Buy Nothing Day

Many people assume that the protestant church is an organization dedicated to the proposition:

Somebody, somewhere, is having fun – and it has got to be stopped!

This morning’s sermon risked confirming that assumption, as I stood before you again in black, intoning against the evils of consumerism. Our dominant cultural norm is unambiguous:

‘Be happy and enjoy yourself. You are a consumer. In recreation, you are a player, a fan
(short for fanatic) of sports play and performance. Indulge yourself - you’re worth it, after all!’

But there’s a countercultural norm, one that recognizes more ambiguity, as Johnny Cash personified and sang in his classic song “Man in Black”:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.


I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black...

Last week, I suggested to you that there was a dominant kind of godtalk in our church, the pastoral one that says ‘God is good, we are nice: love!’ There is an occasional spice to that bland diet, the prophetic god talk that says ‘God is critical, we might be wrong: change!’ After all, the Santa Claus Parade is over, American Thanksgiving and Grey Cup is today, signaling the season when people of all people of every faith get together and shop! In response, for over 20 years, many have celebrated ‘Buy Nothing Day’ on the Friday after American Thanksgiving – the Saturday in Europe. Today, I am inviting you to observe ‘Buy Nothing Day’ this Friday, November 28. Can you imagine?
Imagine starting the day with no bills in your billfold, not change in your pocket, no plastic in your wallet. Imagine avoiding all stores, all malls, or cash registers or ATMs or drive-throughs. Imagine a ‘Buy Nothing Day’ this Friday. Could you do it? It’s a Professional Development Day for York Region schools – can the children and youth imagine doing it? Why not?

It’s so little to ask, really. As a longtime smoker, who has quit many times, I know about taking one day off. People who take on diets and exercise, or try to control their alcohol and drug addictions, all know about resolving to take one first day off. You can cheat – load up ahead of time, and prepare for the end of the day. But the exercise of planning brings new awareness, of how the thing you are stopping is operating in the rest of your life. Buy Nothing Day is Friday.

Though I wore the black this day, I’m no monk. Till I was 40 years old, I lived by a mantra of ‘no debts, no assets’, but then I caved. I tried legal practice, took out a mortgage, acquired assets. I am ‘one of us’ now, the middling classes with both debts and assets. Of course, I know the difference between shopping and buying, just like the difference between fishing and catching. They used to call people in this outfit ‘parsons’ which meant ‘persons’ – distinguished from the religious orders who vowed poverty, chastity and obedience. As the Animals sang it:

I’m just a soul whose intentions are good – O Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood!

The prophet Ezekiel preached in Babylonian exile to the deportees who were transported out of Jerusalem to south Iraq, 600 years before Jesus. What a shock – what a trauma they felt! Sure, the northern tribes fell to the Assyrians a century before – but who anticipated this humiliation? The Assyrians shipped everybody out to mixed labour camps in their empire. Babylonians took the best and brightest of a conquered city, like Jerusalem, and dumped them in an abandoned place to rebuild, like Tel Aviv by the river Chebar, tributary of the Euphrates in Iraq.

It was easy for Ezekiel to look back with 20:20 hindsight, and condemn leaders’ sins that got us in this mess – the leaders were parasitic leeches! Ezekiel compares them to bad shepherds:

Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves!
Should not shepherds feed the sheep?
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings;
but you do not feed the sheep.
You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick,
you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed,
you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.

It is easy for us to look back on a financial market crash and condemn leaders’ sins that got us into our mess – our leaders were parasitic leeches! The spread between the remuneration of the rich and the wages of the poor was ever expanding, and not serving the common wealth. Duh.

Let’s let the leaders take their share of blame – whether corporate executives, or financial elites – or denominational staff deluded enough to accept proportional remuneration, academics oblivious to actual congregational flocks, or even clergy who accept pay not based on people voting with their wallets and their feet for a cause. Sure – damn them all to hell, those greedy bastards. But that’s not the end of a real prophetic challenge!

Ezekiel the prophet won’t let the rest of us off with blaming the shepherds. The rest of us have to share our complicity, whether as investors in the market, or members who let elites stray:

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture,
but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture?
When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet?
And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet,
and drink what you have fouled with your feet?

Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge
between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

Because you pushed with flank and shoulder,
and butted at all the weak animals with your horns
until you scattered them far and wide,
I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged;
and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

It’s a great image of environmental depredation: the flock that feeds on good pasture, and tramples the grass so others can’t eat, and muddies the waters so that others can’t drink. The strong of the flock ‘pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals’. Who among us is unable to recognize this environmental destruction? Who among us is without sin?

Ezekiel will also offer a promise, and a hope, even in the moment of tragic market collapse and reorientation of displaced persons in a wasteland:

I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged;
and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David,
and he shall feed them; he shall feed them and be their shepherd.
And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them
I the Lord have spoken

Let God judge between sheep and sheep – my young friend Rob Oliphant now a baby Liberal MP delighted in saying ‘sheep… goat… sheep… goat’ - yet my old friend, now a long-term NDP MP Bill Siksay would be more likely to say ‘we, like sheep, have gone astray’… Have you now any sense of repentance, or of reconciliation? Yet, if you are sheep, are you treading down the pasture, and fouling the waters, so that others cannot eat or drink? The next generation, or the 2/3 world, or those without your market power?

Many people assume that the protestant church is an organization dedicated to the proposition:

Somebody, somewhere, is having fun – and it has got to be stopped!

God forbid, we should be the kill-joys of our generation, with no more to offer than ‘DON’T’. God willing, our contribution will have more to do with this. In late capitalism, we became no longer citizens, no longer producers, but primarily consumers. We were tempted in our affluence to act like Ezekiel’s shepherds, eating the fatling sheep, instead of caring for the flock. But even if we were just part of the flock, stronger sheep, we were tempted to shoulder aside the weaker ones, trample the grass and muddy the water so that others couldn’t enjoy what we left. God willing, our gospel is about DO – care for those who are weaker – especially in recession.

We are more than consumers. We are more than investors trying to maximize owning and earning. We are more than taxpayers, trying to minimize our taxes. We are children of God – generous neighbours, and donors and supporters of others, and citizens who share a commonwealth. On one day this week, before people of every faith go out shopping, pause for ‘Buy Nothing Day’, and remember who we are, and whose we are. When you resume spending, then next day, God knows we might do it a bit smarter, like Christians, like children of God.

So we prayed, as we had before the lesson:

God of Ezekiel, God of exiles –
You who love us as children of God,
No respecter of persons, rich or poor –
Remind us who we are and whose we are –
Not simply consumers, getting and spending –
Not simply investors, trying to maximize our owning and earning
But donors and supporters of others,
Citizens who share a commonwealth.

Where we have duties as shepherds to care for a flock
Show us how to be stewards, to build them up,
Not parasites who eat some and scatter the rest.
Where we have gifts as stronger ones than our neighbours
Show us how to support and give them what they need,
Not push them aside, in social Darwinism.

When our actions have consequences,
When our culture of consumption, inequity, and competition finds its limits
When we find ourselves in exile, in times of trouble
Remind us, God of Ezekiel, God of exiles
That you love us as your children
No respecter of persons, rich or poor,
But as who we are and whose we are
Christians, generous donors and supporters of neighbours
Citizens who share a commonwealth - Amen