ve lived my whole life in California so what do I care whether New England or Philadelphia wins Superbowl XXXIX? (To be honest, I’d rather have seen the Eagles win. The Patriots are running out of fingers for those superbowl rings.) But you have to watch the thing anyway. Not just because it’s the best time of year to eat chips with French onion dip (oops - is that supposed to be freedom onion dip?) Now, you have to watch the Superbowl because people will be talking about the commercials. In fact, I know people who only watch the commercials…
So what’s my point? Well, we all know that the reason for the commercials is to get us to want stuff that we don’t already have. And these commercials are the best 60-second spots that the experts can create to make us want stuff. So it bugs me that we’re going out of our way to watch them.
I heard a guy on the radio today talking about happiness. He said that when people are in true poverty, getting a little more money really allows them to change their lives and increase their happiness, but for most people in the United States, more money doesn’t increase happiness at all. In fact, accumulating too much only adds fear to life. What if I lose it?
If scratching and clawing for more money and stuff is actually harmful to us, it bugs me that there’s a huge industry out there working to make us think we need things. If - heaven forbid - we slow down buying stuff, they do things to get the economy going again like giving us a tax rebate check to get us to spend more money.
Now isn’t the whole thing circular? The price of things like houses and cars goes up because of demand and because people are making more money now (partly because so many families now have two incomes) and that requires us to try to make more money to get nice houses and cars. Where does it end? The simple house my family bought last year costs twice as much as it did a few years ago, but what choice do we have? You have to live somewhere, and this is where my job is…
It becomes all-consuming. And I have to fight myself and the marketers to live simply, be satisfied with what I have, and not buy into the line that I need to provide all kinds of stuff for my family in order to be a good husband and father. When I allow myself to fall prey to that kind of thinking, it’s hard to think about anything else - including what God wants for my life and for my family.
I guess Jesus was right. No big surprise there. In the parable of the sower, the seed being planted is God’s word. And in some, it starts to sprout but is choked before it bears any fruit. Here’s how Matthew’s gospel tells it: “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.” (Matthew 13:22, NRSV)
So don’t get choked! Do we really need a brand new Diet Pepsi truck, even if P. Diddy is driving one? 