This is one of my very favorite movie clips of all time. I absolutely love this bit from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. It has so much texture and it’s funny to boot. It never fails to get me laughing. Never. Even though I can just about recite it from memory. But watch … then we’ll talk.
So I was reading over at Bill Kinnon’s the other day about the latest irony in Christendom. I guess Brian McLaren is decrying consumerism by asking folks to buy his books and CDs. Kinda funny, no? Not funny, haha, but funny weird as my Grampy O would say. Yeah, it’s ironic and sorta sad. But Brian is just doing his schtick. He’s gotta make money too, ya know. We all havta make money.
Someone wrote a fairly insightful comment at Bill’s and it got me thinking. Here’s the bit that sparked my brain, but you should read the rest at Bill’s place:
I question our use of a system that is biased towards marketability regardless of quality. This creates a profit oriented motive to do “ministry” and fosters the growth of dubious theology. It entices people to compromise on their values and principles to get better sales and/or increase marketability.
I question whether the growing trend towards fee-for-service ministry is appropriate because it shuts out the poor. One of the marks of the messiah that Jesus shared with the followers of John the Baptist was that the gospel is proclaimed to the poor. — Leighton Tebay
This idea is not fully fleshed out yet, so please bear with me. But my thinking is that we poor humans have absolutely no idea of what to do with an infinite God. In this capitalist age, we are less equipped than ever. In the days when faith reigned supreme we had a chance, but now in the age of reason we are handicapped, stunted and miserly in our perspectives on God and His provisions.
We start young. We begin as children, competing for the attention of our parents. Various behavioral issues are seen as efforts to compete for a limited resource (our parent’s time and attention). It continues even more voraciously in our public schools with 20 or more children in a classroom competing for the limited resources of the school system. Most obviously they compete for the time and attention of the teacher on a daily basis. Life becomes a zero-sum game. And all of us learn how to play it quite young. In places that we’d never suspect it we begin to assign winners and losers in the crevices of our minds. We understand that in an environment of limited resources, we are responsible for grabbing all that we can for ourselves. God helps those who help themselves, right? It’s in the Bible somewhere. And no one wants to be stamped with the scarlet “L” for Loser. Because losers don’t get any of those scarce resources … whatever those resources might be.
Can you hear the violence inherent that system? In such a system we must constantly be at war with one another. True love is not entirely possible, because we must also compete with each other for limited resources. Thus, even while we know that commercialism is wrong, we might tell each other of it in the same breath as asking for increased sales of our books and cds. While this makes no logical sense, it does within the context of our socio-economic system.
There is, however, a better way. God spoke of it when He revealed himself to us in his human form. It involves laying aside our limited ideas of wealth, self-care, and resources. It involves relying on the infinite and becoming careless and carefree. All of this appears silly and we will become losers in the zero-sum game of capitalism. But for an infinite God with infinite resources, with whom we do not have to compete for His attention.
No, I have no idea what this looks like. I’m still thinking about it. If any of you have some ideas … please put them in the comments, I’d love to hear them.
