Shopping for Jesus?
It’s simple, really

The biblical story of Jesus’ clash with the money changers and merchants in the temple at Jerusalem is often cited as one of the few times we see him angry.

And one of the reasons for that anger, many commentators say, is the way in which Jesus saw the economic practices in the temple separating people from God and exploiting the poor and vulnerable.

While we can’t know for sure what Jesus would buy today, we can certainly find some guidelines in this and the many other passages in the Bible that relate to money and possessions — and we can look at our own consumption through the lens of faith, paying attention not just to the “what” question, but also the how, when, where and why.

In her doctoral research on Christianity and sustainable consumption, Project Green Church coordinator and Maroubra Junction Uniting Church member Dr Miriam Pepper found that, while churchgoers have distinctive values when compared with non-churchgoers (for example, they are less materialistic and less concerned with social status), there is little actual difference in their consumer behaviour.

“We still buy pretty much the same things and the same amount of it!” she said.

There is also a tendency to think individualistically, reading the Bible in a way that reflects our social conditioning.

“We interpret readings like Mark 10:17-31 in an individual context, relating them, for example, to how attached we are to our wealth and whether or not we could give it up if we were called to do so, rather than taking steps toward living as communities that hold possessions in common.”

She said there was much potential for congregations and churchgoers to practise, and model to others, a different approach to consumption — and this could be enriching and strengthening for the church community too.

“The Christian tradition is rich in values, beliefs, narratives, symbols and practices that emphasise simple living, social justice and care of the earth,” said Dr Pepper.

“For example, notions of contentment and sufficiency (Matthew 6:19-34, for example) and of redistribution of wealth to the vulnerable (prompted by, for example, Mark 10:17-31) have been lived out in Christian communities through the ages.

“We can all do things as individuals to resist consumerism, from choosing not to buy the latest model of mobile phone, reining in our Christmas spending, donating to charity, or even turning off the television during the ads.”

But she said the key to addressing consumerism was doing things together, as a community.

We could join together to grow some of our food, for example through community gardens, or form a food cooperative and source local produce.

We could learn from our elders some of the skills that we may have lost, like mending or sewing clothes, baking our own bread, fixing our own furniture or sharing some of our possessions, for example through toy or tool libraries or car sharing.

In that way, she said, we could “work against a culture of ever-increasing consumption and waste that tells us that we as individuals can simply pick and choose among all the goods and services that are available and put them to use as we please, with very little idea of how or where they were produced and with what consequences for the environment or for the people who produced them.”

She said, “In the process, we also strengthen our church communities.”

Being and having

In a series on ABC Radio National’s Encounter program, theologians, sociologists and clergy explored the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21) as a window on Christianity, consumerism and the west.

Dr Luke Timothy Johnson, professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University in the US, argued that Luke’s portrayal of Jesus and his view of material possessions fitted squarely within the framework of God’s overall vision for humanity.

It challenged the way things are in the world and, in reversal of normal human expectations, proposed that those who are on top will be on the bottom and those who are rich will be secondary to those who are poor.

“The parable sketches precisely the distinction that Jesus makes at the beginning: no-one’s life is based on the abundance of possessions,” said Dr Johnson. “Luke’s Jesus draws a sharp distinction between life and possessions or, if you will, between being and having.

“The man is rich because he has a lot of possessions but he’s a fool because he assumes that those possessions will secure his life. And life cannot be secured by possessions.”

Another theologian interviewed for the series, Dr Louise Lawrence from the University of Glasgow, said it was instructive to read Luke and the other gospels in light of the anthropological term “limited good”, which has been used to describe the world view in many traditional societies where resources are clearly finite and highly dependent on weather and harvest yields.

In this world view, “the community itself has to share resources, because there are limited goods,” said Dr Lawrence. “Greed, in this sense, is seen as quite a heinous thing. If the proverbial cake doesn’t get bigger, one person who has more than their fair share effectively assaults and takes away the goods from the rest of the group.”

She argued that the western world, in complete contrast, seemed to live by a myth of unlimited resources in which “we can all go to the superstore and think that the shelves will keep on being replenished.”

The Rev. Dr Simon Carey Holt, a Baptist minister and lecturer in practical theology at Melbourne’s Whitley College, pointed out that the market economy flourished in an environment where wanting was a more powerful force than having — contentment was the enemy of the market.

“In the household of God, by contrast, material wealth is given to meet our most basic needs, to be received with humility and gratitude, to be invested in lasting things, and to be shared for the sake of the community,” he said. “It is a gift to be truly valued and used, not a possession to be hoarded and hidden.”

More than that, he said, it is the very gifts of God’s call upon our lives — the call to identity, community and meaning — that we see mimicked and going cheap in the consumer marketplace: “Yours for the purchasing, on the easiest of terms, and with no talk of sacrifice, suffering or self-denial.”

In this context, “there is perhaps nothing more counter-cultural, nor more difficult, than the defiant expression of contentment: ‘I have enough; I don’t need anything more.’”

Money as God

In his book Cash Values: Money and the Erosion of Meaning in Today’s Society, Craig Gay uses the term “Money Metric” to describe the way money has become one of the most important measures in the determination of “value” in the contemporary world.

He argues that the values we ascribe to things through this fairly arbitrary measurement don’t necessarily reflect — and in fact may obscure — their true or intrinsic worth.

“Money has become much more than simply a tool within bourgeois culture,” he says. “Rather it has become a kind of end in itself and indeed the final purpose for a great many people. It has essentially become a ‘god’ to whom service must be rendered and for the sake of which all sorts of sacrifices must be made.”

But he says much Christian teaching on money and possessions has been framed in the negative, focusing on moral failings such as gluttony and materialism, rather than on the positive, life-giving aspects of refusing to serve money, and finding meaning and identity elsewhere.

The British website Breathe (www.ibreathe.org.uk), which describes itself as a “Christian network for simpler living”, puts it simply: “If we’re already satisfied, amazed, delighted and fully engaged with life, how can anyone sell us something we don’t need?”

It features a “Consumer Detox”, which identifies simple steps toward a simpler, richer, less consumerist and more generous life — like fostering relationships with people in the local community; shunning instant credit and cheap deals in favour of saving up for well-made goods that last; and choosing areas of life in which you can slow down.

In a system that regards economic growth as a sacred cow, and in which many people have come to define themselves through what they buy, it can be hard to discern the most appropriate Christian response.

Acting redemptively

For most people, opting out of the system altogether is logistically impossible. But we can change the way we consume — not just by buying differently, but by buying less and thinking about why we buy in the first place.

“We cannot really avoid participating in and being implicated within capitalism’s ‘Money Metric’, but as Christians we can seek to act redemptively within it,” says Craig Gay. “Indeed, we must seek to act redemptively within the system if we would strive to obey the commandment to love God and to love our neighbour.”

Miriam Pepper said that it was important not to simply moralise about over-consumption, but also to find creative ways to challenge it.

“Clearly people in countries like Australia on the whole consume far too much. But often this consumption has an important social function — it helps us to build relationships.

“For example, a family might need a larger fridge so they can host Christmas this year, or parents might give children more presents than they otherwise would so the kids don’t get picked on at school, or people might fly to the other side of the world to visit family that they haven’t seen for years.

“It’s not just about greed and selfishness. We need to build viable alternatives that still serve social functions of hospitality and relationship building.”

She said there was cause for hope, even as the dire environmental and social consequences of over-consumption became more apparent.

“At times we can’t help feeling hopeless; for example, about worsening climate change, which is happening more quickly than expected.

“But, as Christians, we are resurrection people. The resurrection of Christ, inaugurating the reconciliation of the whole cosmos, tells us that things can be otherwise than an extrapolation of the failings of the present.

“Things are starting to change. The prevalence of environmental coverage in the media shows a rising awareness of the ecological impacts of consumer society. The growing fair trade and trade justice movements show a growing concern about the impact of our consumption on the producers of the products.

“According to a 2003 study, almost a quarter of people had ‘downshifted’ over the previous ten years, showing that there is a counter trend to ever-growing consumption.

“The politics of helplessness, where we as atomised individuals feel that we can’t do anything, works against us because it paralyses action.

“As Christians, we are called into the community of the body of Christ. Taking action together is a part of building up this community. As individuals, we can do a little, but together we can do a lot more and we can encourage each other in the process.”

Emma Halgren