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Commentary
GEN-X RISING: Economy’s loss, our gain Andrew C. Thompson, Apr 22, 2009
Andrew Thompson
By Andrew C. Thompson UMR Columnist
The economic downturn is forcing many people to put the breaks on a lifestyle of high-speed consumption.
Like waking up after an all-night bender, many are asking, “What happened?” And it’s becoming all too clear that the debt-fueled life of luxury so many have enjoyed since the mid-90s must now come to an end.
And that ain’t all bad.
Now is the time for faithful Christians to get their priorities straight. Sure, it would have been nice if we had taken Jesus seriously when he said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19).
And yes, it would have been better if we had heeded Paul’s counsel to Timothy that “those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9).
But while Christians in this country don’t always listen to the word of God, you can bet your bottom dollar—if you still have one—that we’ll listen to the latest economic news on CNN. So skyrocketing unemployment and falling home values are pushing us to change our ways, even if Jesus isn’t.
Regardless of how we got here, the current situation at least gives us the opportunity to reexamine our values and revise our lifestyles. That is especially important for Gen Xers and Millennials like me who may never have had to make tough choices before.
The chance we have now is a chance to start practicing a lifestyle more faithful to the gospel in the use of our time, our activities and our wealth. John Wesley offers insight to just such an approach in his sermon “Self-denial,” on Jesus’ command to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow him (Luke 9:23).
Wesley saw the call to deny oneself as a call to say “no” to those parts of our own human nature that push us toward sin. Because sin corrupts all of us, it often seems natural to indulge all sorts of unhealthy and wrong desires. The avarice and greed among individuals and corporations on Wall Street that led to the current financial meltdown in the economy is just one conspicuous example.
Most of us had nothing to do with causing our current situation; we only feel the effects. But when we are honest, we know that all of us can look in the mirror and find an overly materialistic lifestyle staring us in the face.
We like to indulge our greed in personal ways. And frankly, those lifestyles we cling to only inhibit our relationship with God. We should begin practicing self-denial at exactly those points in our lives where we put materialistic idols before God.
For Wesley, the flip side of the coin of self-denial is in taking up our cross to follow Jesus. That means more than self-denial. It means that we should “willingly embrace the will of God,” which comes in the form of serious discipleship practices.
These can be personal devotional practices like prayer and Scripture reading. But they also include a life patterned by the love of neighbor. And Wesley is particularly interested in pointing to the need to sacrifice our own luxury in order to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those who are sick and in prison.
We should put such practices at the center of our discipleship because Jesus asks us to do so. As we include them in our daily lives, we will also soon find ourselves transformed from within.
And the surprising good news to us will be that the cross that seemed so heavy at first will grow lighter and lighter until it is positively joyful to carry.
There is a word for that process: sanctification. It’s a word that names what it means to grow closer and closer to Jesus.
Given the way that the world’s hollow promises have collapsed around us in the past year, we ought to give it a try.
Andrew Thompson
