How can we be ethical consumers?

Matthew 6:19-24, An excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

On my way to office hours this week, I was listening to a news program and my stomach started to twist in a knot and I found my way to the bottle of chewable Pepto-Bismol pills. That sadly has become kind of normal for me these days. The turn in the conversation this time wasn't AI. That'll be next week's topic. But rather it was two stories that when put back-to-back just really kind of did me in a little bit, highlighting our current collective inability to fully account for and protect what really matters. The well-being of our kids, our clean skies, our seasons, our aging adults, our aging trees, really grandparents in every form, which is what tugged my heart. It was the story about MariCarmen in Spain. Why doesn't our economic system value her is what I said out loud. And if you haven't heard the story, she died on Wednesday at the age of 87.

María del Carmen Abascal had been in the hospital because she was exhausted after fighting her eviction in Madrid. She had done nothing wrong but remained in her house when the building was sold and she refused to leave. Her family had been there for a long time and she herself had been in that same home for 70 years when she was removed forcibly. when the building sold and the building became more valuable than her life and she was so tired she died in the hospital and now thousands have gone into the streets--20,000 I heard at the latest.

I saw a mom named Sarah who came out with her son holding a sign that read MariCarmen we'll fight for you. She said, "We're here because I think MariCarmen's death shows how institutions can kill a person by failing to care for them." Another woman shouted, "The state killed her. The companies killed her."

They are also asking in their own way that similar question, why doesn't our economic system value her too? Her stories, her history, her wisdom, her family. Why is that kind of economic policy violence seen as okay? How is that cost accounted for or not? Now, like many of you, I have stayed in Airbnbs and VRBOs all over the world. But now I see that turning housing into a commodity puts MariCarmen out on the street. I have never once seen an invoice that accounted for MariCarman at the end of my Airbnb stay.

People have been devalued and displaced all over the world and in here in Boulder County, too. What is the price of community? What is the value of an intergenerational fabric in this moment of chaos when so many rules, laws, and hopes have been tossed aside? When it seems that what matters everywhere is only money, profits over people, value creation for shareholders over everything else. It feels important for us to speak to the moral dimensions of this. Are you with me? 

Because it seems to me that we are getting the message at every turn that ethics don't matter, that rules don't matter, especially around the use of money, that making money at any price is of the highest value on its own. But what if people of faith are called to a certain kind of economic life? What if there is a just way to engage with our money in this economy? What if it is possible at least to try for ethical consumption? 

Some of our exploration is anchored in this piece that you heard from the Gospel of Matthew. What are you storing up for and with and for whom? What are you giving your heart to? One of the commentaries that I read on this passage points out that with this and the parallel story in Luke, the warning is against being trapped, stuck, held down by what money demands. I quote, "What is under discussion is the generosity, the humility, which is characteristic of freedom from entanglement, whether of wealth or of other human considerations. So Jesus is mourning what can happen when we become entangled with what money demands. Money needs what? More. More. Never enough. Then you need insurance on your money to keep your money. Because enough will never arrive. The hole will never be filled.

Jesus warns that in the end we humans can try but there is only one thing that will fill that gap. You simply cannot try to serve love and money. And yet in this country, in this time we are bombarded with all the messages that say love money and you win. Get money and you win. Die with the most and you win. Well, let me tell you, you can't take it with you. It seems some people don't really get that message.

Jesus says something else in the midst of all these messages. And I think we need to be a little more bold in our countercultural living around money. In this country, we are living with the full flowering of a financialized economy where companies are no longer rewarded for making and building. Rather, they are called successful if they eek out gains from leveraged buyouts. What is lifted up as pioneers of a new age are hedge funds, private equity firms, cryptocurrency platforms elevated as acceptable, built on the idea that simply anything that generates a profit is therefore to be seen of value. No. No. Yes. This is not the view from the lens of faith. And I believe part of our call right now is to speak the truth into these lies and to do our best to align our lives for a spiritual return. 

Where can we push harder for planet Earth's grandmas to be considered in our economic transactions? Like Mari Carman in Spain who stayed where she was for 70 years. Or like the tree I read about on the southern Arab zona border. Maybe you heard the story the grandmother tree who stood tall whom activists tried to protect for more than 70 days before she was cut down. Why doesn't our economic system value her the grandma tree too? What if one of our most essential task right now is to speak some morality into this constant drive for money for more and more and more when so many don't have enough.

We aren't just causing harm. We are missing the essential and profound parts of being alive. what Wendel Berry calls the things that don't and won't compute in this economic system. What if that is our assignment as people of faith right now? To put love first, to speak the truth that what matters is not the Dow Jones industrial average, but planting sequoas. What if that is part of how we will retain our humanness in all of these machines? Daring to love those who are not seen as valuable, whether it be older women or older trees. Let us put our faith, our hearts, our hopes in returns that have nothing to do with quarterly statements. Even Adam Smith in his seminal work, the wealth of nations said, "By directing industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, we are so far off of creating value." Now all industry is being directed in such a way that privatizes the gains and leaves the losses for all of us. What if we are needed to speak the truth now more boldly?

We can put our ears close to God's creation, to our hearts, to one another, to the bees moving on the lavender, to the family of squirrels. Did you see how big the family of squirrels is out in the entrance? They own that place. They're saying to us, "You are lucky to get to be on our site. They have no dollar value, those squirrels. But I love them so much and they mean so much to me." Same with our joy. Our joy has no value in this economic system. But you know that is so valuable. I believe that one of the primary ways that we will unravel some of this evil is by figuring out how to collectively vote with our dollars in more powerful ways maybe that we can't even yet see. 

What if it's a sin to try always for more? doing little to ensure that everyone can have enough. What if being a billionaire is a sin? 

Yes, I Yeah, I got some sound over there. Yeah, I love it. Because that word store that Jesus uses in Greek is a mass. He's saying do not hoard. Hoarding is a sin. Being a billionaire is a form of violence which we should not support. I am grateful to have all of you to keep diving deeper into this kind of disciplehip because it's too hard to do on my own in this culture that values war and more and more. This violent economic system killed MariCarmen, but her message is now louder. MariCarmen will fight for you. As Wendell Berry said, "Every day, let us do something that won't compute. We will love the Lord and love this world given to us, especially that which we are told has no value. This is in fact how we practice resurrection."

May it be so. Amen.