Black Friday Blues

I've never shopped on Black Friday.

That's not meant as a condemnatory statement; it's a glimpse into the way I view shopping.  Some people find fighting the hordes exciting.  I generally despise shopping, so the idea of dealing with crowds makes it even more unlikely I will find shopping appealing.  This is one of the reasons JB and I have done our Christmas shopping on the day before Thanksgiving for the last ten years.

But this year I almost caved.  I looked at the ads in our local paper and thought about plunging into the madness, just to see what it was all about.  I had nothing I needed to buy; I simply wanted to examine the sociological event known as Black Friday.  After all, Wal-Mart was offering a waffle maker for $2.84.  I texted Farky and briefly considered going.  But, wisely, he replied: "I don't think anyone needs a two dollar waffle maker."

Awakened from my near delusion, I went to bed and left Black Friday to the masses.

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My morning ritual involves my Bible, prayer, and black coffee.  But, since it was a holiday, this morning I had extra time to read the news on the Web. Black Friday stories were front and center.  Major news outlets presented a laundry list of shopping incidents involving violence, from pepper spray to shootings to fistfights.  And, yes, even a chaotic video surfaced regarding those two dollar waffle makers:

I'm a pastor, so I'm accustomed to speaking words that are often ignored.  Nevertheless, I feel that this year's Black Friday madness has reached a new level.  I'm not sure if it's my old age, some level of spiritual maturity, or if I'm simply aware of a reality that has existed for my lifetime.  But with the risk of being ignored fully realized, I am compelled to speak these words:

We are truly and deeply depraved.

In 1863, President Lincoln wrote the following proclamation to a country embroiled in Civil War and facing the greatest violence and poverty we had ever known:

"They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

And so, this most magnificent of holidays, set aside to thank God for what He has given us, has been forgotten.  We've been running right past it for years now, putting up the lights and playing the Christmas music the day after Halloween.

And so we betray what we are.

We are people that stomp one another for Cabbage Patch Kids.  We are the people who fight for cheap electronics.  We are those who wrestle for two dollar waffle makers.

And we do it all on the day after we profess to be thankful.

Truthfully, we are not thankful.  Thankfulness implies contentment.  And we are not content.  We are far from it.  We demand more, and we worship at the altar of endless consumption.

I write this post as much in confession as in chiding.  I, too, have been guilty of such discontent.  

But tonight I'm penitent.  

I spent a weekend with my family.  I did not find a single bargain.  I ate a bountiful meal.  I laughed.  I shared stories.  I hugged.  I prayed.  I gave thanks.  I finished the weekend with a parade and a city Christmas tree lighting.  And I didn't need to buy a thing.  Because it was enough to be with my family, to be thankful, and to just be.

It was enough.

And it still is enough.

It is enough, for my happiness is not in anything else I might purchase, no matter what Madison Avenue might throw my way.

I am thankful, for I have been given the greatest gifts of all, and my God has seen fit to do so.

May we always remember that Jesus has given us enough.