Every day I’m told
I need to be something more.
Over 3000 times a day
from the back of buses,
from my phone,
from magazines, from billboards.
I’m told I’m not enough;
that I need this product
or this experience,
and then I’ll be happy.
However, I get that product,
I get that experience
and they’ve designed an upgrade.
There’s another advertising campaign.
Advertising is designed
to make me discontent.
I need whiter teeth,
I need brighter skin,
I need something else to make me happy.
It’s called consumerism.
It’s not new;
it’s simply institutionalised selfishness.
Psychologist Tim Cassis says the consumer
grid is simply time equals money,
money equals things,
and things equal happiness,
and the goal is to be happy.
And so what takes my time, takes
my money, takes my things,
takes my happiness.
We know that’s
not how it really works,
but that’s the grid
we just simply live by.
So amongst all that,
I am taught to be discontent
with anything that diverts me
from this goal of happiness.
In that process, I become commodities.
People become commodities.
My hope and desire
get put in commodities.
This is one of the reasons
I love Sabbath,
because on Sabbath time
doesn’t equal money. On Sabbath,
I take a break from that consumer grid.
I take a break from
those incessant messages
telling me I’m not enough
and I need more.
On Sabbath, I take a break
to remember where I’ve come from,
who I am, and where I’m going to.
On Sabbath,
it’s not simply a consumer story
or my self-brand; on Sabbath
I remember what my identity really is.
On Sabbath
I take time to grow and serve
and connect and share and worship
and all those things that consumerism
could so easily swallow up.
Zygmunt Bauman, sociologist, says
that we live in pseudo community
where we commodify people
and commodify relationships.
On Sabbath I take time
for genuine relationship
with God and one another.
In the Bible, the first time
the Ten Commandments are mentioned,
it talks about the Sabbath
and it says, ‘Remember the Sabbath
because of your Creator.’
Consumerism so easily destroys creation.
It tramples on creation,
it tramples on people;
and in making the product,
we forget the story of where it comes from
or where that product goes to
once it’s discarded, and we so easily,
in the quest for more,
forget about our creation.
The second time that the commandments
are mentioned it says, ‘Remember the Sabbath
because I, God, brought
you out of slavery.’ He is talking
to the children of Israel
who were slaves to Egypt,
whose value was simply
in what they could produce.
They’d become commodities.
Is it possible that you and I live
in a consumer empire
where once again
we’re slaves to the messages
of needing more
and my value is what I could produce
or what I can accumulate between now
and the time I breathe
my last breath on this planet?
Sabbath reminds me
that I’m not a slave to consumerism.
There’s a different story.
There’s a different way of being human.
And Sabbath is
a reminder that I’m here
for what matters for significance,
what matters for now,
and what matters for eternity.
I love Sabbath
because it gives me a break
from consumerism.
It’s resistance to the culture of now;
it gives me time to recalibrate
and remember what really matters.