I have a cold today and I do not feel good. So it has me reflecting on illness. Sickness is part of the fallen world. Yet the real disease I often see as a pastor and as a dad of a teenager is Affluenza. I check Wikipedia and here is how they define the word. Affluenza is a social condition arising from the desire to be more wealthy, successful or to "Keep up with the Joneses." Affluenza is symptomatic of a culture that prides financial success as one of the highest pursuits to be achieved. People who are said to be affected by Affluenza typically find that the very economic success they have been so vigorously chasing, ends up leaving them feeling unfulfilled, and wishing for yet more wealth – you might say they become addicted to their economic pursuits.
To tell the truth, I was afflicted with this disease. It bit me as a young man, and through out college and my younger working life I was consumed by it. It works much like a cold. It made me feel more and more absent. It left me with no feeling of belonging, and I was often miserable. I often associate such a disease with living in an upwardly mobile society. Both Kingwood and The Woodlands suffer from this disease. I have now lived in both communities and could lay the reason for the disease at our consumer minded society, yet I believe there is another cause.
The real reason for Affuenza is the “me syndrome”. We somehow buy into the idea that the world is all about me. I have come to find that the more I think the world is about me, the more miserable I become. The interesting thing about the word “sin” is that it contains only one vowel. That vowel is I. I…I...I…I…I. Sin!
Sin at first appears appealing, but then we come to find that it leads to isolation, pain, and hollowness. Jesus says something about this subject. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? ” (Luke 9:24-25). Since Jesus talked about this in Biblical days, I get the feeling that it is more than just a modern problem.
I could easily make this to be a modern problem only suffered by teenagers of wealthy parents, but that is not the truth. In Matthew 23:25 Jesus is ruthless to the religious leaders of his day. He tells them they are about looking good, while being “filled with greed and self-indulgence.” And there it is: self-indulgence, the belief that it is all about me. As a result they are all nice looking on the outside but dead on the inside. WOW.
What is the cure to Affluenza? It is accepting Jesus Christ’s forgiveness, and in doing that learn that we are valuable. We are valuable not because of what we do, or what we have, but because God loves us. The lesson that then follows is that God loves everyone. Everyone is valuable in God’s eyes, and as such we should be concerned about justice, mercy and faithfulness.
Affluenza affects our minds, just like my cold makes it hard for me to think, Affuenza make me overly concerned with me. Affluenza clouds our thinking. We somehow come to the conclusion that life is all about me. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Rev. Patrick Evans
http://pastorpatscorner.blogspot.com
Here is a link to a video about Affluenza.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFZz6ICzpjI
