Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on
earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if
your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is
bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is
darkness, how great is the darkness!
Matthew 6:19-23
Yesterday
I described some of the more obvious ways that marketing creates desires in us
to buy goods and services we neither need nor previously wanted.
Babylon
trades in the bodies and souls of people, shaping who we are from a very early
age. I have read that attitudes to money develop much earlier in life than any
social values or personal codes of morality. As such, it can be very difficult
to know who God created us to be and to see what is going on around us in true
light.
This
brings me to the words of Jesus at the start of today’s Reflection. If our eyes
are healthy, our bodies can be full of light. But if they have been blinded by
what our capitalist, consumer society offers, our bodies will be full of
darkness. And if what passes as the ‘light’ inside us is darkness, how great is
the darkness! And it is no wonder if we cannot see where we are or know what to
do about it!
Does
our blindness extend to the ways that we earn money? I am sometimes surprised
when people assume that I must think it wrong for people to work for banks,
credit companies and other financial organisations. I am not. I am not against
people who own a lot of property, but I am against those who profit by letting their
tenants live or work in squalid conditions that can destroy their health; I am
not against chemists, but I am against those who create legal highs that can
destroy people’s lives. Similarly, I am not against bankers or anyone who works
in the financial markets or anyone in the advertising industry, but I am
against those who pursue their careers by indiscriminately convincing people to
buy credit and other financial products they neither need nor had previously
wanted but that can tip them into the misery of debt.
Does
our blindness extend to the motivations behind our decisions to spend money? How
vulnerable are we to concerns about our credibility and status? How easily is
our selfishness and love of luxury exploited? How important is it for us to lay
up sufficient treasures on earth, so we can feel secure about our futures?
To what
extent are we content living in Babylon?
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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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