Mammon, Part One

I often despair of the value system of our culture.  I try to fight it in the way I live and the way I raise my children, but I am by no means immune to it, just the same.  I feel my own sins of excess so acutely, and walk around everyday with so much guilt,  that I am often amazed by the sorts of things with which others seem perfectly comfortable.

Recently, my husband's aunt spent a few days with us.  She is a traveling minister of sorts and certainly does not live with any sort of material excess at all.  I think just about everything she owns fits in her car, and the car was a gift to her.  She lives entirely on the good will of those she feels called to minister to and I know no one else who lives as simply.  

Do you feel a "but" coming on here?  

I have not been feeling very well lately so I spent most of her visit resting but she was here on Mothers' Day and was very politely inquiring about our plans as she wanted to go to church.  Our own Quaker Meeting is so small that it only meets two Sundays each month and this was not one of them.  I know of several local churches that would be to our aunt's taste and suggested them to her.  I was not, however, willing to let her take the Lone Star Baby, who adores her, along.  Aside from having our own Mothers' Day traditions planned, I would not have the Lone Star Baby in a fundamentalist church as she is too young to be able to easily deal with spiritual teachings so different from what I am teaching her - a problem we have every time this aunt comes to visit (don't get me started about what she told the LSB about Haiti).  

I wanted to be gentle and kind about not sending the Lone Star Baby, but our aunt wanted to know why, so I had to tell her that it was because I did not want her to be taught was was taught at those churches...the ones our aunt would like....ouch.  I hate having to say things like that.  Our aunt dropped it, though.  I really wanted her to get to go to her own kind of church, even if I wanted it to be without us,  but she then started to talked about televised services maybe being best.  I felt bad about that, but knew she would stick with it as she had before.  We tried to find some listings for televised services and I kept flinching as she suggested people like Joel Osteen, who I personally would consider a minion of Satan if anyone was.  

It is hard for me to understand how someone as spiritual as this woman, who has devoted her life to her vision of God, could be taken in by people who truly only worship money and want others to worship it, too, even though she certainly does not worship money herself.  Jesus' standard was pretty clear:  if you have two coats, give one to someone who has none.  Do I meet that standard?  Never.  I am selfish and horrible and sinful, even at my best.   Do I, however, claim that my sinfulness is God's work for abundance in my life?  No.  I am not that delusional.  My sin is my own.  Jesus told us to love our neighbors and to care for the poor, over and over and over again - more than He told us anything else - when I fail to do so, it does not come from Him.  People like Joel Osteen still manage somehow to be respected by non-materialistic people like my aunt just because they are famous for being evangelists even when what they really evangelize for is greed. 

Later on in our visit, our aunt told us a story about how J.C. Penney had been faithful in tithing his ten percent and that God had blessed him so much for doing so that he ended up wealthy enough to tithe 90% and live well on only ten.  I felt so sick.  After disappointing her about church, I was not going to say anything, but I am horrified by the very idea that someone could believe that God gives Testimonies by making people rich.  Also, J.C. Penney makes his money abusing little girls in Third World sweat shops.  I am pretty sure that God wants no percentage of that.

I am so tired of the world of mega-churches that try to get people to come to Christmas services by giving away cars.  I am tired of wanna-be mega-churches that have helicopter candy drops on Easter. 

No one can live the way these televangelists/church-media-empire-types live except by exploiting and hurting others of God's children.  It is honestly hard, even when living modestly and trying not to, not to do an awful lot of that exploiting, the way U.S. businesses function.  What kind of example is that to us?  I wish I lived in a culture that encouraged me to do my best to follow Christ's teachings instead of one that so perverts them and makes it so hard for me to follow them.  I am weak and it is hard to swim against the cultural tide just every moment.  It is hard for my kids to be so surrounded by Mammon everywhere and grow to value simplicity and caring for the poor. 

Most of the time, no matter what I try to do, it looks like Mammon is winning in the United States.