Turn away from running after the gods of advertising

We are bombarded with advertising at every turn. Advertising is on billboards, in magazines and newspapers, on radio and television, even imbedded into the products used conspicuously in movies.

Advertising is everywhere and the goal of advertising is to make you want whatever product they are peddling. If I had those Air Jordan’s, I could jump like Michael Jordan. I would be somebody if I was driving that Hummer, or living in that model’s too-thin body. I could be content if only I was stretched out on that leather couch in front of that mammoth TV, or women (or men as the case may be) would buzz around me like bees on flowers if I was wearing that cologne or perfume. I would be profoundly happy if only I was living in that 4,000 square foot house, or if I had an X-Box 360 or a PlayStation 3.

The Apostle James never experienced that keeping-up-with-the-Joneses form of advertising, but he knew about envy. In the Book of James he wrote, “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder.” It could sound like hyperbole if real life murders didn’t show how true James’ statement is. Teens have killed teens for the shoes on their feet or the jacket on their back.

Envy turned to murder was exactly why an 87-year old California woman was beat to death for her credit cards. Her 30-something killer, Dana Sue Gray, was arrested later that day. Between the murder and the arrest, Gray had gone on a shopping spree. Police found Beebe’s credit cards in Gray’s home. They also found a closet full of new clothes with the price tags still attached. There were unopened bottles of Opium perfume, an expensive mountain bike, and a purple boogie board. A Los Angeles Magazine article described the scene saying, “The items were spread out as if in a post-Christmas quandary of where to store all the presents.”

When Gray was arrested and placed in the police car, she was wearing diamond earrings purchased with the credit card of a previous victim. Arresting officers said Gray talked about her new boogie board all the way to the police station. Gray was obsessed with things she could not afford and she was willing to kill to get them.

Killing for clothes and a boogie board, how can this be? Yet even those of us who know that things alone will not make us happy, still pursue more stuff to make us happy. We might be happily driving along in our designer clothes, in the finest of cars to our perfect house, but we will still be missing happiness.

We have pledged ourselves to God the Father through his Son Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet every time we put what we feel we want even what we need and just have to have, over and above God’s concerns, then those things become an idol. We run after other gods instead of the one true God. We run after the corporate God’s of Nike and Playstation, or J. Crew and Porsche, or whatever is the new thing to have. Whatever the thing we have to have to be happy, if it is not God, once we get it, we’ll still have a God-sized whole in our lives.

The antidote to this problem is to come to want for our lives what God wants for us. Jesus said it pretty well in teaching his disciples to pray “thy will be done.” Having God’s will done in and through your life will make you much more happy than the biggest pile of stuff.

Things are just things. Things are value neutral until you trade your soul for them. Once you let this inside-out gospel take root in your heart, you will find that the question is not what will make you happy, but what will make us happy and more importantly, what does God want for my life.

Jesus taught a simple-to-understand, hard-to-live-out ideal of loving God with all your heart, mind and soul and loving your neighbors as you love yourself. We won’t even have to love God with all our heart mind and soul all the time or get the love our neighbors as ourselves thing right all of the time. Each of us will mess up now and again. Yet, the key to true happiness is moving this direction instead of away from it.

If you don’t believe me, give it a try. You’ve already tried buying the things you need and want. Did the car bring you peace? Did the larger TV bring real happiness? OK, the picture was better, but did it actually bring happiness. I tend to doubt it. So why not stop buying into advertising that drives your desires? Try asking God what God has in mind for your life. It probably won’t be new clothes, a new car or a new house. But then what God wants for your life will be easily more satisfying than any of those things.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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