I was perusing a video the other day and up popped a long advertisement: A Film by Pernod-Ricard. Not an aficionado of libations, I had to look up the company to figure out they were selling alcohol. Not that you’d know that from the movie. The movie was selling a philosophy.
In this era of multi billion dollar multi national companies, we see them finally embracing their feared role of Masters. Not just of our fiduciary lives, but of our social lives and our moral lives.
They want to be everything to you, to keep you enmeshed in their version of reality. Like Google doing your laundry, Gilette and now Pernod-Ricard want to tell you what is morally important in life.
Pernod-Ricard (www.pernod-ricard.com), like so many others in our day, chooses the Existentialist track. The meaning of life is relationships-and you are the one who chooses those relationships. The only thing that gets you through your day are the memories (of when you were drunk – wink, wink). The only thing you have on your death bed are the memories you create. Accompanied by seductive foreign accents and sweeping rhetorical music, they seek to drive the point home that the best thing you can do is to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.
Seems like I recognize that turn of phrase, I wonder where I read that before? Ah yes, in the eternal Word of God. This is from Luke, chapter 12. Jesus is telling a parable for people who put their trust in things other than God:
19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
What is happening is that the World is offering up tempting alternatives to God’s ways. God offers community. He offers love. He offers friendship. He offers a sense of purpose. He offers strength when we are in need. You see the pernicious nature of these alternative offers. They offer only the moment and the memories. God offers eternal life through belief in the Son of God, Jesus – The Christ. He is the Messiah. When we believe and follow Jesus, we can have all these things and the hope of eternal life. Please consider following Him today.