Ahh... I can smell the sweat coming from the foreheads of anxious moms... I can hear the swearing and yelling as people grope for the next "big savings" purchase... I see the dollar signs dancing around Macy's like sugarplums once danced through our heads...
It's Black Friday, once again!
With that irritating secular* holiday out of the way where we more or less make an effort to edify the family, we can now be free to shop 'til we drop, engage in consumer frenzy and greed to our hearts' content, and run-riot over shopping malls and Wal-Marts across America!
Black Friday, whether it is officially sanctioned as such, has become something of a national holiday. It has a name, a set day of the year (the Friday after the fourth Thursday of November), we get off of work for it, people have a definite set of "ideals" they carry into Black Friday celebrations; but what are those ideals exactly? How do we celebrate the first holiday born from modern consumer culture?
Well, some stores are opening up at 4:00 AM so consumers can rush in and grab the deals faster than everyone else! Mild-mannered men and women becoming slobbering monsters as the opportunity to appease the gods (read: spoiled brats and ungrateful relatives) presents itself. "Sale!" signs go up on a shop's window, and the masses go berserk. People lose sleep, comfort, health and lots of money in order to celebrate Black Friday. We sacrifice and we give our all so that the things we truly value in life will be glorified; shopping, selfishness and material possessions.
I often wonder if I'm the only person sickened by the irony that all these Black Friday jubilations all more or less depend on the particular way we in the twenty-first century celebrate an inherently religious holiday. In an effort to somehow thank Baby Jesus for showing up and ridding the world of cancer and super-criminals, we spend and spend on what in the great scheme of things is meaningless, trifling, and in all likelihood, will be completely outmoded and outdated in about six-to-eight months. On the other hand, family togetherness doesn't really seem to be helped by this phenomenon. Kids simply see their parents more and more as ATM machines and stuff dispensers. Parents lose the joy of parenting in the midst of ungratefulness and consumer frenzy. Churches are packed on that day, but I'm also forced to wonder how many people packing those churches give a rat's rear-end about what Jesus and the writers of the Bible actually said about materialism?
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
-Matthew 6:19-21
Hmm... That says a lot. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Black Friday seems to speak great volumes about where our hearts are then. But let's go a little further, shall we?
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 important than food, and the body more important 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
-Matthew 6:25-32
An odd thing there too — Jesus says it's pagans who go running after clothes, food and drink, much in the same way we (often literally) run after our material goods on Black Friday. Are we feeling convicted yet?
While sadly, most Christians in this country don't seem to understand Jesus' commands about materialism and greed, there is a non-denominational (close to Universalist-Unitarian) street-performer who does. The man named "Reverend Billy" has begun an activist/non-profit group called The Church of Stop-Shopping. Many years ago, here in my very own town of New York, Rev. Billy saw what Starbucks, the Gap, and the Disney Store were doing to our fair city. So, he started preaching. He preached against consumer frenzy. He preached against materialism. He preached against exorbitant consumer debt and whimsical spending habits, and he has also been subsequently arrested for these activities.
Several weeks ago, I got to see his movie that has just come out, What Would Jesus Buy?^ It's not as scathing as some documentaries on the subject matter such as Maxed Out!, but it illustrates its points cogently and with a great deal of flare and comedy. This movie has also found rave reviews at Christian film festivals, so much so that the director said that Evangelical Christians received it with more excitement than it did at its debut at South-By-Southwest (SXSW for those who are "in the know.") Reverend Billy never takes the potshots or low-blows at Christian hypocrisy and American stupidity that many come to expect from the activist crowd, but instead he focuses on what Christmas is supposed to be about, about how the greatness and freedom of America can be reclaimed from chain stores and mall-based monoculture. In many ways, he's far more reverential to both Christ and this season than the vast majority of "Christians" are.
His movie disturbs me all the same however for one simple reason - Reverend Billy himself is not a Christian.~ In fact, when I look for the Christian voices in the wilderness speaking against this greed and nonsense (and especially the near-idolatrous nature of it all since this is supposed to be a holiday celebrating Christ) I hear very little. There's a Jim Wallis over there, a Stanley Hauerwas in the corner, maybe even a confrontational Greg Boyd stomping in the middle of the room, but for the most part we have Osteen, Jakes, Meyer and Hinn. "Buy! Spend! Shop! Money is awesome! It's God's gift to us for being so holy!"
It's probably too late for this message to really make it out to any Black Friday revelers today, but maybe soon you should check out What Would Jesus By? and ask yourself what all this is about. Black Friday is not a holiday we should be celebrating — it is a phenomenon we should be mourning. Even among devout Christians, however, I see no sackcloth or ashes. Just credit cards, shopping bags, plastic smiles, and little tokens that say "Jesus is the reason for the season!"
Is He?
* - A friend on Christianwriters.com actually pointed out to me that this is a holiday which has become secularised. The idea behind "Thanksgiving" (Greek - eucharist) is that the Pilgrims thanked God for sparing them, and used the Native Americans as His instrument of mercy. It's actually a very Christian holiday, but we never really hear about that, do we?
^ - For a more in-depth review of Rev. Billy and What Would Jesus Buy?, I reccomend Walter Bruggemann's November article in Sojourner's Magazine. (Registration required.)
~ - At the showing of the film that I was priveliged to take in, the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir actually came and performed, and an audience member asked at the Q&A how many of them were, in fact, Christians. I can happily say two or three of them (including the choir director) rose their hands.