Fasting from Materialism

Last year, I committed to fasting from clothes shopping for the entire year. I had looked at my full closet and dresser and thought, “I don’t need more clothes. Why don’t I simply wear what I have this year and refuse to buy anything new?”

It was a fast with a couple of motivations:

  1. We were on a tighter budget than usual, thanks to me finishing up year three of seminary education.

  2. I was struck by the sheer materialism of repeated clothes shopping excursions. I’m not a big shopper; I don’t need to wear the latest fashions, but I do tend to go on one or two ‘bigger’ excursions each year in order to buy a few new shirts, sweaters, and pants—more to satisfy my boredom with my closet than anything else.

    The thing is, I now know why my Mom never bought new clothes when I was a kid, and it’s not just because my parents were on a tight budget and had to persistently buy clothes for four growing children. I realized that, as an adult, I simply don’t wear out or grow out of clothes as quickly as when I was a kid, and buying hundreds of dollars worth of new clothes each year was superfluous.

    Short answer: I simply didn’t need new clothes. Funny how we (especially women) tend to say that every so often— “I need new clothes!” Do we really? Or are we just bored?

In short, the reasons for my year-long fast from buying any new clothes were financial and, in some sense, moral. I was struck by the sheer privilege of buying new clothes each year.

Perhaps this has to do with a greater awareness of the effects of poverty in my own nation and in majority-world nations where most people wear their clothing until it literally falls apart because that’s all they have.

Or maybe it’s realizing that much of our North American clothing has been created and purchased by less-than-ethical means in sweat shops and child labour overseas. Why? For American privilege. For American boredom. It’s disgusting.

My fast from clothing only scratched the surface… I started thinking about other ways in which we try to alleviate our boredom by means of financial privilege.

What about our technology—the ever-increasing need to have the latest, greatest smart phone with the best high-pixel camera? Or the largest HDR 4K smart-TV? A couple of years ago, I brought no fewer than five old smart phones that we no longer used to the recycling centre. Yeesh.

What about our need for the latest greatest truck, RV, or vacation home, despite the massive debt it incurs? (Now, I realize this is speaking to a very specific North American population, but it’s a real thing.)

How about needing to shower everyone around us with expensive gifts every Christmas, Valentine’s Day, anniversary, and birthday? (Caveat: I know many people who love giving gifts and I don’t mean to detract from this way of showing love to your people. However, my question regards the things that we buy for others. Are we always aiming to buy bigger, ‘better’ things for the sake of upholding our cultural gift-giving traditions? What if we simplified our gift-giving?)

For me, it’s books. Do I need more books? (“Yes, of course, I do!” says the little voice inside of me…). Okay, that hurts.

According to the great Google, materialism is “a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.”

Now, this definition can quickly devolve into an ascetic dualism that insists that all material things are evil and bad. For example, believing that all walls must be painted only white and few photos are to be hung, because to do otherwise is to be ‘materialistic.’ This was a common belief in the Mennonite community of my childhood, even as the very same families bought brand new RVs, boats, and ATVs every couple of years. The hypocrisy was laughable.

In no way does the decision to fast from materialism mean that all material things are evil.

Instead, the decision to fast from materialism is to become more intentional about our spending habits. As James K.A. Smith says, “You are what you love,” meaning that the things that we spend our time and money on are the things that form or deform us. We are always being formed by something. Human beings are incredibly malleable, particularly in our habits and ways of being. Our brains are neuroplastic; they are constantly changing and forming new connections as we move through our world.

The more we expose ourselves to certain habits, the more we become that habit. The habit becomes an intrinsic part of us as we repeat it over and over again. We feel that we need more and more stuff—more clothes, more tech, more books (ouch), more cars, a bigger house, etc. Truly, it’s an addiction. It is a dependence on certain habits to receive that dopamine high that gets us through the day, week, month, or year.

Fasting is a reset. It stops habits from spiralling out of control—not simply for the sake of stopping the habit, but for reminding ourselves that we are more than our habit.

Fasting reminds us that we are not captive to our desires.

Instead, our desires are brought to the foot of the cross and nailed there with Jesus, who suffers for the brokenness of our desires.

It disgusts me to talk about materialism. It really is such a stark reminder of North American privilege. Materialism is a problem simply because we have more than we know what to do with. And the most repugnant thing about it is that many majority world countries are scrambling to ‘catch up’ with the North American dream (which, by the way, is crumbling beneath our feet).

Why are they trying to be like us? Our materialism gives off the impression of power, but it is a shallow power. It is a facade.

I wish I could be more like them—satisfied with little, working for daily pay and happy to spend time with a community of friends and family, and not at all concerned about establishing a five-year plan for being debt-free.

I realize that my perspective is painfully North American and I do not mean that the people of the majority world have an easy life. I don’t mean to make it a dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ I only mean that life is simpler with less, and I wish that North America would be slapped awake from the repulsiveness of the get-more, have-more materialistic force driving our economics, politics, and even religion.

There’s a reason why the minimalist movement has been so popular. Many folks are realizing the utter waste of materialism and are desiring to live more simply.

Make no mistake, God created material things for us to enjoy. He created a beautiful world with beautiful things in it. Material things ought to bring us closer to worship, closer to the presence of God in our world. In that sense, material things are very spiritual; they ought not to be divided from our spirituality at all.

However, we’ve distorted that. We’ve made material things into objects of cruelty, slavery, pride, status-elevation, and class distinction. We’ve separated the spiritual from the material and said of the material, “This is good.” We deny the spiritual formation inherent in our material decisions.

We’re left with a choice, then.

How will we confront our materialism? What would it look like if we were truly satisfied with the good things that God gives us? What good things has he given you today and how do they lead you to worship him? What habits are deforming you from Christ’s image more than forming you into it?

Jesus, you said that when we follow you, we follow you to the death. We deny ourselves. We take up your cross. We journey with you, travelling with little and dependent on you for provision. We nail our deforming habits to that cross—all of our obsession with more and all the discontentment with what we already have. We lay it at your feet. May we see your good gifts in our world today and worship you. Amen.

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Fasting from Self-Sufficiency

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The History and Purpose of Lent and Ash Wednesday