Those of you who have seen me know that I am not a small person. I am rather tall and I carry a bit of extra weight, so there is nothing about me you would consider tiny. What you see, however is what you get. There is no more to me than my physical presence.
I have a great friend who, if stretched, might be all of 5 feet, or 1.52 meters tall. She is also rather slim, so the best word to describe her would be tiny, in stark contrast to ‘large,’ the word best used to describe me. Once again, as far as my friend is concerned what you see is what you get, and what you get is a little dynamo.
Why this commentary on the respective heights of myself and a friend? Why point out the obvious and relate that we are who and what we are and nothing more? Well, according to a currently running advertising, without our stuff we would no longer be ourselves.
Think about that for a moment. If my friend didn’t have her car, she would have no identity. If she didn’t have her computer, we wouldn’t know her. If I didn’t have my woodworking tools, I’d have no idea who I was. Heavens to Betsy, if I didn’t have a Bible I would be absolutely not myself. Well, OK, my Bible is important, let’s keep that straight but even if I gave every Bible in my home and office away to someone more needful I would still be me. My stuff, my friend’s stuff, I would even suggest your stuff doesn’t define us. We are who we are within the confines of our mind and body and that’s it.
A least I hope that’s it. I can walk anywhere I like without having to have anything with me and still know who I am. I’ve been in this body all my life, God made me complete in this physical form when I was born as He did my friend and you and at no point has our Creator ever said: without extra stuff beyond your physical presence you are not you.
I don’t know how we got to this point of self-understanding. I don’t know how we have come to believe, as a society, that there is more to us than, well, us. Have we lost track of the beauty and glory of our physical essence? Are we so displeased with our own character that we need material objects to make us better? Are we so empty on the inside that we can only get sense of purpose by hanging on to stuff?
Jesus spent a lot of time reminding folks that what he cared about was people and not their stuff. He cared about how people used their stuff only because he knew that many people confused their possessions with themselves. For Jesus, the truly whole person is the one that loves others without restraint, cares for others without hesitation and shares whatever they have, including themselves with joy. Jesus knows that a person is whole and complete without any external possessions. If we’re good enough for Jesus, the son of God our creator, without extra stuff, isn’t that good enough for us?
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