What should we do today...

"...they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built..." Lk 17:28

One Sunday I was feeling a little blue and bored. I was looking through the ads in the Sunday paper and noticed that there were several things that we regularly use on sale for a pretty good price. I almost never go shopping on Sunday because that doesn't seem to fit the notion of keeping holy the Lord's day, and I don't want to contribute to other people having to work on Sunday (this is a profit-driven world and if revenues don't justify the expense, less places will be open and more people will be able to consider other things to do instead of working and shopping).

But like I said, I was blue and bored, so what the heck, maybe I'll just wander over to the mall and pick up a few things on sale.

I was a little surprised that the parking lot was so jammed on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, well. Maybe this is normal for a Sunday afternoon. Despite the huge number of cars outside, the store didn't seem that crowded. So I got my shopping cart and went to find those bargains.

It was amazing. Everywhere that one of those bargain items from the sales flyer was supposed to be was instead a gaping hole in the merchandise shelves. It was as if a huge swarm of blue-haired shopping locusts had descended on the store and consumed everything that was marked down below normal retail price. I was just killing time, so after about the third or fourth identical experience I walked back to the parking lot, throwing my list in the trash on the way out.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of the store and surveyed the tightly-packed field of asphalt and cars. This must be normal protocol for a Sunday: get the sale papers, run to the stores, save a few bucks. The Sunday paper is crammed with advertising supplements. I'm sure it's good marketing: most people aren't at work on Sunday -- entice them to go out and spend their money.

But it's not good theology. Instead of taking time to spend with God and family, Sunday is spent (at bargain rates) fighting traffic and crowds in the pursuit of a pretty good price on ordinary stuff. It seems that Satan doesn't really have to convince us to be sinful, he just has to keep us busy enough doing things of no consequence so that we won't ever have the time to ask what we really should be doing.