Religion in Daily Life

 © By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

While shopping, a woman entered a store and saw Jesus behind the counter. “Do you work here?” she asked. “No, Jesus replied, “I own the store.” She asked, “What do you sell?” He replied, “Anything you want. Walk the aisle and make a list.” In the aisles she saw on the shelves “Peace on earth,” “No more violence,” “No more hunger,” and much more. She came back to Jesus with a long list. Jesus looked at the list and placed some small packets of seeds on the counter. The woman asked, “Don’t I get the finished products?” Jesus replied, “No, this is a catalog store-a place of hopes. I’ll give you the seeds, but you have to plant them, nourish them and help your hopes come true.”

Jesus of Nazareth thought of his work as planting seeds. He said, “The seed is God’s message to men” (Luke 8:11, LB). Instead of such positive seeds, look at the kinds of seeds some parents are planting in their children. Instead of seeds of hope, some are planting seeds of destructiveness and dehumanizing in young minds. Look at some of the “toys” on the market for children this Christmas. One toy is “Forward Command Post. “It’s essentially a bombed-out doll house, complete with smashed furniture, broken railings and bullet holes in the walls . . . . It is recommended for children 5 years old and up” (Bob Herbert, The New York Times, November 28, 2002). Bob Herbert reports that the biggest-selling video game over the last few years has been a PlayStation 2 game called “Grand Theft Auto III.” Listen to Herbert’s summary: “This is a game in which all boundaries of civilized behavior have vanished. You get to shoot whomever you want, including cops. You get to beat women to death with baseball bats. You get to have sex with prostitutes and then kill them (and get your money back).” Merchants expect this game to be one of the biggest sellers this Christmas.

Rockstar Games, the creator of the Grand Theft Auto series, has a new violent game called “State of Emergency.” Bob Herbert reports: “It’s got rioting in the streets, looting, individual acts of extreme sadism and, of course, endless gory murders.” Nearly three thousand years ago, sages in the Bible Book of Proverbs said: “Point your kids in the right direction-when they’re old they won’t be lost” (Proverbs 22:6, TM). Thinking of those games, mark these words of a sage: “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts” (Proverbs 4:23, TEV).