My church-planting friend Matt Payne wrote on his blog that he walked into a Best Buy, assuming that all the gaming machines had been snapped up, only to find that his timing was perfect -- a new shipment had arrived. He bought it, listed it on eBay, and accepted a bid of $1250 within hours! Are you kidding me???
I haven't owned one of these kinds of game machines since the first Nintendo release back in the early 90's (I do play computer games, however, I've never bought a computer solely for the purpose of playing games). Those Nintendoes retailed for, what, a hundred bucks? The, $30 for a game that you got tired of after a month or two?
I'm not sure what facet of this story is the most troubling:
- That people are willing to sleep overnight, on the filthy ground, in 20-degree weather, outside Best Buy for one of these machines
- That people show up with handguns and shoot each other so they can inch closer to the door of the store
- That people who complain about gas prices being high, healthcare costs skyrocketing, and other economic hazards can afford to pluck down $300 on a game machine
- That some of those same people will bid $1000 or more on eBay for the same machine
Far be it from me to judge other people's spending motives, as I'm sure some of my spending habits could be called into question. But ... greed is real, isn't it? A good thing to think about as we head into the holiday season and balance the joy of Jesus' birth with the tradition of gift-giving.
1 comment:
Brian,
Yes greed is real. Apparently, though, the issue is actually being able to define it and recognize it (at least that's the thing here in my church).
A couple weeks ago we were looking at and talking about 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul says that we should avoid anyone who calls himself a brother but is greedy. It was kind of weird listening to people come up with ways to explain what greed looks like today. Almost as if they were doing interpretive gymnastics so they could justify their choices and let themselves off the hook.
The general consensus (of which I didn't agree) is that greed is a matter of the heart and if you're heart is okay then you can go ahead and live a life of indulgence and have whatever you want. By doing that they removed the ability for us to hold one another accountable -- because after all, we can't truly judge the motives of someones heart. Needless to say, I was very frustrated by the end of the night.
It helped quite a bit a week ago when Leanne and I went to Crown Financial Seminar. I'm actually trying to get the speaker to come up here and do the same seminar. I would recommend something similar in just about every church in the US -- because greed is there, it's knocking on the door, it's real and it will destroy your walk with Christ if you don't get it under control.
A good book to read that kind of talks about this kind of stuff is The Suburban Christian by Al Hsu. He also has a blog if you want to check it out.
Talk to you later.
Curt
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