An Ironic Sandwich

The days immediately after Thanksgiving have traditionally marked the start of the Christmas shopping season since at least the 1930s, but the name “Black Friday” originated in Philadelphia in the early 1960s to describe the intense traffic and shopper volume of that day and weekend, eventually spreading into nationwide usage. The phrase “Cyber Monday” was created by a marketing team in 2005 to identify the Monday immediately after “Black” weekend when shoppers began their online season shopping.

The crux of these two man-made shopping triggers is the notion that one has a unique opportunity to score great savings and find fantastic cost-effective deals. Both of these days have come to symbolize a great mob hysteria transfixed on the idea that one is beating the system, finding more for less, and being especially shrewd and clever.

In truth, what they increasingly symbolize is the rabid and obnoxious spread of greed and materialism amid the epidemic of selfishness and self-obsession that is so characteristic of this society.

There is a bizarre irony and contradiction in the idea that people trample each other the day after supposedly being thankful for everything they have, all in the name of grabbing the best deal. The focus is increasingly on the personal satisfaction and fulfillment of getting something more cheaply that one can then gift to another as an apparently more valuable and expensive gift.

The emphasis is less on the value of giving and more on the value of giving more for less. If Black Friday represents the trench warfare of this self-absorbed shopping gratification, then Cyber Monday is the air warfare, as shoppers use technology to scour cyberspace for the best deals.

Black Friday is the bell that sets the Pavlov dog shoppers salivating for bargains, and Cyber Monday has become the opportunity for tech types to lessen the effort while maximizing the credit (both plastic and interpersonal kinds) for giving great gifts.

What does all of this have to do with being Catholic and following Christ? The answer is absolutely nothing. In fact, Black Friday and Cyber Monday represent the exact opposite of what Christmas, and Christ, are all about.

We have been told, over and over, that Christ and Christmas embody love, sacrifice, service, selfless giving, and humble obedience to God’s Will, which have nothing to do with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You would think that Christmas was the day the first cash register was found lying in a manger beneath a dollar sign by the way greed is glorified by the secular media.

Even the pretense that Christmas means anything to do with Christ to most people in this society has been stripped away by the honest and brazenly obnoxious way that the term has been replaced by “Holidays”.

Christ is not about finding the best deal with the least effort. Rather, He is very much about finding the most important deal with the most merciful and loving invitation and embrace. Christ has nothing to do with discounts and buy one, get one free bargains. Rather, He is very much about scoring eternal salvation despite owning a boatload of sins He is loving and merciful enough to forgive for those humble and sincere enough to ask for that forgiveness.

Eternal salvation is not about getting more for less so as to appear more generous in material terms. Rather, it is very much about giving more from the heart, so as to spread the sort of love, kindness, service, and sacrifice that only Christ Himself could teach us to spread.

The ironic sandwich mentioned in the above title has Black Friday and Saturday at one end and Cyber Monday at the other, with Sunday in between. Three feast days of human greed, materialism, and superficiality surrounding a day which should be set aside to celebrate the most loving sacrifice from a most merciful and loving God. Three days about making bread and one day about the Bread of Life. One day about spreading Christ’s love surrounded by three days about spreading what this society pretends is important.

If that is not the most ironic sandwich ever made, then I do not know what is. If churches were as crowded every Sunday as department and online stores are on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we would really see something special.