Tuesday 11/11/14

Tuesday’s Recap summarizes the previous evening’s Pizza and Prayer. If you couldn’t join us last night, or if for some strange reason you can’t remember what happened (amnesia?), here’s what you missed:

The lover of gold will not be free from sin; whoever pursues money will be led astray by it. Many have come to ruin for the sake of gold, though destruction lay before their very eyes; It is a stumbling block for the foolish; a snare for every fool.

Sirach 31:5-7

I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers. The only one I’ve ever owned said, “Don’t tailgate me or I’ll flick a booger on your windshield.” It was actually a realistic threat at the time.

There is one bumper sticker I do like, though. It says: “The most important things in life aren’t things.” Tonight’s reading is about that. The most important things in life aren’t things.

In our world it can be very easy to get caught up in “stuff.” We all want the newest gadget, the newest and best TV, the newest phone, the newest game system, the newest car. Then, as soon as we have it, a new one comes out, and ours is old. We want a new one again.

I remember when the first iPhone came out. It was the phone to replace all other phones. It was as good as it gets. Once you had it, you would never need to buy another phone because this was it. People stood in line, some of them for days, to be one of the first ones to buy it. A couple years later, the iPhone 2 came out, and the very same people went back to stand in line. Then the iPhone 3. Then the iPhone 4, and the 4s. Then people stood in line for the 5 and 5s, then whatever came next. Now people are going nuts for the iPhone 6 and the 6+ and all this nonsense and the silly thing bends if you sit down with it in your pocket. It’s madness.

Louis CK is a comedian. I can’t recommend him because a lot of his humor gets very foul, but he has some good points. In one of his routines he talks about how we get so angry with our phones that we yell things like “I HATE Verizon” because a text won’t send right away. “Give it a minute! It’s going to space! Your stupid little message is getting beamed up to a satellite in space so that it can get beamed to another satellite in space and back down to the other side of the earth and you’re upset because it takes a few seconds!?”

He has another bit where he talks about how we have more than any other generation before us, and still we are unhappy. He talks about how quickly we feel entitled to something that we never even knew existed an hour before. He tells a story about a flight he was on which was the first flight ever to offer in flight WiFi. First of all, he says, flight is a miracle in and of itself. “You’re going from New York to California in six hours. That used to take six months and half of you would die or have babies along the way. You’d be a whole different group of people when you got there.” He goes on to talk about how everyone was amazed at the new technology of in-flight WiFi. Unfortunately, an hour into the flight there was an issue with the plane's system, and they had to shut off the WiFi. People were infuriated. They already felt entitled to something that they didn’t even know existed an hour and a half before.

We need a certain amount of money. We need to be able to buy food. We need to be able to buy clothes and pay for a place to live. Someday we will need to be able to provide for our families, but when we get caught up in the constant pursuit of stuff, we get into trouble.

Somewhere along the line we’ve been convinced that all the “stuff” will make us happy. It won’t. Things get old and fall apart and need to be replaced. Newer shinier toys come out and make our old ones seem like less than they once were. We lose things. We break things. Things get stolen. When we die, we can’t take them with us.

People make us happy. We are made happy by relationships with family, friends, and most importantly, God. Our relationship with God will not let us down. God will always be there. Even when we die we will be with God, more than ever before.

As we go through our week, let us try to focus more on getting our priorities in order. Take some time to focus on what is really important: the things that aren’t things. The most important things in life aren’t things.


Lord,
Bless me with the ability to see true value. Help me to prioritize my life so that I use objects and love people, rather than love objects and use people.
Amen


Last night's playlist:
Lord I Need You – Matt Maher
Trust in You – Jeremy Camp
Give Me Jesus – Jeremy Camp
Turn Around – Matt Maher
Here I am to Worship – Tim Hughes
You Can Have Me – Sidewalk Prophets
How He Loves – David Crowder Band
I Could Sing of Your Love Forever – Delirious
You Are My Shepherd – Tom Booth
All Creatures – David Crowder Band
Hold Us Together – Matt Maher