Posts tagged “Economy”

The Vice President of Indulgence

Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code — don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.
But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! (Romans 13:8-14 MSG)
We’ve made quite a mess of the economy — yep, you read right. I said we. Wasn’t just Washington, wasn’t just big corporations and CEOs with big fat wallets, and AIG running off with the taxpayers’ bailout money to nurse their wounds in a spa. While I say “Curses, AIG,” I still have to recognize that you, and I, and that guy down the street — most of us helped them create the disaster it is today. You don’t want to read an economics lesson from me, but I will say this. I think all the way from the CEOs to me, we got pretty greedy. Even so, it seems that the whole fiasco has given me a much needed opportunity to take a look at my own habits and tweak them a bit where it might be sensible. And the uncertainty has perhaps motivated some of us to take a look at what and whom we trust.
I had a chance recently to visit my old church (Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN) and was plenty challenged by a sermon that addressed the uncertainties and where our hearts are. During his message, Pastor Dave Johnson referred to an executive at Mars Inc. whose job title is Vice President/Indulgence. I wasn’t honestly sure if he had made this up as a joke or if this was the real deal, so I Googled it. Sure enough, this is a real guy with a real title. Roger Cohen of The New York Times has a fascinating article you can read in its entirety. He tells how M&Ms have been producing a “premium” version that costs about double the original “common folk” M&Ms. And sales are going through the roof.
Cohen says this: “Now, in these times of plunging stock prices and falling sales, you’d think [the Vice President/Indulgence] might be struggling to get people to indulge. It makes sense to drop needless pleasures when cash is short. But this is a recession in which indulgence is thriving, a phenomenon that says much about our world.” This is interesting. At a time when folks could reasonably be expected to cut back on nonessentials, it doesn’t appear that we are. We’re still inclined to run straight for the luxuries, big and small, even though we maybe can’t afford them, we clearly don’t need them, and it’s pretty debatable whether they ultimately add any real value to our lives.
Paul had no idea what a recession was when he wrote to the Roman church.He hadn’t even been through the Great Depression. But yet his counsel is as appropriate for us as it was for them. Don’t forget, the Word was breathed alive by God Himself. Even though Paul didn’t know what might be happening in the U.S. (and global) economy in the year 2008 (I scarcely think Paul even believed there would be a year 2008), God knew. God knew we would be here. God would know how we got here. And God would grieve that we didn’t pay attention to so many important things He’s tried to teach us for generations — and that not just because the economy is messed up.
Right off the bat here in verse 8, Paul says something pretty big: “Don’t run up debts.” 
Don’t run up debts. He follows that with “Don’t always be wanting what you don’t have.” A lot of times, that’s why we end up running up the big debts, isn’t it? I know, sometimes it’s to pay basic bills when times are just plain tough. But often, too often, it’s because we got to wanting something we didn’t have (and couldn’t afford) so much that we went ahead and went into debt to get it.
He goes on to warn us about getting so caught up in our stuff that we lose track of God. He tells us of a huge urgency — “Be up and awake to what God is doing! …We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence…” The urgency to be awake to what God is doing and God is calling us to do gets lost in our indulgence. Cohen explains that indulgence is a thriving business even in the wake of global economic crisis because we have come to believe so deeply within us that we are defined by what we purchase and what we eat. “Tell me how you shop,” he says, “and I’ll tell you who you are.”
I checked the dictionary to make sure I knew what I was talking about when I used the word indulgence. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say to me, as Inigo would say to Vizzini, “I don’t think it means what you think it means.” Here’s what I found:
indulgence
noun
1. an inability to resist the gratification of whims and desires 
3. the act of indulging or gratifying a desire 
4. foolish or senseless behavior [syn: folly] 
Any one of those speaks directly to our seemingly endless ability to pursue the delight of ourselves into our absolute ruin. We can scorn guys like the VP of Indulgence, but the truth is that if we weren’t buying it, he wouldn’t be selling it. M&Ms would only pursue a ripe market. We ask to be treated this way by continuing to respond favorably to their advances.
As he usually does, Paul gives us an alternative. We don’t have to die pleasing ourselves. We don’t have to pursue self indulgence. We don’t have to rack up outrageous debt pleasing ourselves. We don’t have to go wanting all kinds of stuff we don’t have and don’t need.
He tells us to go ahead and run up one debt. And one debt alone: “the huge debt of love you owe each other.” This is a debt he’s good with. Because this is a debt not created by our inability to resist gratifying our own whims and desires. This is a debt created by our love for God and our love for one another. 
Why be defined by what we buy and what we eat? 
Why not be defined by how we love one another?
This would allow us the freedom to pursue the missing definition above. 
2. a disposition to yield to the wishes of someone
We could devote ourselves to yielding to others, submitting to others, loving others. Paul says that kind of debt, and that kind of indulgence, is a much better way.
::
indulgence. Dictionary.com. WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/indul

 

Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code — don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.

But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! (Romans 13:8-14 MSG)

We’ve made quite a mess of the economy — yep, you read right. I said we. Wasn’t just Washington, wasn’t just big corporations and CEOs with big fat wallets, and AIG running off with the taxpayers’ bailout money to nurse their wounds in a spa. While I say “Curses, AIG,” I still have to recognize that you, and I, and that guy down the street — most of us helped them create the disaster it is today. You don’t want to read an economics lesson from me, but I will say this. I think all the way from the CEOs to me, we got pretty greedy. Even so, it seems that the whole fiasco has given me a much needed opportunity to take a look at my own habits and tweak them a bit where it might be sensible. And the uncertainty has perhaps motivated some of us to take a look at what and whom we trust.

I had a chance recently to visit my old church (Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN) and was plenty challenged by a sermon that addressed the uncertainties and where our hearts are. During his message, Pastor Dave Johnson referred to an executive at Mars Inc. whose job title is Vice President/Indulgence. I wasn’t honestly sure if he had made this up as a joke or if this was the real deal, so I Googled it. Sure enough, this is a real guy with a real title. Roger Cohen of The New York Times has a fascinating article you can read in its entirety. He tells how M&Ms have been producing a “premium” version that costs about double the original “common folk” M&Ms. And sales are going through the roof.

Cohen says this: “Now, in these times of plunging stock prices and falling sales, you’d think [the Vice President/Indulgence] might be struggling to get people to indulge. It makes sense to drop needless pleasures when cash is short. But this is a recession in which indulgence is thriving, a phenomenon that says much about our world.” This is interesting. At a time when folks could reasonably be expected to cut back on nonessentials, it doesn’t appear that we are. We’re still inclined to run straight for the luxuries, big and small, even though we maybe can’t afford them, we clearly don’t need them, and it’s pretty debatable whether they ultimately add any real value to our lives.

Paul had no idea what a recession was when he wrote to the Roman church.He hadn’t even been through the Great Depression. But yet his counsel is as appropriate for us as it was for them. Don’t forget, the Word was breathed alive by God Himself. Even though Paul didn’t know what might be happening in the U.S. (and global) economy in the year 2008 (I scarcely think Paul even believed there would be a year 2008), God knew. God knew we would be here. God would know how we got here. And God would grieve that we didn’t pay attention to so many important things He’s tried to teach us for generations — and that not just because the economy is messed up.

Right off the bat here in verse 8, Paul says something pretty big: “Don’t run up debts.” 

Don’t run up debts. He follows that with “Don’t always be wanting what you don’t have.” A lot of times, that’s why we end up running up the big debts, isn’t it? I know, sometimes it’s to pay basic bills when times are just plain tough. But often, too often, it’s because we got to wanting something we didn’t have (and couldn’t afford) so much that we went ahead and went into debt to get it.

He goes on to warn us about getting so caught up in our stuff that we lose track of God. He tells us of a huge urgency — “Be up and awake to what God is doing! …We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence…” The urgency to be awake to what God is doing and God is calling us to do gets lost in our indulgence. Cohen explains that indulgence is a thriving business even in the wake of global economic crisis because we have come to believe so deeply within us that we are defined by what we purchase and what we eat. “Tell me how you shop,” he says, “and I’ll tell you who you are.”

I checked the dictionary to make sure I knew what I was talking about when I used the word indulgence. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say to me, as Inigo would say to Vizzini, “I don’t think it means what you think it means.” Here’s what I found:

indulgence

noun

1. an inability to resist the gratification of whims and desires 

3. the act of indulging or gratifying a desire 

4. foolish or senseless behavior [syn: folly] 

 

Any one of those speaks directly to our seemingly endless ability to pursue the delight of ourselves into our absolute ruin. We can scorn guys like the VP of Indulgence, but the truth is that if we weren’t buying it, he wouldn’t be selling it. M&Ms would only pursue a ripe market. We ask to be treated this way by continuing to respond favorably to their advances.

As he usually does, Paul gives us an alternative. We don’t have to die pleasing ourselves. We don’t have to pursue self indulgence. We don’t have to rack up outrageous debt pleasing ourselves. We don’t have to go wanting all kinds of stuff we don’t have and don’t need.

He tells us to go ahead and run up one debt. And one debt alone: “the huge debt of love you owe each other.” This is a debt he’s good with. Because this is a debt not created by our inability to resist gratifying our own whims and desires. This is a debt created by our love for God and our love for one another. 

Why be defined by what we buy and what we eat? 

Why not be defined by how we love one another?

This would allow us the freedom to pursue the missing definition above. 

2. a disposition to yield to the wishes of someone

We could devote ourselves to yielding to others, submitting to others, loving others. Paul says that kind of debt, and that kind of indulgence, is a much better way.

::

 

 

indulgence. Dictionary.com. WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/indulgence (accessed: December 04, 2008).

2008/12/04 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »