Speedy Checkout

I was standing in a seemingly endless "Speedy Checkout" line.  Looking around - the majority of cash registers are not open.  This situation screams, "We want your money, but we don't care about your time."  Experiences like this frustrate me, but, as a minister, cause me to ponder.

If a day is as 1000 years to God (e.g. Psalms 90:4 & 2 Peter 3:8)...then how long in "God-years" have I been standing in this "speedy" line?  Simple proportion (I think - although I can no longer do this math in my head - so I used my calculator app.) - let's see...for every hour that passes by in Heaven...let a=24 hrs & b=1000 yrs.   b/a = 41.66 yrs. (41 years, 7 months, 27 days, 14 hours, 24 minutes...that's it  - I'm done...this could confuse God.  My wife is better at math I'll ask her.

I often hear that "the world is going to hell in a hand basket."  It's closer to the truth to say that "the world is going to hell in a shopping cart." Your soul -- not to mention your budget -- is in mortal danger as you approach the grocery store checkout lane. 

You say, "How?" I have carefully filled my cart with the needed items outlined on my list. I patiently wait in line, always seeming to pick the one that's slowest - you guessed it the "Speedy Checkout"(10 items or less). Yet somehow, by the time the checker begins tallying up the items in my cart, it has suddenly filled up with a pack of gum, a box of Tic-Tacs, a four-pack of AA batteries, three candy bars and a magazine for enquiring minds. (In reality - I ran into the store this week to pick up a few items - less than 10.  I am standing in line with windshield wiper blades, grape juice, paper towels, and a bag of M&M's -Easter Bunny Mix. Although I did not really purchase the magazine for inquiring minds I did look at it and discovered that "Hitler, JFK, John Lennon, & Elvis" were ruling the world from Argentina- go figure!)  Bet you've never purchased that combination of products in one shopping trip). 

The couple standing in the line next to me had their 5-year-old along, they had accumulated a new Pez dispenser, a mylar (you know? One of those foil ones that looks like tin that is really a polyester film?) balloon with Mini-Mouse & Happy Birthday in Spanish on it - and a plastic "cellular" telephone filled with tiny bubble-gum pieces. (Stores purposefully pack this kind of junky, funky, consumer gunk into the narrow gauntlet we must run to get to the checkout counter.) Things we would never intentionally have gone in search of are now languish under our fingertips -- inviting, no insisting, that we (or our teenager, grandchild or spouse) grab them.


Although impulsively buying a pack of gum or a candy bar hardly seems earth-shattering or soul-threatening, the truth is that the increasingly voracious appetites of this consumer culture are being methodically nurtured and stimulated by a crass and crushing consumerism. The ramifications of such little things as a checkout gauntlet are ominous. (Especially the "Speedy" kind.)

For an increasing number of people, self-identity and life-purpose are summed up by the mantra "I shop, therefore I am." Raging consumerism has left Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" far behind. Consumer culture has never even heard of, much less considered, God's revelation to Moses, "I am who I am; therefore, you are."

There are many problems facing our world today: poverty, pollution, famines, plagues, terrorism, economic crashes, energy shortages- not to mention as I am often reminded by the media of simultaneous global cooling and warming (how does that work?) But the most vicious and voracious of all these problems is overconsumption.  Of whom I am, as the Apostle Paul would say, "The Chief of Sinners."


Isn't it amazing how much time I had to think while standing in the "Speedy" Checkout aisle?  If you think that is amazing,then you may want to know what goes through the minds of the people who are listening to my sermon.  Not sure I like the idea of a 'speedy' church checkout.... but then no short winded preacher has ever been fired that I know of.... I wonder how many years I preach on "God-time?"   Not sure I want to ask.