The economist John Kenneth Galbraith once wrote that “no significant manufacturer introduces a new product without cultivating the consumer.”* Galbraith was inclined to remind us that our outlooks, desires, and demands are influenced, in this modern world, by corporate forces who have their own purposes in mind, and who wish to bend us toward those purposes, whether it’s good for us or not.
Because Jesus lived in a world before mass advertising and marketing, his teachings were not much shaped by any thought of “cultivating the consumer.” The Beatitudes, in any version, but especially in St. Luke’s version, provide a case in point. In the Beatitudes, Jesus promises blessedness to the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated, excluded, and reviled. These do no amount to a much-sought-after demographic. Furthermore, in St. Luke’s account of the Beatitudes, Jesus not only lists those who can expect to experience blessing, he is also explicit about those who will be on the receiving end of woe. Guess what? - it’s the rich, the replete, those who are satisfied and amused, and anyone else who’s well spoken of. All of these do, in fact, make up a desirable pool of potential consumers, who Jesus might cultivate. But the promise of woe is a reliably unsuccessful cultivation technique.
When Jesus shows up on the scene, he is new. His message is new, his blessings are new, his promises are new, his covenant is new, and the life he promises in this world and the next is new. But when it comes to consumer cultivation, Jesus is the one who is woeful. He is not very good at it at all. It is simply not his thing.
These days, the cultivation of the consumer for something new often involves a strategy that includes various kinds of influencers. You hardly need me to provide a definition for the term, but this one will do: “a person who inspires or guides the actions of others.” The taxonomy of influencers by audience size (nano, micro, macro, or mega), or by function (pioneers, amplifiers, authorities, or scalers) is tiresome, I suspect, to most of us who are not students at the Wharton School.
But on today, when we celebrate all the saints of God, I am inclined to borrow the term “influencer” as a catch-all descriptor for that marvelous company of saints, the great corporate force of the church. If we have to sum up, in a word or so, what it is we celebrate in the saints, perhaps more than anything, we celebrate the fact that the saints are those who have been influencers for the kingdom of God; persons who have inspired or guided our actions toward the love of God.
It’s easy enough to see how saints like Peter and Paul, or any of the evangelists inspired or guided the actions of others toward God’s love. Where would we be without them?
There are saints whose influence was made with the use of their minds and their words - like Augustine, or Aquinas. And there were those, like Francis, or Clare, or Martin, whose actions spoke louder than words.
We have been influenced by saints who were kings and queens, like Louis or Margaret. And by those whose influence was chiefly among the poor, like Lawrence or Mother Theresa.
There are saints whose influence was accomplished in and through their visions and prayers, like Julian or John of the Cross.
There are saints whose influence was known by their music, like David and Cecilia; or their hospitality, like Benedict; or their strong backs, like Christopher; or their military prowess, like Joan of Arc.
If there’s a way to inspire or guide a person toward the mind and care and love of God - sometimes in full view of the everyone; but sometimes hidden secretly away in silence - there is a saint who has done it: influencers of us all.
But these influencers do not cultivate consumers, they cultivate congregations who gather to hear the good news that the saints heard; to be washed in the baptism that the saints were washed in; and to feel the power that the saints were given (power often expressed in weakness).
Here’s the thing that John Kenneth Galbraith knew, and that he was at pains to remind us of: there are corporate forces out there that are working to influence you. Mostly those forces want to influence us for their own purposes, to bend us to those purposes, and to sell us something. These forces are relentless. The proliferation of influencers on social media would be amusing, if it weren’t such a serious business - all aimed at getting you and me to buy something.
On All Saints’ Day, the church draws our attention to the relentless work of the corporate forces of God, the whole company of saints, to influence us for the purposes of God and his kingdom - with nothing to sell you, and everything to give!
Consider how vast and varied has been the influence of the saints: by their preaching and their writing; by their journeying by foot, or on horseback, or by sea; by their shipwreck, their poverty, their ruin, or their recklessness; by their visions, and their fevers, and their headaches; by their warm embraces, their stubborn willfulness, and their powerful arms; by their sweet singing and their long silences; in their nakedness, or dressed in lavish costumes; wounded, kicked, beaten, and bloody; splendid, radiant, chiseled, and sweaty; limping, whimpering, and dripping wet; drunken, emaciated, stinky, or fat; buried in their books, ink stains on their fingers; flowers ‘twined in her hair; dirt caked in his nails; deep in their prayers; wild in the wilderness; cunning, clever, and brave; woke early, up late; carousing and cavorting; concentrating and cajoling; convincing, connecting, consoling; sentenced to death; brimming with life; old enough to know better; young enough not to care; covered in rags, or dressed to the nines; mumbling their words; published, practiced, or making it up as they go along; through the dim haze of the campfire, at the hospital bedside, and in the battlefield; strung up at the scaffold, or tied to the stake; defending the faith; defying the powers that be; quietly in the library; rowdily with the boys; steadily with a needle or a knife; with a shamrock or a scallop shell; as the wolf drew near; with harp in hand; at the pickle barrel with a crowbar; at the altar saying Mass; strung up on a fence and left to die; threatened but allowed to live; slaying dragons, keeping notes, studying history, baking bread, tending sheep, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked; listening, weeping, pleading, pushing, shouting, insisting, forgiving, soothing, sowing, reaping, pruning, weeding, sweeping, scrubbing, digging, burying, planting, praying, living, and dying - these are the ways the saints have influenced us, and many more, too: relentlessly cultivating within the people of God an openness to the power of love to take over our lives, as the greatest influence that could ever possess us.
There are a lot of other influencers out there, God knows. But for tonight, at least for tonight, we delight in the legacy of this corporate force: all the saints who have inspired and guided us, and who, we pray, will never stop doing so, in thousands of thousands of ways, until the kingdom of God has come!
Jesus spent no time cultivating consumers, even though everything he brought into the world is new. But all the saints have been the blessed influencers of the people of God! May they ever be!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
All Saints’ Day 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
John Kenneth Gailbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud, p 6
