Adrienne was watching the show "Hoarders" last week while feeding our youngest. I had never seen the show before, but knew what it was and was intrigued with the people who live that way. The questions of "how" and "why" grabbed my attention enough to stop what I was doing to stop and watch.
It took 2-3 minutes for me to walk out of the room, full of an unexpected anxiety. There was a tension in me as I watched a man climbing over pizza boxes on the stairs to get to his second floor: I both like "stuff" and cannot handle "stuff." I felt over stuffed thinking about a life of accumulation and had to walk away. But, I still like my things.
In Luke chapter 12, Jesus speaks to the crowd with words that may seem too personal when he says "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Now, I don't know what makes other people hoard, but I know what makes me want more and more stuff; Jesus calls it covetousness and he tells us to be vigilant against covetousness.
Why? Because stuff is bad. No, because it isn't where abundant life is. Living a life to obtain and hold on to and to treasure possessions stuffs us full so that we aren't hungry for Jesus' abundant life.
There is a remedy to that longing. A spiritual practice (discipline) that frees us from our hunger after stuff and the security we find in having stuff: giving.
Are we free to be generous? Do we have so much of Jesus' abundant life that we abundantly give of ourselves like he does?
Or are we stuffed full of stuff that we are stuck?