Jesus said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15). We live in a culture that tells us the opposite many times a day. Every advert promises that the next purchase will finally make us happy, and every upgrade quietly suggests that what we already have is not enough.
These seven stories about consumerism, retold in our own words, come at the problem from different directions: a goodbye at an airport, a protest flag, a parable about a clock collector, a famous Beatle, a family with no money at Christmas, a billionaire with doubts about markets, and a speech about the earth that has moved readers for decades. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons, small groups or personal reflection.
Stories in this post:
- "I Wish You Enough": A Goodbye at the Airport
- The Corporate Flag: Who Really Rules Us?
- The Clock Thief: A Parable About Contentment
- "Is That It?": George Harrison and the Limits of Fame
- The Gift of "Us": A Christmas Without Presents
- George Soros: A Market Economy, Not a Market Society
- Chief Seattle's Letter: The Earth Does Not Belong to Us
"I Wish You Enough": A Goodbye at the Airport
The speaker and writer Bob Perks tells of a moment he witnessed while sitting in an airport. Near the security gate, a father and his grown daughter were saying their last goodbyes. Her flight had been called. They held each other, and he said to her, "I love you. I wish you enough."
She answered, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy."
They kissed, and she walked away through the gate. The father turned and walked over to the window where Perks was sitting. It was obvious that he wanted to cry and needed to. Perks tried not to intrude, but the old man spoke first. "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?"
Perks said that he had. The question brought back his own memories of sitting with his father near the end of his father's life, taking the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to him and to thank him for everything he had done. So he understood something of what this stranger was feeling.
"Forgive me for asking," Perks said, "but why is this a forever goodbye?"
"I am old, and she lives much too far away," the man replied. "I have challenges ahead, and the reality is that her next trip back will be for my funeral."
Perks asked him about the words he had overheard. "When you were saying goodbye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?"
The man began to smile. It was a wish, he explained, that had been handed down through the generations of his family. His parents used to say it to everyone. He paused, looking up as though remembering every detail, and his smile grew. When they said "I wish you enough," he said, they were wishing the other person a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.
Then he turned to Perks and recited the blessing as if from memory. In our own words, it went something like this: enough sunshine to keep your outlook bright, and enough rain to make you grateful for the sun. Enough happiness to keep your spirit alive, and enough pain that life's small joys seem bigger. Enough gain to satisfy your wanting, and enough loss to make you value everything you have. And enough hellos to carry you through the final goodbye.
With that, the old man began to sob, and he walked away.
Perks closes the story the way the father closed his goodbye: by wishing his readers enough.
Takeaway: Consumer culture never wishes us "enough." It always wishes us more. This father, facing the end of his life, knew that a life is full when it has enough of the right things: love, gratitude, joy and people to say goodbye to. Paul wrote that he had learned "the secret of being content in any and every situation" (Philippians 4:12). Who could you wish "enough" to today?
Source: Bob Perks, "I Wish You Enough" (retold in our own words; the blessing is paraphrased).
The Corporate Flag: Who Really Rules Us?
Every year on the Fourth of July, Independence Day, homes and streets across the United States fill with the familiar Stars and Stripes. But around Independence Day in 2001, some Americans flew a very different flag.
At first glance it looked like the real thing: red and white stripes, and a blue box in the top left-hand corner. But where the fifty white stars should have been, there were corporate logos, the brand marks of household-name companies such as Nike and McDonald's.
This was not a new marketing strategy. It was a protest. The "corporate flag" was promoted by the Canadian activist magazine Adbusters, and, as the columnist Jim Hightower described at the time, it turned up in more than 200 places across the country: outside chain stores, on highway overpasses, in Fourth of July parades, and on a large billboard near Times Square in New York.
The message behind it was simple and provocative. The protesters claimed that America had quietly lost its independence, not to a foreign king this time, but to huge global corporations. The direction of the nation, and of the world, was being set, they argued, not in the interests of ordinary people but in the interests of profit. The flag asked a pointed question on the very day Americans celebrate their freedom: are we really independent, or have we simply swapped one ruler for another?
Takeaway: You do not have to agree with every point the protesters made to feel the force of their question. Consumerism does not just sell us products; it competes for our loyalty and shapes what we live for. Jesus was blunt: "You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24). If someone designed a flag for your life, whose logos would be on it?
Source: Background from Jim Hightower's column on the corporate flag protests, reprinted in the Metro Times, and reports on Adbusters' campaign.
The Clock Thief: A Parable About Contentment
This is a modern parable by Scott Higgins, not a true story.
Once upon a time there was a round little man with dark, brooding eyes who was obsessed with collecting clocks.
The world, as you may know, is full of an almost endless variety of clocks. There are grandfather clocks and grandmother clocks, cuckoo clocks and alarm clocks, digital clocks and analogue clocks, big clocks, little clocks and every size in between. And our round little collector with the brooding eyes wanted as many of them as he could possibly get. By day he thought about clocks. By night he dreamed about clocks. He visited antique dealers to buy old clocks, combed the shelves of department stores for the newest clocks, and hunted through garage sales for clocks nobody else wanted.
Before long he had so many clocks that he had to build a warehouse to hold them. And every time he found a new one, the ritual was the same. He would hold the clock, run his fingers over its shape, and listen for its tick. Then he would drive it to the warehouse. He would undo the extra heavy-duty padlock on the barbed wire fence, drive up to the front door, look all around to be sure nobody was watching, and only when he was certain that no one could catch a glimpse of his magnificent collection would he open the security locks, hurry inside, shut the door behind him, and carefully set his newest treasure in its allotted place.
Yet every visit to the warehouse left him haunted. Each time he opened and closed those doors, it was as if someone was murmuring in his ear. "Hans of Sweden has more clocks than you... Jillian of London has rarer clocks than you... If only you had one more clock, then you would be happy." Sometimes the murmuring turned sinister: "Is your warehouse really secure enough? People might steal your clocks..." Sometimes it turned indignant: "Why should people on low incomes get a clock concession? Why don't you get one too?"
Whenever the murmuring began, the collector felt sure he could see someone out of the corner of his eye. But every time he turned to look, there was nobody there.
Then one day he arrived at the warehouse with his latest prize and was pleasantly surprised to find that the murmuring had stopped. His good mood lasted until he opened the warehouse door. Standing right in front of him was a stranger: a tall, wiry fellow with mischievous eyes. In his hands he held the most exquisite antique cuckoo clock. It was not one the collector had ever seen before.
"Who are you?" demanded the collector.
"Why, I'm a thief," said the tall, wiry fellow. He carried the beautiful antique clock to a shelf, set it gently down and gave it a quick dusting. "Oh, don't worry, it isn't stolen. It's mine, and it's my gift to you."
As the stranger spoke, his voice sounded strangely familiar. Yes, that was it. This was the voice of the murmurer, the voice that muttered in the collector's ear every time he opened his warehouse.
"A thief! A thief!" cried the collector. "But a thief would be taking clocks out of my collection, not adding to it! What sort of thief are you?"
"Oh, I haven't come to steal your clocks," replied the stranger. "You know my voice, don't you? You've heard me many times before." He leaned in close and murmured, "Hans has more clocks, Jillian has rarer clocks, if only you had one more clock. Is your warehouse secure? Why do others get a clock concession?" Then he straightened up and smiled. "I've been here every single time you've visited this warehouse. I haven't come to steal your clocks, my friend. I've come to steal your contentment."
Takeaway: The real thief in a consumer culture is rarely the one who takes our things. It is the voice that keeps comparing, worrying and murmuring "one more." The writer of Hebrews says, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'" (Hebrews 13:5). Who or what is the contentment thief in your life right now?
Source: Scott Higgins, "The Clock Thief: A Parable About Contentment."
"Is That It?": George Harrison and the Limits of Fame
George Harrison was one of the four Beatles, members of one of the greatest and most influential pop bands of all time. Harrison knew fame on a scale few people will ever experience. He knew the adulation of screaming crowds, the satisfaction of mastering his craft as a guitarist and songwriter, and the knowledge that his work had helped shape the course of modern music. He had wealth, acclaim and the freedom to go almost anywhere and do almost anything.
That is what makes his reflection in The Beatles Anthology so striking. Looking back, he said that once you have had all the experiences, met all the famous people, made some money, toured the world and received all the acclaim, you are still left thinking, "Is that it?" Some people, he admitted, might be satisfied with that. He was not, and he said he still was not.
His words were widely quoted again when he died of cancer at the end of November 2001. For much of his adult life, Harrison had searched for meaning beyond fame and fortune, especially through spirituality. His question remains one of the most honest things a celebrity has ever said about success.
Takeaway: Consumer culture promises that the next experience, the next achievement or the next purchase will finally be enough. George Harrison had all of it and still asked, "Is that it?" The writer of Ecclesiastes asked the same question thousands of years earlier: "Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income" (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Jesus offers what success cannot: "life to the full" (John 10:10).
Source: George Harrison, quoted in The Beatles Anthology, as reported by the Ananova news service, 30 November 2001.
The Gift of "Us": A Christmas Without Presents
This story comes from a collection of sermon illustrations; we have not been able to verify the family's details independently.
Marjorie Tallcott was married with one young child during the Great Depression. Like so many families at the time, they managed to scrape their way through. But as Christmas approached one year, Marjorie and her husband faced a hard truth: there was no money for presents.
A week before Christmas they sat down with their six-year-old son, Pete, and gently explained that there would be no store-bought presents that year. Then Pete's father had an idea. "But I'll tell you what we can do," he said. "We can make pictures of the presents we'd like to give each other."
It was a busy week. Marjorie and her husband threw themselves into drawing and colouring. On Christmas morning the family got up to find their scrawny little tree transformed, its branches decorated with picture presents. Those drawings were full of luxury beyond imagining: a black limousine and a red speedboat for Dad, a diamond bracelet and a fur coat for Mum, a camping tent and a swimming pool for Pete.
Then Pete brought out his present. It was a crayon drawing of a man, a woman and a child with their arms around each other, laughing. Underneath it he had written just one word: "US."
Years later, Marjorie wrote that it was the richest and most satisfying Christmas the family ever had.
It took a Christmas with no presents to remind the family that the greatest gift we can give is ourselves: our presence, our time, our love. That is also the great gift Christ offers, not only at Christmas but all year round. He gives us himself. If he were to draw a picture of his gift, perhaps it would look a lot like Pete's: people with their arms around each other, laughing, with Christ at the centre.
Takeaway: Consumerism measures generosity by price tags. A six-year-old saw through it in one word. The best things we can give, and receive, cannot be bought. God's greatest gift was not a thing but a person: "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15). Who needs the gift of "us" from you this season?
Source: Reported in Illustrations Unlimited.
George Soros: A Market Economy, Not a Market Society
Figures below reflect what was reported around 2000, when this illustration was first written.
George Soros is one of the most successful investors in history. When he stepped back from running his investment business in 2000, at the age of 70, he was already a multi-billionaire. His Quantum Fund was famous for its returns: according to figures widely reported at the time, $1,000 invested with him when he started out in 1969 would have grown to around $4 million by 2000.
Yet life was not always easy for Soros. He was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1930. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary during the Second World War, his father obtained false identity papers so that George could pass as the godson of a non-Jewish official. Like many Jewish families, they survived by hiding, moving between the attics and concealed cellars of a number of different homes.
After the war, the teenage Soros moved to England and worked a string of odd jobs. As a waiter at Quaglino's, a smart London restaurant, he is said to have scavenged the leftover profiteroles. Eventually he enrolled at the London School of Economics, and the rest is financial history.
Partly because of that background, Soros has been not only a capitalist but also a major philanthropist. By around 2000 he had already given billions of dollars to foundations set up to promote open and free societies around the world, and he spoke of giving away most of the rest of his fortune. He has since transferred the bulk of his wealth to his Open Society Foundations.
In later years Soros turned his attention to the kind of societies being created by the global economy, and he did not like everything he saw. Unlike many people with a rags-to-riches story, he did not claim that anyone could do what he had done. He worried that financial success had become the dominant value of the age, and about the lopsided social outcomes that this produced. Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 1998, he warned that markets reduce everything, including people and nature, to commodities. His conclusion was memorable: "We can have a market economy but we cannot have a market society."
Takeaway: Few people understand markets better than George Soros, and even he warned against letting market values become our only values. A market can tell us what something costs; it cannot tell us what anything is worth. "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God" (1 Timothy 6:17). Where has the market quietly started setting the value of things in your life?
Source: Biographical information from the Soros Foundation website at the time; quotation from George Soros, "Toward a Global Open Society," The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998.
Chief Seattle's Letter: The Earth Does Not Belong to Us
The famous "letter" is almost certainly not the words of Chief Seattle. Much of the popular version was written in 1971 by the screenwriter Ted Perry for a film about the environment. See the National Archives' "Thus Spoke Chief Seattle" and the history of Chief Seattle's speech. We share it here for its sentiments, not as history.
In the 1850s, the story goes, the President of the United States, Franklin Pierce, sent word that he wished to buy land from the tribe of Chief Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. The chief is said to have replied with a letter that has since been printed on posters, quoted in classrooms and read at environmental gatherings around the world.
Whoever wrote it, its words are deeply moving. The letter laments that there is no quiet place in the white man's cities, nowhere to hear the leaves unfurling in spring or the rustle of an insect's wings. It suggests, with heavy irony, that perhaps this is only because the writer is a "savage" who does not understand.
It speaks of the air as precious, because every living thing shares the same breath: the animal, the tree and the human. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath, it says, also receives his last sigh.
It responds to the offer to buy the land with a condition. If the land is sold, the newcomers must treat the animals as their brothers. The writer says he has seen a thousand rotting buffalo on the prairie, shot from a passing train and left to rot. What is a human being without the animals? If they were all gone, the letter says, people would die of a great loneliness of spirit, because whatever happens to the animals soon happens to us. Everything is connected.
The letter urges the newcomers to teach their children what the tribe has taught its children: that the earth is our mother, and whatever happens to the earth happens to her children. Its most quoted line puts it this way: "the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth." People did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it, and whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
It describes every part of the earth as sacred to the writer's people: every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect. The scented flowers are sisters; the deer, the horse and the great eagle are brothers. The rocky peaks, the meadows, the warmth of the pony's body and the human being all belong to the same family.
So when the great chief in Washington sends word that he wants to buy the land, the letter says, he is asking a great deal. The newcomer treats one piece of land the same as the next. He is like a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He treats his mother the earth and his brother the sky as things to be bought, plundered and sold like sheep or bright beads.
The letter ends on a note of sorrow rather than anger. Our ways are different from your ways, it says. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps that is only because he is a savage and does not understand.
Takeaway: Even though the letter is not authentic, its challenge is real. A consumer culture treats the world as a warehouse of things to be bought and used up. Scripture says something closer to the letter than to the market: "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1). We are stewards, not owners. How would your spending change if you truly believed the earth belongs to God?
Source: Text adapted from the widely circulated "Chief Seattle" letter. On its authenticity, see Jerry L. Clark, "Thus Spoke Chief Seattle: The Story of an Undocumented Speech," Prologue, Spring 1985.
Final thoughts
A father wishing his daughter enough, a flag covered in logos, a collector robbed of his contentment, a Beatle asking "Is that it?", a family rich in each other, a billionaire warning about market values, and a letter about the sacredness of the earth. Seven very different stories about consumerism point to the same truth: more is never enough, but enough, received with gratitude, can be a feast.
What would it look like for you to say "enough" this week?
More stories you may like:
- Best Stories About Gratitude and Contentment
- Stories About Greed and Generosity
- Stories About Creation and the Environment
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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