Let love be genuine. Abhor what is
evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.
Outdo one another in showing honour. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in
spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant
in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless
those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who
rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be
haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay
no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of
all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Romans 12: 9-18
People have always
bought what they neither needed nor had previously wanted until it caught their
eye. Greed, vanity and covetousness are integral to what it is to be human. But
marketing, advertising and sales talk have evolved to make the most trivial,
the most wasteful extravagance into must haves. But the truth is, while we may
like to have these things, we do not really need
them at all.
Once a decision is
made to spend, the task of the seller is to encourage the customer to spend
more. This is routinely done by upgrading and accessorising: attracting the
buyer to a more expensive alternative, perhaps of better quality but often just
a better known brand, or to buy things that go with the basic purchase.
Clothes and shoes
shops will have items to match; electrical goods will be supplemented with
devices to plug in; fast food restaurants will offer to expand a purchase to a
meal or large meal; internet sites will highlight what other customers who
bought the same things bought as well.
(Incidentally, the
converse is also true. Having decided to sell, say, your car and having got a
preliminary valuation online, and having made and attended an appointment to
sell, the staff exploit the decision to sell by trying to beat the price down
to as low as possible.)
The passage at the
start of today’s Reflection is St Paul’s wonderfully succinct description of
what it is to live as a Christian. Following on from yesterday’s suggestion
that you think over the things you have bought recently, ask yourself how often
vanity, covetousness, greed or some other failing got the better of you when
you saw something advertised?
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Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans
2013.
Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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