Matthew 6:25-27
The Crisis of Happiness: Why Consumerism Fails to Deliver – Matthew 6:25-27
Matthew 6:25-27 (NIVUK)
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Commentary
The problem with consumerism, the sort of ideal that dominates our culture is not just that it’s terrible for the environment, that it’s using up rapidly the finite resources of our planet. It is also that it simply fails to deliver what it promises. It’s not that a new purchase, a new phone or a new car or something like that, doesn’t make you happy. It does. It, but it does fleetingly and the happiness fades and then you will need something else and something more to get that same feeling of happiness. It is like a merry-go-round of consumption. And did you not hear Jesus ask that question? Is life not more than stuff? And we know that it must be, but our society is increasingly unclear on what that might be.