In the movie "The Road to Perdition," Tom Hanks plays the part of Mike Sullivan. Mike is an enforcer for what is essentially an extension of the mob. He goes around delivering messages to those individuals who owe money to the boss. However, many times those "talks" turn ugly and violence ensues.

Through various turns of events, Mike and his family are targeted for elimination. Mike and his one surviving son find themselves on the run. They try to think of different places where they could find safety. They begin to make their way to a relative’s house near the town of Perdition. However, as Mike and his son travel down the road they have to fight off other killers hired to eliminate them.

This is not a "family-friendly" movie but it offers a powerful commentary on the ways of violence. Mike’s one desire in life is that his son will not turn out to be a killer like him. All the violence and killing Mike did in the name of his boss, comes back at him as he tries to get his son to safety. Violence begets violence.

Perdition is another word for hell or a place of eternal punishment after death. As he journeys to his relative’s home, Mike is trying to seek safety through the barrel of a gun. However, that only leads to more and more trouble. Mike and his son’s journey along the road to Perdition becomes a commentary on how true security is rarely found behind the barrel of a gun.

The events of the six-weeks that Mike and his son spent on the run are narrated by the son. As he tells the story he doesn’t shy away from mentioning all the desperate things his father did. Throughout his narration, the son notes how he won’t journey down the same road of violence his father trod. Though his father had a deep desire to ensure the safety of his son, the son refuses to journey through life trusting only in the power of violence.

Ahab has a desire for something too. Only instead of a desire for the safety of a son, he desires a certain parcel of land. When his offer to buy Naboth’s vineyard and turn it into a vegetable garden is refused, he acts like a petulant child, sulking in his bedroom. That’s where Jezebel comes in. Her view of being a king is highly influenced by the rule of kings she experienced in her native land. There, if a king wanted something, he got it. If it was not surrendered willingly, it was taken by force. All roadblocks fell in front of a king. She had a no hold’s barred view of ruling a country.

So if Naboth stood in the way of the king getting what he wants then Naboth must be eliminated. So by breaking many laws including the commandments about not bearing false witness, not committing murder, and not coveting your neighbor’s stuff, Jezebel conspires to have Naboth killed.

When word reaches Jezebel that the murder of Naboth is complete she goes to tell her king that the roadblock to his vegetable garden has been eliminated. He can now go and cut down the mature and productive grape vines and plant his vegetables.

Immediately King Ahab goes from his summer palace to his winter palace where Naboth’s vineyard is located. One would expect that he would be joyful at the thought of acquiring the land he so desired. But no sooner has he set foot on the land than his nemesis, Elijah, shows up with God’s word of judgment on his lips. Ahab’s satisfaction at acquiring the parcel of land is short-lived.

When I was a child, I was given a small allowance. Each week I would save that amount because there was a toy I wanted very much. When I had saved up enough money, my mom took me to the store and I bought that toy. I can remember very clearly standing at the cash register after the clerk had taken my money and thinking about how I didn’t all of a sudden fell great that I had bought this toy. The happiness I gleaned from playing with that toy was brief. I thought the toy would make me happy, but it did not.

How many times are we fed that line of thinking though? How many times are we essentially told that if we buy this one thing we will be happy, loved, or fulfilled? We should know better but time and time again we fall for it.

What is most alarming to me is how we are passing on this same mentality to our children. Every Christmas, advertisers decide what toy will be the toy of the season. We saw this with Furbys and Tickle-me-Elmo. The marketers saturate the airwaves with ads about this great toy. They play the same commercial over and over again during children’s programming until the child can quote all the amazing features of this toy. Advertisers are even embedding the toy within the programming itself. Year after year, children beg their parents for whatever the "it" toy is and year after year, parents flock to the stores and the internet to buy it. And year after year, within a month or two there is another latest greatest toy on the market whether it’s Tickle-me-Elmo Extreme or some new product.

But lest I seem too hard on the kids, we adults do this too. You know those ads that pop up on the side of your screen when you’re browsing the internet? Well I’ve noticed a new marketing campaign over the past few weeks. The ad calls for you to shame your friends if they are using an older model of cell phone. If you’re not using the latest iPhone, Droid, Intrigue, or what have you, the ad calls for your friends to make fun of until you go out to the store and give up a perfectly functional phone in order to get the latest greatest phone. Yes, it’s not just the kids, we adults do it too. We get the messages that the 3G network is so passé that we must all upgrade to 4G. Though how many of us can really say what all that means?

Isn’t Ahab doing a similar thing? He sees a parcel of land he wants and pitches a fit when it is refused to him. All of a sudden the thing he could not acquire becomes the object of his deepest desire. He wants what he can’t have.

When Jezebel hears her husband’s temper tantrum and does what I’m sure many a well-intentioned parent has done. She offers to give Ahab the object of his desire in order to make him feel better. It doesn’t seem to matter to Jezebel that a man will die in order to get the land Ahab desires. But there are limits.

When I was growing up there was a small park with a stream and a path through the woods about a block from my house. I was not allowed to go there on my own at first. For a long time, I was only allowed to go there and play in the water when one of my parents was with me. As time went on, I was allowed to go there as long as my older sister was with me. Later, I was allowed to go there with my friends. There were firm limits on where I could go and with whom. I imagine you also had limits on where you could go as a child. The limits were not meant to make you miserable but to protect you.

When God agreed to allow the Israelites to be ruled by kings, limits were set. The law of God held true for the kings as well as the commoners. When a king broke one of the rules, God provided correction in the form of a prophet.

So throughout the period of the kings, we see prophets popping up to correct the behavior of the kings. Probably the most familiar of these prophet-king relationships is that of King David and the prophet Nathan. When David had an affair with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed, Nathan came to the king and showed him the way he had crossed the line. He had broken God’s law.

Elijah is the prophet tasked with making Ahab aware of his limits and ways he has crossed the line and broken God’s law. Last week we talked about how Elijah prophesied that there would be a drought because Ahab had allowed the worship of Baal in the kingdom. Now, in the vineyard, Elijah again calls Ahab out for how he has participated in breaking God’s law. Instead of being happy at obtaining the object of his desire, Ahab is now faced with God’s judgment.

But before we get too gung-ho with excitement about Ahab getting his come-uppance, let’s ask ourselves when have we found ourselves in the place of Ahab? When has obtaining the objects of our desire caused pain for those who create them? How does our desire for chocolate lead to children working in dangerous cacao fields? How does our desire for the newest electronics lead to e-waste polluting our environment with heavy and toxic metals? How does our desire for easy transportation lead to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico?

We are more like Ahab than we would like to admit. We desire things. And those desires have consequences. In fulfilling our desires there are limits. When our desires lead to children being forced to work long hours in hot fields with little compensation, that is sin. When our desires lead to almost incomprehensible damage to our environment, that is sin. When our desires impede upon the life of another one of God’s children, that is sin. Let’s call it what it is: sin. Sin: the things we do, say, and think that build walls between us and God and us and the rest of God’s children.

C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters was met with some controversy when it was published in the 1940’s. It is written in the form of letters of a senior devil to a junior devil. The senior devil, Screwtape, offers advice to his student, Wormwood, as to how he can lead a human, his patient, away from God. In his first letter Screwtape advises Wormwood about the various philosophies he can use to lead astray his patient. [read selection from 1^st chapter of book]

So materialism, the desire to acquire stuff, is what this one devil advises us humans to find as strong and desirable. But we receive a different message from God. We receive the message that life isn’t about acquiring stuff. Naboth refused to sell his land but he called it his "ancestral inheritance." For Naboth understood that the land was not his to sell. It had been entrusted to his family by God. Therefore, it would go against God if he were to give up this parcel of land to the king.

So our desire to acquire stuff isn’t the philosophy of the future. It is only another distraction from God’s future – a future when we will see every other human as a child of God and realize that this is what is important, desirable, and good.

Though the time of the Old Testament kings has long since passed, God’s prophets still speak. God’s prophetic word is coming to us all. Who will stand in the vineyard with the audacity to say that violence is not God’s way and greed is not the path to happiness? Will you?