Revd Helen Writes …

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  Have you ever had to go out and buy boxes to help you organise and store the things you already have so you can make room for more things? We have. Have you ever had to make a list to help you remember what you’ve got? I have. When we decided to move house, our wish list was quite short. We just wanted to live in a quiet and more rural place, with off street parking and a larger garden. We got the things on our very short wish list. And we got something else as well. We had lived in a Victorian house before so we’d never had a garage. And now we had – a double garage with loft. In fact a garage the size of a very small house. How nice to have somewhere to put the cars we thought.

 

  Well – of course the cars have never seen the inside of the garage. The

garage and its loft are totally full. We can’t quite think how it happened. 

And people remind us of that old saying – “if you have a space you fill it

up”. And here’s an old Roman saying as well; ’Belongings are like sea

water; the more you drink the thirstier you become.’ It’s easy to justify

things. We were glad to have storage space for all the things we hardly

ever use but need to keep like the cups and saucers for our garden parties.

And So Much More. But we do know that there are very probably many

things we never use and don’t need. And things that we have even

forgotten we have.

 

  Jesus told a story about a man who had too many possessions. This man

had good land and a bumper harvest and his greatest problem is where he should store his crops. This rich man had a conversation with himself saying “I have ample goods laid up for many years; I can relax, eat, drink, be merry”. It looks as if the rich man believes that his core self can be sustained and given value and importance through the sheer amount of his possessions. He doesn’t refer to God or anyone else as he plans his future because he is under the illusion that he is in sole control of his own life. It’s easy to believe this when we are wealthy – that somehow we are wealthy because of who we are. We can forget the fact that all life comes from God and very often it is largely an accident of time and culture if we are fortunate enough to be relatively well off as well.

 

  It is when we are faced with random illness or the heart-breaking injustice of an early death, or any other dreadful catastrophe, that we might be forced to re-evaluate our lives. Because of course our culture today embodies the attitude of the rich man in Jesus’s parable. Consumerism rests on the assumption that our very selves can be sustained by piling up possessions, filling our garages, and of eating, drinking and being merry. And, by the way, there is an end to that saying which is often forgotten. It’s “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die”.

 

  The upside of consumerism – or at least what makes it attractive – is that it provides a sort of answer to an anxiety that lies within the hearts of so many of us; our anxieties about being worthwhile or the purpose of our existence. The never-ending stream of products that come onto the market are designed to make us feel good. To help us believe that if we have the right clothes, the right furniture, the newest car, then we are in control and the authors of our own destinies.

 

  However, our Christian faith offers us the means to ask the difficult questions about life rather than hoping to escape them. And, in asking those questions we may come to realise that in joining our life in God’s life there is peace. The peace of God which passes all understanding, the wholeness of being at one with God, and the knowledge that past and present and future are all safe because God holds them and us and takes us through it all. Wherever we might be in the course of our own lives, let us pray that we might hear God’s call to place our riches in his hands.

 

With love and prayers,

Helen Kempster