Is hope an opiate or is stuff really the opiate? In the days following the November 4th election I had began to think that maybe politics was an opiate. It didn’t take long for the political minutia to begin surfacing weeks later as we discovered that even though the new President Elect symbolized the hope for change, there was still a process by which the change many hoped for would require a consensus and a majority vote among polarized politicos and that change would be a dream deferred. Not that I am Marxist, but could religion really be an opiate for people? My friend and law Professor Craig Jackson said, “the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard was “Karl Marx’s philosophy of people striving to share”. He said, “People do not strive to share, they strive to have their own stuff.” The reality is that people do want their own stuff and if people don’t have their own stuff, they will either become consumed with the notion of possessing the things they lack or become anesthetized by the hopelessness of wanting things without the means of acquiring.
During this Christmas season I have been repeatedly disturbed by the reports of America’s deadly pre-occupation with stuff in the midst of our country’s most severe financial predicament since the Great Depression of the 1920’s. If consumerism were a religion, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) would be one of its most sacred celebrations. A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of unruly shoppers at a suburban Wal-Mart in Nassau County, New York physically broke down the doors, knocking a 34-year-old worker to the ground where the crowd trampled him. He was later taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., an hour after the store opened. Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals. In other news, online spending rose to $677 million in the U.S. last weekend, almost twice the total spent last year on the final weekend before Christmas, as reported by ComScore Inc. This is what happens when hope is subrogated to stuff and the misplaced of desires of fulfillment get lost in the pursuit of acquisition.

In 1990 Dr. Jerimiah Wright preached a sermon entitled “The Audacity to Hope” that became the title of President-Elect Barack Obama’s book from Dr. Wright’s reflections on a painting called “Hope” which portrayed a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. Dr. Wright states, “What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music? As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction. Famine ravages millions of inhabitants in one hemisphere, while feasting and gluttony are enjoyed by inhabitants of another hemisphere.”

Often our illusions of power give way to the reality of our pain when we realize that hope will require more than the acquisition of another trinket, or gadget, or thing. Eugene Peterson brings further clarity in “The Message” saying with the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, the fateful dilemma of being constantly pulled by the influence of stuff is (finally) resolved and “those who enter into Jesus’ being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low lying black cloud. A new power is in operation.” Paul, the author of two-thirds of the Greek New Testament eloquently placed hope in perspective when he said “For we were saved with this hope in mind. Now hope that is seen is not really hope, for who hopes for what can be seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.” Karl Marx was wrong. Religion is not an opiate for people but religion does give us the framework by which we can appropriate the hope that people need. It is through religion that I now have the audacity to hope that one day soon we will see that power of love conquer the propensity to hate, I have the audacity to hope that one day soon the evil will have to take a back seat to good, I have the audacity to hope that the Prophet Micah was right when he said that “They (nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore,” and lastly I agree with Dr. Martin King who said, “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” We can live for weeks without food, days without water, and minutes without air, but we cannot live for one second without hope. Yes, I guess hope is an opiate and I need some more right now!! What do you think?

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