Intrinsic

"If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured the world will not raise your price" (Annonymus).

Occasionally, I come across a book that expresses what I haven't been able to put into words. "The Divine Commodity" by Skye Jethani is one of those books. In it, Jethani describes America's Consumer Culture and its effect on the church. As I read it, I soaked it in, hearing the echo of my own heart. It's not one of those books that have changed my mind; my mind had already been changed as I've wrestled with the effects of culture on the American church. I felt refreshed to read this author sound a very well written "amen" to my soul.

Commodity: an article of trade or commerce; a product; something of use, advantage, or value.

Jethani wrote, "In a commodity culture, we have been conditioned to believe nothing carries intrinsic value. Instead, value is found only in a thing's usefulness to us, and tragically, this belief has been applied to people as well" (p.87). Instrinsic is defined as "belonging to a thing by its very nature". Intrinsic value simple means that something (or someone) has value just by its very nature without having value assigned to it.

And there's the conflict.

In a consumer culture, it seems as though everything can be given an assigned value. Even people. Perhaps especially people, and that's what makes it so tragic. We assign value to objects based on its usefulness to us and our demand for it. The lessons of history teach us that humanity has been commodified (exploited) for as long as people and nations have seen the profitability in it. Men, women, and children have been given an assigned value and sold on our street corners (slave auctions) and back alleys (prostitution and child exploitation). Entire races of people have been annihilated because those in power convinced the masses of their lack of intrinsic value.

We need not look far to see the commodification of people right in front of our own eyes, in our own neighborhoods, in our own workplaces. Our consuming culture assigns value to people everyday based on what is in demand and what is more useful to us. Of course, these values change like the wind. We assign worth to people based on their bodies, based on their politics, based on their beliefs, based on their race, based on their income, or based on their convenience and usefulness to us.

It's everywhere.

What's worse is when we accept the assigned value that our culture places on us and forget who we really are. We are not cheap! We are not what our culture says we are but are instead who the Creator says we are. As believers, we must see ourselves as He sees us...and we must, we must see humanity as God sees us all.

Our relationships also reflect our consumer culture. Rather than building our relationships based on mutual trust, love, and commitment, we tend to see people for what they can offer us. Our people-as-commodity mindset enables us to trade, exchange, and dispose of with relative ease. We date those who fulfill our needs and base friendships on what we can get from others.

We offer ourselves to the highest bidder -- whoever pays what we think we are worth. For some, that price is little more than whoever gives us a little attention, nice words, or even the false sense of meaning that comes with an orgasm. Whatever our "price", many of us seem to be pursuing what keeps us empty. As products of our culture, we exchange ourselves as a commodity for the smallest thing our low assigned value will accept.

I apologize for the frankness of my writing, but I see this in the lives of my students everyday. I see their pain as they move from broken relationship to broken relationship and accept whatever crumbs seem to fall from the table. It causes me to want to scream, "For the love of God! Stop selling yourself out to the lies! You are worth so much more! You are worth more than what the culture that consumes you says you are worth!"

People who follow Christ must be different in both how they see others and in how they see themselves. We are certainly not worth more than others. That arrogant belief only damages people and destroys lives. We are, however, definitely worth more than the value our culture assigns to us.

Exceedingly more.

Infinitely more.

And that goes for everybody.