Generosity: the Antidote to Consumerism

Anti-consumerism. It's the new(ish) theme of Christmas. Black Friday kicks off the fabulous sales AND the annual ranting against materialism and greed. I've said it; you've probably said it: We've all got so much STUFF. That's all Christmas is about anymore: more STUFF. All these trappings... Can't we just go back to being simple? I mean, how many more Legos do the kids possibly need? And all I'm going to get at the gift exchange is another something I don't want--another re-gift for next year. Plus, this pressure to think of something for all 20 people on my list is going to cause me a panic attack!

It's true: there's a lot of time and money spent in December on buying STUFF. And there are plenty of things bought that are of little use. There's a lot of waste out there. And a lot of greed.

But sometimes we use anti-consumerism as an excuse to be stingy. We fight selfishness by being selfish. No one needs extravagant gifts this year because Christmas isn't about gifts... Or really because I don't want to invest the time and money in giving generously. Or because I'm too disillusioned with stuff to be really thankful for God's unfathomable generosity toward me, and therefore have no good reason to let that overflow to others.

Not As Those Who Have No Hope!

I have a 5 year old and a 7 year old, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to send them off to school one morning and find out a short time later that they had been gunned down in their classroom. The thought literally makes me feel ill. And so I grieve for the parents in Newtown, Connecticut who faced such a horrible tragedy last Friday, and who will spend this Christmas--and likely many others--weeping over the loss of their little ones. Gifts already purchased with no one to receive them, plans already made with no one to take along, empty beds with no one to kiss goodnight... this is every parent's worst nightmare.

And yet, this is exactly what God the Father did in love one Christmas two thousand years ago. He sent his Son off into our world as an infant, a child just like our little ones, and he did it not unsuspectingly, but knowing full-well that his Son would be hated, rejected and put to death on a horrid cross though he was completely innocent, having committed no sin, being crucified for no good reason (on the part of the murderers) other than their jealousy, anger, self-righteousness and amusement. He bore the grief of a bereaved parent; he knows the agony of losing an innocent child. He sympathises in complete understanding with every parent who has ever lost or will ever lose a child.

But because of this very sacrifice, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Because of Jesus' death on our behalf, for our sins, we who believe gain the right to become children of God! And because Jesus not only died, but conquered that terrible enemy Death when he rose again on the third day, we who believe will never truly die. Death no longer has dominion over us because we are forever fully alive in Christ!

I don't know the reason for Friday's events. Only God does. But I do know that the death of every person on this planet--tragic or not--points to our desperate need for a Saviour who will come to rescue us from the awful curse of sin. And Christmas points to the joyous news that this Saviour has actually come and that he has broken the curse of death by his resurrection from the dead, so that we can indeed say, "Death is swallowed up in victory; O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

As I celebrate Christmas this year, with my 2, 5, 7 and 8 year olds happily sitting around the tree--Lord willing--I will mourn with the families in Newtown who are mourning, and at the very same time, rejoice in the fact that Jesus' birth was the ushering in of a new hope that signals the end of all such tragedies, all such searches for meaning and answers, all such evil and death.

So sing loudly with us this Christmas, "Joy to the world; the Lord has come! Let earth receive her king...No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessing known far as the curse is found!"

Hallelujah! Come Lord Jesus!

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.

 

For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.

 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.

(Isaiah 61)

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A few of the multitude of really good links related to Newtown, if you haven't seen them already:

School Shootings and Spiritual Warfare: Russell Moore on who the real enemy is in this

And Slew the Little Childer and follow-up post That Will Be Soon Enough, both by Douglas Wilson on what (and what not) to say immediately following horrific events like this...

Faces Do you know that on the same day 27 innocent people died in Newtown, 30 children in China were injured in a random, but apparently not unprecedented, attack by a knife-wielding man? And helpless children and others around the world face these horrors on a sometimes daily basis... Having seen some of the effects of such carnage in Rwanda several years ago, I appreciated this post from Tanzania.

The Desiring God blog also has a whole host of good links, some specifically about Newtown, others about suffering in general, among them How Jesus Comes to Newtown and a video version of John Piper reading his relevant poem The Innkeeper.

From the Archives: Legal Inconsistencies

While I'm on the subject of abortion, here's one from the archives from when we lived in Kentucky. The law in Ontario is the same, though:

Legal Inconsistencies

(from October 2005)

Yes, I know it's Saturday, but I thought I'd be a little unpredictable and post something today. I was doing a little research yesterday as I'm working on getting our wills together, and came across this little part of Kentucky's Intestate Succession Law (the rules on who gets your stuff in what order if you don't leave a will or all your named beneficiaries are dead) that caught my attention:

"A child of a decedent, born within 10 months after the decedent's death, is still eligible to inherit from the decedent. For intestate succession purposes, the child is considered to have been alive at the time of the decedent's death."

Did you catch that? If a guy gets his wife pregnant and is killed in a car crash that very night (the child then being born 9 months after his death, within the 10 month limitation), estate law says the child was alive and his heir at the time of his death (read: at the time of the child's conception). Hmmm... sounds like that newly conceived embryo is human after all. How then do we go about making a law that it's fine to murder said human? Do I sense a little inconsistency here? (And if any pro-abortion person found out they had been the child in such circumstances, wouldn't they want to collect that inheritance?)

Mercy, Sacrifice, Truth and the Abortion Debate

"But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, 'In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.' It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt;  save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh." (Jude 17-23)


Yesterday, the Canadian parliament defeated a private member motion asking for a committee that would reexamine the current Criminal Code definition of "human being", which presently states that one is only a human being once they have fully exited the mother's body (in a living state, no less). Arguing that this definition, which is based on a 400-year-old British law, is no longer in line with modern medical and scientific knowledge, MP (similar to House Rep) Stephen Woodworth laid out Motion 312 last spring, and it came to a vote last night. Unfortunately, slightly more than two-thirds of Parliament are not interested in even being open to the fact that the definition might be wrong, and attempted to shut down the abortion debate in Canada by voting against this needed study (yes, those do exist!) However, the debate is far from over... it is encouraging that just shy of a third of our MPs do support such an examination, including the Status of Women minister (who is now receiving a lot of flack from pro-abortion activists who view her vote as a "slap in the face to the women of Canada"), the House leader (who happens to be our MP) and a few other cabinet ministers. As well, another motion was put forward yesterday asking Parliament to condemn sex-selective abortions (Motion 408--keep an eye on it). Even if the first motion was defeated, it seems to have mobilized the pro-life base in Canada to a greater extent than I've seen before. I am hopeful (and prayerful) that these are the first little birthing pains in Canadian legislation to grant the right of life to all Canadian infants, regardless of their gender, mental or physical ability, developmental stage or convenience.

As this has all been going down, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about abortion, those who defend it, and those who rightly see it as the murder of an innocent human being. And I've been a little disturbed to see some of the same sinful roots of abortion lurking in my own flesh--lack of mercy, love of self and suppression of the truth. Now before I fill in these points, please hear what I'm not saying. I am NOT blaming the non-passage of this motion on anyone other than those who actively seek to defend murder. We pro-lifers are not perfect; we share some of the same sin struggles, but we are not to blame for the continuation of this evil. I am also NOT advocating moral equivalency here. Even though Jesus says that if you hate your brother you have murdered him in your heart, a hateful thought and actual, physical murder are still two very different things! Both are enough to separate you from a holy God forever, apart from the grace of that same Jesus, but murder is clearly recognized in the Bible as being more hateful to God as calling your brother a bad name (one deserves death in the Old Testament, the other a sincere apology). And finally, I am NOT saying that if you find these same sins in your own flesh, you should pile onto your shoulders the full weight of condemnation and go away depressed, thinking yourself just as bad and dead and without hope as the most hardened of criminals. Conviction of sin, yes. But if you are in Christ, there is no longer any condemnation for you, and these thoughts should be seen as just a little push toward greater Christlikeness. That's how I am viewing them. The Father of Lies left me for dead, but I've been rescued by God and mercifully adopted into His family, so that now I want to be more and more pleasing to my heavenly Father, even while I already have His full approval in Christ. So when I see sin, no matter how small, I want to root it out. All that said, here are three areas where I see my own propensity to sin:

Unextended Mercy 
One of the arguments that abortion proponents use against pro-lifers is that they are only pro-life to a point. They convince a woman that she shouldn't murder her child, but that's where they stop. They get an affirmation for life and promptly abandon the woman. They save the child and hang the mother out to dry. Now the rare militant "pro-lifer" (though I wouldn't call them pro-life) has been known to exist, but I've never met one.  I do, however, personally know several people who have not only rescued an infant from death, but have opened their homes, their wallets, their hearts and their souls to the baby's mother. I've known families who have given up their comfort to provide a place in their own home for a near stranger to live, caring for her for 9 months, providing for her needs, and caring for both her and her child after the birth. I know multiple families who have taken in orphans and the fatherless, at great cost to their own resources (both financial and emotional). Just this week, some friends joyfully brought home two international orphans to add to the three local children they've already adopted. These are just ordinary people, but in the Spirit's power they are doing extraordinary things to bring homes, care and hope to the lonely, the abandoned, the broken.

So my question for myself is this: which category do I fit into? Do I only care about the helpless baby or am I full of mercy for the woman in crisis as well? I mean, pregnancy is a bit of a crisis even when you were hoping and expecting that you would have that child. Pregnancy is NEVER a convenience (though it can bring great blessing). Add to the normal inconvenience the fact that you didn't want to be pregnant and may not have any support system--may, in fact, have an extremely unsupportive environment, or that you've been told that your infant will suffer from life-long disabilities that will require incredible amounts of work on your part, and you need MERCY! But if a woman came to me and confessed that she was considering aborting her child, would I respond with grace? Would she see the judgement in my eyes before I even opened my mouth to plead mercy for her child? Would I be willing to give up my own convenience and comfort to commit to months and years of being her support? Would I be willing to love her even if she went ahead with the abortion? Do I love people that much? Do I love my God, and His image in all humans that much? Lord, may I not cling to my own "rights" so much that I fail to truly care for the widow and the orphan!

Disproportionately Desired Freedom
Abortion is an extreme example of a parent being so consumed with their own life and freedom that they fail to allow another human being to interfere with it. Children change lifestyles and create havoc and uncertainty. The surest way to avoid such change and chaos is to not have them, even at the cost of doing away with them before they see the light of day. But even for those of us who are fully committed to bearing to term each and every little human that God places in our wombs, we regularly confront the temptation to pursue our own freedom and desires at cost to our little ones. How often am I impatient with my children because their schoolwork is beginning to eat into my "me-time"? How often do I grumble about the mountains of laundry that I have to do when I'd rather be sleeping? How often do I mentally shut the kids out because my book is really interesting (and this is the one time this week I might have time to read it!)? How often do I give in to thinking of all the things I could buy if I didn't have to put money into their clothes and food? How often do I yell at them in anger because they've embarrassed me in public? Yes, I let them live, but am I willing to be poured out in service that they might be built up? Last week, I was having a particularly difficult time joyfully serving my kids when I wanted to be doing other (less-important) things, and then I read this verse: "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." (Acts 20:24) Am I so committed to the advance of the gospel of God's grace in my home (and elsewhere), that I don't count my life as precious to myself? Now I repeat my caution here: as Kevin DeYoung puts it in his new book The Hole in Our Holiness(which is really good!), "Judging from the Lord's outrage [in the OT], sacrificing your children to Molech was probably worse than losing your patience with them." Abortion and mild impatience are not the same thing. Nor do I think pouring yourself out for your children means that you serve them hand and foot 24/7, never take a break and bow at their every command (not in the least!). But I am so often unwilling to really care for them when I'd rather be doing something else. Lord, grow me in selfless love for those you've put into my care!


Truth Burial
The defeat of Motion 312 is a stunning example of Romans 1:18. It is an active suppression of the truth to refuse to even examine whether that "thing" in a woman's womb might possibly be human 2 seconds before it is born. Current medical and scientific knowledge clearly point to the fact that a human fetus is, in fact, human from the very earliest stages of development. Some of those who called for the defeat of this motion even publicly stated this to be true. But they do not want this knowledge to affect our laws, because that would mean that abortion is the killing of a human, and thus immoral and illegal. It is perhaps ironic that when it came to redefining marriage, the Canadian parliament was all for it (because a change in the definition would bring about a legal result they desired), but now that a new definition for human beings would affect the law in a way that many MPs are afraid of, they are unwilling to even discuss whether the current definition might be wrong. They are guilty of bending and twisting the law to their own ends, and this is deplorable. 

But as I discussed this with our kids the other day, it occurred to me how often we bend the law to justify our own actions. No, we don't do it to condone murder or gross sexual immorality, but have you ever fudged the truth just a little so you didn't look bad, and convinced your conscience that it wasn't really a lie? How tempting it is when watching an entertaining movie that grates just a little on my conscience to make up a list of reasons why I shouldn't turn it off! How frequently my pride causes me to refuse to serve in unpleasant ways by convincing me that I'm not well-suited to the task! Lord, may I not sear my conscience by suppressing even little truths to suit my own sinful purposes!

I want to fight the desires of my flesh even in these "small" things, being at the same time thankful for the grace given me to gather the courage to call my MP and the prime minister this week (I don't like phoning people I don't know, much less elected officials), and the grace to pray more consistently for the changing of hearts and laws in our nation. May we all grow in the delight of living to the pleasure of our Heavenly Father, and may He grant us the Spirit's power to do so!

 

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (Jude 24-25)