Recently, I was shopping in a local store, when I heard a child screaming at her mother.  As I pushed my shopping cart past this scene, I noticed that the child was pointing at an object on the shelf and demanding that her mother give it to her.  The mother refused, which led to the screaming fit.  I felt bad for the mother who appeared to be attempting to set some boundaries for her daughter.  My sympathy was tempered, when I noticed that the 7-year-old was holding a super-sized slurpee and an open pack of cookies – probably right off a shelf in the store.  This mother’s attempts to enforce a boundary were undermined by 1) the large quantity of sugar the child had consumed, and 2) the inconsistency of telling her “no”, while letting her open a pack of unpurchased cookies.  I hope this was simply an isolated incident or a bad day for this family.  Unfortunately, it is not an isolated incident in our culture. 

We live in a “Me, First” culture.  We are all familiar with the excesses of our society.  One example from the news this week – our local NFL football franchise, the Detroit Lions is negotiating a contract with a first-round draft pick for many millions of dollars – a franchise that has a perennial losing record.  The sum total of all the salaries on this losing team runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.  At the same time, the school districts in the state (for a variety of reasons) are closing hundreds of buildings and failing to educate our young, thousands of local and county employees are being laid off, and thousands of children are living in hunger every day.  The contrast between the “haves” and “have-nots” is growing ever wider, and our culture tends to encourage these types of excesses. 

In the lessons that we cover this week, the writer of Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2 talks about the futility of work and labor – “Vanity, O vanity, all is vanity.” He is talking about the fact that we work our whole lives, and at the end of our lives, we leave it all behind.  Jesus also takes a dim view on the ultimate value of our possessions.  He tells a parable about a rich landowner who takes great pride in building bigger and bigger barns to hold all of his stuff.  The landowner is quite smug about his possessions and the life of luxury that they grant him.  However, at the end of the parable, God has a sharp word of condemnation for the landowner, saying that his life will be taken from him at that very moment.  Jesus wanted his followers to understand that a person’s happiness cannot be based on stuff, accumulation, wealth, security, or worldly concerns.  In the end, it will all return to dust, and we will have nothing.  The “Me, First” culture of north America often leads to disappointment and sadness, no matter how much stuff we accumulate.  In fact, some of the richest people often have some of the lowest levels of happiness.  Did you know, the majority of all professional football players are in bankruptcy within two years of retiring from football – Vanity, O vanity, all is vanity?

The old Bible song points us to the antidote….

Seek ye first the kingdom and his righteousness.

And all these things shall be added unto you.

Alelu, Alleluia.

We can best overcome the “Me, First” attitude, when we make sacrifices for God and God’s children.  We ome closest to God’s ideal for us, when we take time out of our schedules to volunteer to help those in need.

Next week, our church will be working on a Habitat for Humanity project in Burton.  Paid for by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, this Thrivent Build will ensure that a struggling family is able to buy a decent affordable house.  This is a great project to help us battle the “me, first” attitude on the world around us, by first encouraging us to put someone else first in our own lives.  For more info about the Habitat Humanity project and Thrivent Builds, follow this link: http://www.geneseehabitat.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=35&Itemid=91.  

Together, as individuals and as a church, we can battle the “Me, First” Mentality and replace it with a God-first mentality, which will lead us all to real life.