20081130 Wall of Separation

20081130 Wall of Separation

www.stmichaeluoc.org
www.orthoanalytika.org

Ephesians 2:14-22
St. Luke 12:16-21

Before I begin, let me share the deepest love and condolences from the faithful of St. Michael’s to the parish of St. Mary’s on the falling asleep in the Lord of their beloved pastor, Ihumen Gregory. May God strengthen them during this difficult time, and may He grant their spiritual father a Memory Eternal.

St. Paul teaches us in today’s epistle that Christ has “broken down the middle wall of separation”. This is the wall that separates us from holiness and sanctification. In the beginning, we were created for eternal growth in the Lord; to grow in beauty and goodness. There was nothing between us and the realization of our full potential in community with one another and Perfection. But our sin and the resultant fallenness of the world we live in have created a great gulf between us and the goodness that we long for.

In olden days, God gave the Jews the Law so that by following it they could be brought to holiness. But, as St. Paul points out, instead of bridging the gap between their sinfulness and God’s perfection, it became a wall; a constant reminder of their unworthiness. You see, no one could keep the law. No one could live without sin. So instead of serving as a guide to avoid temptations, it served as a description of all the temptations the Jews could not avoid.

Now, like anyone who is away from their homeland, we never feel quite right where we are. There is always the nagging sense that we were made for something else, something better; that the world itself is not quite right. We try to satisfy that longing with various things; you know the litany. In this promiscuous culture many of us try to quench this thirst with illicit sex of various types: adultery, pornography, self-stimulation, hook-ups... the list goes on and on. Many of us turn to alcohol and drugs. But even those of us who somehow manage to avoid these temptations are likely to fall into one much more inciting and ubiquitous: we try to satisfy ourselves with the things we buy. I love America and the capitalism that has made it strong. I believe that capitalism is the most efficient way to organize any economy. Unfortunately, it has also been incredibly successful at turning us into incredibly hedonistic and selfish consumers. Instead of bringing simple transparency to the market, the advertisers of Madison Avenue have manipulated our weaknesses to the extent that we have become addicted to buying stuff we don’t need. Their siren call has led us to blur the distinction between what we “need” and what we simply “want”; something which easy credit (what I call “easy debt”) has exacerbated to the point where we are willing to risk our families’ economic and physical security in order to buy stuff that does nothing to improve our happiness.

We keep trying to fill that “God shaped void” in our hearts with more stuff, but more stuff never fills it. Economists assume that our appetites are insatiable: they are correct in that no amount of worldly things can never satisfy our longing. And now our economy, based at it has been on the risky satisfaction of artificially-generated needs, is coming crashing down around us. The silver lining here is that this may allow more of us to see this mockery of a market for the illusion it always has been [despite the best efforts of the government, which is attempting to dampen the effects of the crash by leading creditors away from making prudent lending decisions]. The truth that Madison Avenue tries to hide is that nothing can satisfy our primal longing except the One Thing Needful: our Lord, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Christ has put a door through the wall that separates us from perfection. He is at that door inviting you to open it (Revelations 3:20). If you answer His call, then you can transcend the limitations of your fallenness: you can go through the wall of separation; you can cross the threshold from sinfulness to sanctification. So open it. Go through it. Find your heart’s true home.

As St. Paul says, it is Christ who, through the Cross, restores us to unity with one another and the Father. Therefore, we are “no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God.” We are members of His household. This past Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving, a time when Americans open up their homes to family and friends and offer them our most genuine and heartfelt hospitality. We all cherish this holiday. But the hospitality shared at even the best Thanksgiving gathering is but a shadow of that shown by the Master when we become members of His household. The hospitality shown in God’s house is beyond compare. And just look at the banquet He has set for us: He has truly offered up the greatest feast imaginable; a meal that offers forgiveness and an eternity of joyful and satisfying celebration.

St. Paul finishes today’s lesson by telling us that we, being fitted together with Christ as our cornerstone, grow into a holy temple”. You can see this in your parish as it grows in holiness; as you all grow into a more fitting “dwelling place” for “God in the Spirit”. You have found the door and opened it. You are enjoying the feast. Now Christ is working within and through you so that you can show others the door. There is a world outside that is hungry; a world that is starving to death feasting on dry husks (St. Luke 15: 16) that it cannot really even afford. Here in the Lord’s house we have the food that is “broken and distributed” but “never consumed”. You are members of God’s household. You are, indeed, members of His very body. Now go do as He commands: go out into the highways and the hedges to bring our starving brothers and sisters to the feast (St. Luke 14: 16-24).

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


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How many cars do we need?

Our economy continues to “correct” itself after decades of being artificially inflated by easy credit, poor saving habits, and superfluous spending. The government is attempting to ease the effects of this correction by replacing the suddenly prudent (i.e. risk-averse) credit market with its own. In this way, it forces more money into a system in dreadful need of cathartic reform and guarantees that America will continue be more squeezed by debt payments than a newly minted Ivy League philosophy PhD ... and with about as much a chance as her of ever paying the whole thing off [no offense to philosophers, but that isn’t the kind of degree you go into debt for; especially if you aren’t willing to do other work... the stars are beautiful, but falling into the well of poverty is far from wise].

While I found the first wave of financial bailouts distressing, the current talk about how to save the U.S. auto industry is equally depressing. The pattern of the debate is indicative of our unwillingness to come to terms with the unsustainable consumerist culture at the foundation of our economy. This culture isn’t just destroying our country, it is killing our people.

The Auto Industry: A Case Study in the Perils of Consumerism
Problem 1. Efficient at what?
Economists will point out that cars have made our economy more efficient: capitalism benefits from the free movement of labor as much as it does the free movement of capital. A culture built around car ownership and supported by cheap gasoline allows individuals to move more efficiently through the labor market, allowing him to take the best job within 50 miles (FWIW, cheap credit did the same via the housing market by making it easy to move). They point out that we all benefit from having more individuals taking the jobs for which they are best suited because it allows companies to produce the things we want more efficiently. They will also point out that it allows people to make more of the money they deserve.

While all this is true as far as it goes, the market does not account for unintended consequences very well (e.g. the increased stress from long commutes, pollution, soul-less commuter communities, the hollowing out of cities, and a general separation of individuals from one another and the satisfactions of true community). Moreover, economists argue that the freer movement of labor will allow us to serve one another better through the strengthening of the “invisible hand”; but indirect satisfaction of a stranger’s wants is far from the kind of sanctifying service (“diakonia”) for which we were created.

Problem 2. The self-fulfilling rule of insatiability: how many cars do we need?
The combination of a strongly perceived “need” for transportation has combined with marketing manipulation and easy credit to lead us into a bizarre place where people will go into great debt to buy far more car than they need (a process they repeat with dizzying frequency). Drive around any suburb and count the number of car dealers; try to estimate how many cars they have for sale. The fact that this seems natural shows that Gramsci was right (in his diagnosis, not his prescription): hegemony makes irrational and self-destructive behavior seem right as rain. One of the first things financial advisor Dave Ramsey asks debt-struck-callers-struggling-to-make-ends-meet is how much they owe on their cars. It quickly becomes clear that most of those in trouble risked their families’ welfare and their own health and security to buy cars they did not need. And they aren’t the only ones who have done this: everyone would have more money to spend on things that they really need and that would really improve their lives if they spent less on their cars. It just doesn’t make sense.

The automobile-market is based on the risky satisfaction of artificially-generated “needs”. Is it any wonder that the US automakers are hurting? Is it any wonder that they are so slow to change? Brainwashed consumers and banks willing to make risky loans protect them from having to adapt to objective (i.e. “real”) changes. We laughed at the Communist market with jokes like “you pretend to work, and they pretend to pay you”; but our perversion of capitalism is equally laughable and almost as tragic. Its not just that we don’t save anymore (a lines of credit is the new “emergency fund” and finding favorable financing now seems wiser than saving to pay cash... which is objectively wiser?).

Conclusion
The irony should be obvious to everyone: we buy cars so that we can get better jobs so that we can spend more on our cars (and McMansions). Another irony is that allegedly “conservative” Republicans join big-state, big-industry loving Democrats to support the kind of consumerism that is destroying everything true conservatives want to preserve. I wish that Republicans would spend more time reading Burke, Dreher, and Chesterton; that Democrats would spend more time reading Kropotkin; and that they would both spend more time reading St. John Chrysostom (and here, and here) and the Gospels.

I understand why we want to soften the impact of the crashing economy, but what we really need is the vision, intentionality, and strength to make sure the one we grow to replace it isn’t just internally efficient and sustainable, but designed to meet our true wants and needs as well.