Dear Faith Family,
You are a product of economics, conditioned to perpetuate the economic system in which you are formed.
If you are like me, the above statement is unsettling on several levels. At one level, I want to claim more agency in my formation than the statement implies. Who wants their outcomes determined by some "system" they happen to be caught up in? At the same time, I also want to claim that I am caught up in some higher good than "economics" implies. Who doesn't want to believe their life is a part of something purposeful, even divine, not merely a base exchange?
While we may recoil at the statement's blunt humiliation, we cannot escape the accurate reality it depicts. You and I and our neighbors are products of economics, conditioned to perpetuate the economic system in which we are formed. Until we admit to living in this reality, we'll have difficulty moving into "the new world" that Jesus has prepared for us.
As Dylan helped us see on Sunday, we, yes, even we disciples of Jesus and those longing for a life full and forever from Jesus, are products and producers conditioned by the economics of our time.
Did you know that the root of "economics" comes from the Greek word oikonomia, meaning "household management"? That's right, the word that brings to mind money, its production, consumption, and transfer, originates in the ordering of our most fundamental and intimate relationships. As the American Economic Association claims, economics "...is not all about money... It's the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives, or the study of decision-making." In other words, economics is how we relate to one another. While we may consider economics primarily in relation to external goods and services and our role in the exchange of the two, the essence of the term is something more internal to our person, our identity as a person in relation to other persons.
It is no wonder then that Jesus, in Matthew 19, once again overturning the economic system of faith, brings in all the "household" relations: husbands and wives (19:1-9), children (19:13-15), fathers, mothers, homes, lands, brothers, and sisters (19:29). As Dylan pointed out, the disciples then, like us today, had been conditioned by the economics of their time and place to perpetuate a system of scarcity and competition, investing in others out of an expectation that there would be a return on the invest (19:27), making decisions to end relationships when the expected benefits changed (19:7), and dismissing those relationships which seemed to be of little resource or provide no incentive (19:10,13).
It was this same economic conditioning that produced the question from "the rich young man":
'Teacher, what good deed must I do to possess, make use of, eternal life?' (Matthew 19:16)
Like us, the young man was thinking economically, considering how best to use the resource of eternal life, of life with God. Jesus reminds him, and us, that it is not what he gives God that will allow him to receive his inheritance (19:29), but rather relating to others as if he was already in possession of a whole and forever life:
'You shall not murder...not commit adultery...not steal...not bear false witness...Honor your father and mother, and...love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew 19:18-19)
Jesus reminds the young man that God's already given us what we need to possess and take full advantage of life with him in the way in which we manage our households. Jesus uses those simple Ten Words, that “natural law,” we looked at last summer:
Don't take life; cultivate its flourishing.
Don't break covenant; keep it.
Don't take advantage of others; take responsibility.
Don't speak to corrupt; speak truth.
Don't strive to overcome; honor because you're free.
Don't covet your neighbor's life; love it,
because you are content in what you've been graced.
Still, like you and I, the young man has a hard time accepting that simply living for the good of others and not self or profit or production value is the economics of life eternal. So he asks another conditioned question, "What do I still lack?" (19:20). "What then," says the young man, and you and I, "do I need to get or give actually to take possession of life full and forever?"
Jesus' response, 'If you would be perfect [whole, complete], go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will possess treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' (19:21) has haunted believers for millennia. How could Jesus require such a payment? Does he require the same from me?!
Well, in a way, yes. We've already said that what God demands is the only thing we have to offer: our life. But notice that Jesus isn't requiring payment from the young man for eternal life, but rather making a way for him and us into a new world (19:28), a new economic system.
Jesus does not say to give to the temple, the church, or even himself, but simply to those in need. Jesus is not demanding anything more than "the commandments" demanded; that the young man step out of the economic system that has conditioned him and give himself over to the economics of the life eternal. A life caught up in the flourishing of others because it is a life possessing, making full use of what is received (19:29), the abundant riches of God with us.
Entering true life (19:17), daily living in the economics of the kingdom of heaven (19:23) that is so different than the life we are conditioned to live, seems impossible at times, as impossible as a camel going through the eye of a needle (19:24). Good thing for you and me and our neighbors, "with God all things are possible" (19:26).
May we be products of the economics of life complete and forever, conditioned to perpetuate the system of relating which is forming us:
And from Jesus' fullness,
we have all received grace upon grace.
(John 1:16)
Love you, faith family! God bless.