Liturgies

FROM PRESENTS TO PRESENCE. 

We have entered that time of the year, the Christmas shopping season; you may have been able to avoid such an intense shopping experience for most of the year. It is here you may find yourself in a shop and you hear from the loud speaker, ‘Attention shoppers, Attention……there is a special never to repeat bargain in the furniture section…

It is like you have been caught and there is no escape, you are guilty by association of finding yourself at the scene of the crime. A bit like in the movies, “Put your hands in the air and step away from the car, I repeat step away from the car.”  

You have been referred to as a SHOPPER whether you like it or not. You have been caught red handed and now you are to do what you must; SHOP.

When did we stop being people and morph into SHOPPERS CONSUMERS AND CUSTOMERS, and other confining and demeaning names bestowed by the BIG BROTHERS of Commerce?

Did it happen when we were corralled out of the bustling open air market places under the stars and placed into the confining walls of the commercial feedlots of the mega Shopping Malls and Centres? It is in the comfort of these centres where the climate can be controlled and our purchasing choices as well.

Christmas has been taken hostage by big business intent on maximum profit with little of no concern for much else. Most of us know this at some level and do little else but smile, illustrated in the story

Where a teacher was very curious about how each of her students' celebrated Christmas Eve "Tell me Patrick, what do you do on Christmas Eve?" she asked.

Patrick addressed the class. "Well Miss, me and my twelve brothers and sisters go to midnight Mass and we sing hymns, then we come home very late and we put mince pies by the back door and hang up our stockings. Then all excited we go to bed and wait for Father Christmas to come with all our toys."

"Very nice Patrick, now Jimmy Brown, what do you do?"

"Well Miss, me and my sister go to Church with Mum and Dad and we sing carols and we get home ever so late. We put cookies and milk by the chimney and we hang up our stockings. We hardly sleep waiting for Santa Claus to bring our presents."

Remembering there was a Jewish boy in the class and not wanting to leave him out of the discussion, she asked, "Now Jimmy Cohen, what do you do on Christmas Eve?"

"Well Miss, it's the same old thing every year. Dad comes home from the office. We all pile into the Rolls and drive to his toy factory. When we get inside we look at all the empty shelves and sing "What a friend we have in Jesus". Then we go to the Bahamas."

In his book, ‘The Divine Commodity; Discovering a Faith beyond Consumer Christianity (2009) Skye Jethani writes “We live and move, and have our being in a consumer cosmos. The global economy and interconnection of markets and resources means every time we eat a meal, listen to music, put on clothing, or read a book, we are being consumers” But he warns, “We must learn to exist in a consumer empire but not forfeit our souls at its altar.”

Recently we had a glimpse of what we can expect more of in our future if we do not make changes to the way we consume the worlds resources now. The devastating effects of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the NSW fires particularly those in the Blue Mountains. Climate Change is inevitable and any attempt to mitigate against it is met by the Climate Change Deniers and sceptics who decry any attempts to lessen the devastating effects of the Climate changing. Our own Prime Minister being one of the better known sceptics and decryers. This year in WarsawPoland it will be the first year since the Kyoto Accord was forged in 1997 that no Australian government minister will be attending the United Nations International Climate Change Summit.

Celebrated scientists and development thinkers today warn that civilisation is faced with a perfect storm of ecological and social problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption and environmentally malign technologies. They say that society has “no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilisation. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.”

At the moment we are opting for, ‘they will be changed for us’, with devastating consequences.

The perpetual growth myth promotes the impossible idea that indiscriminate economic growth is the cure for all the worlds’ problems, while it is actually the disease that is at the root cause of our unsustainable global practices.

In today’s Gospel Jesus sights the time Noah before the flood where people lived unaware of the signs of change, Matthew has Jesus exclaim, “They suspected nothing till the flood came and swept all away.” We live in a time where most of us are aware of the signs of change,

Most of us know about

*The increase in the CO2 levels in the atmosphere

*The increased warming of the planet

*The slow melting of the ICE CAPS

* The gradual extinction of many species

*The changing ocean temperatures and currents

*Bigger droughts and floods

We know that the increased warming is due to our higher emissions of CO2 due largely to our overconsumption and populating the world.

We know that “humans extract and use around 50% more natural resources than only 30 years ago, at about 60 million tonne of raw materials a year.

We know that 20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of the world’s resources and that they consume resources at a rate almost 32 times greater than those of the developing world, thus producing most of greenhouse gas emissions. The affluent few produce most of the pollution on earth, their carbon and environmental footprint is Hugh.

We know that in order to have a chance at keeping the increase in average global temperatures below 2 degrees that we need to be reducing the rate of burning fossil fuels by 2020. But little or nothing is being done; the world is sleep walking to disaster obsessed by short-term economic consideration.

We know all this but for most of us we feel swept along by the inevitable desire to consume more.

This year a young Brisbane family took the radical step to declutter their lives by setting themselves the task to buy nothing but essentials, food, petrol and hygiene and cleaning items for a whole year. For 365 days, no new stuff would be bought into their home by this family of five.

Eleven months down the track and some of their reflections were, “Feeling that space and freedom from the clutter that was our home before, is really nice. It just seems lighter and less stressful.  “The mother, Brizuela, shares, “Just recently someone sent us a package with a shirt for our son and a dress for our daughter, and previously they’ve not been excited about clothing, but Theo (our son) was sooo excited! He was ecstatic to get a shirt, and I thought, that is something we’ve robbed from him by giving him everything never really making him appreciate that he was getting something new. That’s probably one of the best lessons I want our kids to learn to be grateful and appreciate what they have, and it seems to have worked. We’re all taking better care of what we have.”

For most of us taking such a radical decision is not even an option. But to down size maybe an option, to get rid of the excess in our lives. To consider cutting back on our buying and overconsuming. To ask more frequently do I really need this purchase?

At Christmas this year maybe our greatest gift is not to give a GIFT at all, thereby gifting the earth our mother.

Maybe give gifts which give to those in need. As the TEAR Australia Gifts Catalogue, which I have left copies at the entrance, states, “ gifts of LIFE,HOPE AND OPPORTUNITY gifts which go directly to supporting poor and marginalised communities around the world”. There are many other creative options such as this where the world’s wealth is more evenly distributed.

Or maybe give gifts which demand our P R E S E N C E

And not our P R E S E N T S.