You are More than a Commodity

Have you ever noticed how social media has turned us all into marketers? Every photo, every post, every carefully curated moment becomes part of our personal brand. We angle our phones just right, select the perfect filter, and craft captions that will generate the most engagement. But here's the uncomfortable question: When did we start believing that our worth could be measured in likes, follows, and the approval of strangers?

This isn't just about teenagers desperately seeking validation online. Walk through any mall, flip through any magazine, or scroll through any streaming service, and you'll see the same pattern everywhere: human beings packaged and presented as products. The most successful among us, we're told, are those who've learned to market themselves most effectively – to turn their very personhood into a commodity that can be bought, sold, and consumed.

This also touches on yesterday's message regarding chastity. 

The root cause of both the problem of sexual dysfunction and the problem of materialism in our culture are intimately linked. It's all connected to the urge to reduce human persons to objects we can use, whose value is measured in how much we can use them/their bodies to gratify our own desire, lust, or to grow our bank accounts.

But there's something deeply unsettling about this reality, something that strikes at the very heart of what it means to be human. When we reduce ourselves or others to marketable goods, to "objects" we use, we lose sight of a fundamental truth that has been whispered into the fabric of creation itself: human dignity cannot be bought or sold because it flows from a source far deeper than any economic system.

 

The Ancient Lie in Modern Dress

The commodification of personhood isn't new. In the ancient world, slavery was the ultimate expression of treating human beings as property. The slave markets of Rome and Athens literally put price tags on human flesh. Yet even in those brutal times, philosophers and prophets recognized something was profoundly wrong with this arrangement. The Hebrew word tselem in Genesis literally means "image" or "representation." In the ancient Near East, kings would erect images of themselves throughout their kingdoms to represent their presence and authority. But Genesis makes a radical claim: it's not just kings who bear the divine image – every human being is a living icon of the Creator. 

This is why the body matters so profoundly. We're not souls trapped in physical prisons, as the ancient Gnostics believed. The Hebrew understanding of personhood, which Christianity inherited, sees the human person as a psychosomatic unity – a body-soul composite where neither element can be separated from the other without destroying the whole. As theologian John Paul II observed, "The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine" (Man and Woman He Created Them, 19:4).

 

The Modern Marketplace of Selves

But we've forgotten this integrated vision of personhood. Instead, we've embraced what philosopher Charles Taylor calls "the buffered self" – a vision of personhood where we are isolated individuals, disconnected from others and from any transcendent source of meaning (A Secular Age, p. 38). In this framework, our value must come from somewhere, and if it doesn't come from God or community, it must come from the marketplace.

Consider how this plays out in contemporary culture. The talented singer doesn't just sing anymore – she must present a total package. Her voice becomes secondary to her image, her artistry subordinated to her marketability. She performs and gyrates on stage, wears less and less, in order to improve her "marketability" as an artist. She reduces her very body to an object that can be "used" by others, even if only used in the fantasies and lusts of the mind, rather than what the body was initially created to be, a connection point, a way of experiencing and expressing our communion with our Creator.

The pressure to commodify extends beyond entertainment. LinkedIn profiles read like product descriptions. Dating apps reduce complex human beings to a series of swipeable images and bullet points. Even children learn early that their value is tied to their performance – in school, in sports, in their ability to project the right image.

The apostle Paul saw this tendency even in his own day. Writing to the Corinthians, he asked, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV). Note the profound irony here: Paul uses commercial language ("bought at a price") to argue against the commodification of the body. We have been purchased, he says, but not to become products. We've been bought to become temples – sacred spaces where the divine presence dwells. 

Today, while (especially in an American context) the issue of "slavery" is loaded with history, a horrible chapter from our past, it's worth considering if we've exchanged cartel slavery for a system that's effectively made slaves of everyone. We might no longer be forced to "serve" masters who purchased us, on the basis of our ethnicity, but we're all reduced to "objects" with a market-value, constantly under pressure to "obey" whatever unspoken rules maximize our value. We've built a system that doesn't merely "systemically" oppress certain categories of persons, it actually imprisons everyone: including and often especially those who are the wealthiest. After all, the more one accumulates in this world, the more one is likely to define one's worth according to the size of his bank account and portfolios.

But here's the truth. The beggar on the street has a greater worth already than the Wal street tycoon. The youngest child or the Alzheimer's patient forgotten by the rest of the world is of infinite worth in the Kingdom of God. They have a dignity that already exceeds the market-value of the culture's most celebrated celebrities.

They are made in God's image. That means, when I see the face of a human being, I see the face of God. When I serve the "least of these," it's as though I offer service to the Almighty. When I reduce a human being to a person who has a "market value," I do the same to God, I reduce Him to something to use, an object, and I lose sight of my own true value and worth. Because when I no longer value someone according to God's Image, I also denigrate myself according to the same valuation process. If you want to grow in holiness, if you want to get closer to God, extend your heart to those the world undervalues, to the despised, to the poor: and honor them with a love and service deserving of one made in God's image. Love them as one so highly valued by God, that Jesus died for them.

 

The Gaze That Gives Life

This isn't just about how we treat others, though. The problem runs deeper than we might initially think. It's not just that we objectify others with our gaze; it's that we've internalized this objectifying gaze and turned it on ourselves. We've become both the surveyor and the surveyed, as art critic John Berger observed. We constantly monitor ourselves, asking: How do I look? How am I coming across? What's my market value?

This self-objectification is particularly acute in our digital age. Social media platforms literally encourage us to turn ourselves into content. We perform our lives for an invisible audience, always conscious of how we're being perceived. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard called this "the precession of simulacra" – where the image becomes more real than reality itself (Simulacra and Simulation, p. 1). We craft our online personas so carefully that we sometimes forget who we really are beneath the filters and hashtags.

But there's another gaze available to us – the gaze of love. When God looked upon creation, including the newly formed humans, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31, NIV). The Hebrew word tov, translated as "good," carries connotations of beauty, appropriateness, and moral excellence. It's a gaze that sees and affirms the inherent worth of what it beholds, not based on utility or marketability, but simply because it exists as God intended.

The philosopher Simone Weil understood this gaze as the foundation of justice and compassion: "The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not have it." What she glimpsed was that to truly pay attention to another is to recognize their inherent, priceless worth. It's the gaze of infinite love that sees each person as irreplaceable, unique, bearing a dignity that no economic system can quantify.

 

Reclaiming Our Humanity

So how do we resist the commodification of personhood in our daily lives? How do we reclaim the integrated vision of human dignity that sees body and soul as inseparable, and every person as bearing the divine image?

First, we must practice what we might call "the discipline of the gaze." This means consciously resisting the temptation to view ourselves and others as products to be consumed. When you meet someone new, resist the urge to immediately calculate their social or economic value. Instead, try to see them as a mystery to be explored, a unique expression of the divine creativity. As Martin Buber wrote, we must move from "I-It" relationships, where others are objects to be used, to "I-Thou" relationships, where others are subjects to be encountered (I and Thou, p. 3).

Second, we need to cultivate practices that honor the body-soul unity. This doesn't mean becoming obsessed with physical appearance – that's just another form of commodification. Rather, it means treating our bodies as integral to our spiritual lives. Exercise becomes not just about looking good, but about stewarding the gift of embodiment. Eating becomes not just fueling a machine, but participating in the goodness of creation. Rest becomes not just recharging for more productivity, but honoring the rhythm of sabbath built into the fabric of reality.

Third, we must resist the culture of self-marketing, even when it seems necessary for survival. This doesn't mean becoming invisible or refusing to share our gifts with the world. But it does mean questioning the constant pressure to brand ourselves, to turn every aspect of our lives into content, to measure our worth by metrics of engagement. If we own businesses, we have to market. I'm not saying don't "advertise." What I'm saying is don't reduce humans to objects in the process. Perhaps we need to rediscover the spiritual practice of hiddenness – doing good work without needing to document it, having meaningful experiences without feeling compelled to share them, being comfortable with being unknown except to those who truly know us.

 

The Paradox of True Value

Here's the beautiful paradox: when we stop trying to commodify ourselves, when we stop measuring our worth by market standards, we actually become more valuable – not in economic terms, but in human terms. We become capable of genuine relationship, authentic creativity, and self-giving love. We become, in other words, more fully human.

Jesus pointed to this paradox when he said, "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36, NIV). The Greek word for soul here, psychē, can also be translated as "life" or "self." Jesus isn't just asking what happens after we die; he's asking a more immediate question: what is the price of your humanity? The cost of gaining the whole world is losing the very thing that makes you capable of enjoying it. 

This is the ultimate invitation of the Christian faith: to recognize that our worth is not a price tag to be earned, but a gift to be received. Our dignity is not something we create, but something we bear. By embracing this truth, we can find a way to navigate our modern world without selling our souls in the process.

 

God Bless,

Judah