Rotting and Hoarding

I am an obsessively vigilant leftover-eater and refrigerator cleaner.  Today my husband asked what I was doing when I pulled out a sharpie and was writing on a bag of frozen chicken.  “Use me!” with a smiley face is that I wrote. It’s the oldest bag so we need to eat it next, I explained.  He smiled.  I’m so glad he loves me as I am.

During my fridge inventory I was very disappointed to find that some of the bargain cheese I’d scored a month back, which was unopened and dated August 28th, had already molded. Gross.  More than gross–wrong. A tragedy.  Food that rots before it is eaten just seems so wrong to me! That means that we have way too much and that we’re misusing our resources somehow, right?  If we buy more food than we can eat something is wrong and the solution is certainly not that we need to eat more.  My poor mother patiently endures my lectures every time I’m at her house and I pull out all the expired bottles of half-used salad dressing from the fridge.  I know she must shake her head and wonder how her grand lessons on stewardship and frugality have been reduced to my ranting and raving over a wasted pint of ranch.

Ok, I know the cheese thing is not a big deal, but I was studying James 5 today, and it made me think about rotting.  Check out the first three verses of this chapter. How’s this for a happy little devotional thought? I’ve never seen this one on a coffee mug:

¹Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. ²Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. ³Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.

Now, after studying and reading up on some commentaries, it is likely that he is addressing rich unbelievers who are exploiting the poor, glutting themselves with pleasure, abusing their employees, etc.  But isn’t the warning applicable to all who are rich?  That is the ONE percent of the world who make more than $40,000.  Yup, that’s right. We’re all rich.

In the wake of this, I also read an interesting article in the Oregonian.   They cited the staggering amount of food waste in our country today. This was interesting: From 1973-2003, the average weight of an American adult went up 20 lbs. TWENTY lbs.  In only 30 years.  They averaged that out and figured that that equals an extra 300 calories per person, per day, that is in excess.  However, check this out.  The amount of food purchased in this country increased an average of 800 calories per person per day.  That means that we’re eating more than we need and buying WAY more than we need.  That means 500 calories a day are thrown in the garbage.  Yes, I say that’s better than being thrown onto our waistlines, but still–why do we buy so much?

Because we can.  Because we can’t imagine having to go without.  Because we love the comfort of well-stocked pantries. And because–hitting closer to home–we love a good deal.  And it’s cheaper per unit to buy 100 packages of popcorn.  Cheap food is much easier to eat, and much easier to throw away.  And now we live in a country where food is cheap and plentiful.  Eat until your stomach hurts then throw the rest away!

But back to James. He says, “your wealth has rotted.”  Things rot when they sit around unused.  Could it be that the cheese in my fridge is just a tiny picture of what our culture is doing on an epidemic scale?  I am the first to raise a guilty hand.  I never say no to something, especially if it’s cheap, or free. Of course I want it. The more the better, right? And I love a deal. Today I bought 4 packets of salad dressing mix instead of one because it “saved” me a bunch of money, right?  But if that mentality rules my thinking, I will simply buy in more and more bulk (imagine Mega-Costco) then the next thing you know we’ll suffocate under our mounds of Kirkland Signature goods, never to surface again.  Meanwhile, 24,000 children die every single day, due to poverty.  What do we do?  I know it isn’t simple, and I know we’ve probably heard this message so much we’re probably deaf to it.

Let’s look back briefly at James.  The bottom line indictment is this: “You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”  Hoarding is the sin, and it is especially heinous because it is in the last days.  A the very time that we should be looking to heaven, anticipating Christ’s return, gearing up and spreading the gospel with all that we have, instead we sit around and buy bigger freezers, bigger garages, bigger closets, and now, it seems, bigger clothes.  Not pointing fingers here–I’ve got a garage freezer, a 3-car garage, and a huge walk-in closet. I’m asking myself these questions, first and foremost.

Perhaps let’s start with a simple prayer, “Lord, show me where I’m hoarding.”  We do want to be good stewards, and chances are we will use all that cheese and toilet paper and I’m glad to have it on hand.  But perhaps there are areas where we are unwittingly allowing our resources to rot, so to speak, because we pile them up around us to insulate us from the world of need and pain and hunger.

Let’s just ask God. I don’t know what it looks like for each of us, and it might be as simple as not grocery shopping until your fridge is actually empty. Maybe it’s stepping up and giving away a larger portion of your income. Maybe it’s just sharing more.  Maybe it’s taking a teeny tiny step of going without, just to remember that millions of people do so, by necessity, every single day.

Ok, rant over. Let’s pray.  Lord, where am I allowing your resources to rot? Where am I hoarding? Where does my lifestyle not reflect that these are indeed the last days?  Show us how to grow in this, God. We need you to show us how, and more importantly, give us the grace to obey.