Ouch

I was listening to a message from Mars Hill by Chris Seay (author of the book, Gospel According to Tony Soprano) entitled Worship the Baby, Resist the Empire. His message talked about the way we've perverted Christmas in terms of the stuff and indulgence - something we've all probably heard before in one way or another in terms of what Christmas is all about. One part of his message stopped me in my tracks and made my heart sink. Chris told the story about how he was having a discussion with a friend about what God must think about the excess in terms of the way we celebrate the birth of Christ when there is so much poverty, famine and disease around the world. His friend responded with a parable something like this from the perspective of a Dad, (put in the context of my kids):

Suppose Nate became a famous football player out on the West Coast who pulled in millions and millions of dollars as a result of his contracts and endorsements. Suppose his sister Madeline lived on the East Coast and her kids could not get a decent education and her kids were dying of diseases where cures exist. Meanwhile, Emily lived in the South in an area where her children were very sick and dying because they simply couldn't get drinking water.

Chris Seay continued on with the story, reflecting on the question:

As a Dad, what would my desire be for Nate with all of his excess? Of course it would be for him to use his abundance to help his family, to give them a hand up out of their poverty, disease and needs.

It's probably barely even obvious to those around me, but Jesus has been transforming my life over the past years to make me a guy who is more and more generous with what I have and hold more and more loosely to what I have. I'm not even close to being there. With all that I have, I constantly amaze myself on how I sure I am that stuff will make me happy, and I continue to be surprised when it doesn't (except my TV - that makes me really really happy, and an iPhone would give me a true, deep, eternal contentment). When I reflected on that parable, I wonder what question my heavenly father would ask me when confronted with the same reality in my world as the parable above. What kind of job am I doing as the "wealthy brother" to meet the needs of the poor and hurting in the world around me?

Every time I think about where I'm at and my connection to my stuff, I feel a little like the rich young ruler that Jesus talked to around the stuff in his life that he would not let go of to follow Jesus.