Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
My dad was a Depression era kid.
The poverty of his youth was crushing.
One Christmas there was only one present under the tree. A single orange. For him and his three older siblings to share.
Dad spent his entire life fleeing the terror of his childhood poverty, knowing that in an instant everything can change: losing your job, health, or the economy of an entire country.
There were times when, as a father of three, the poverty he so feared nearly caught up to him. During seven of my childhood years, my dad was un- or under-employed after being laid off. The stress in the house was palpable, especially after the unemployment checks ran out.
We always had enough to eat, but in part because my mom knew how to cook and make a dollar stretch. I thought milk mixed from a powder and water was milk.
My dad died last fall and I’m glad for its timing.
Watching our current economy crumble in light of this pandemic would have renewed his extreme fear of losing it all.
But there are more and more of “my dads” to whom we are preaching now.
People are being laid off and are un- or under-employed.
Government assistance is capricious.
Food insecurity, especially with the need to feed school-aged children who won’t receive school meals, is getting desperate.
And for preachers, stewardship season is around the corner.
How do we dare talk about money and finances this fall?
How do we preach about stewardship to my “dads,” those who are scared, uncertain, stressed, and responsible for other mouths to feed?
What could my Dad have trusted about God’s economy when the human variety had broken his trust?
God’s Economy is Made by and For Love
When God created this world and all that is in it, God stepped back at the end of each day, took a good look at the day’s work, and remarked that it was “good.”
Not “scarce.”
Not “Wish I had made a little bit more of that over there.”
Not “I hope I made enough to last.”
God called it “good,” referring to not only to creation’s quality but also to its sufficiency.
God’s creation is good because God created everything from and for love, and therefore provided everything necessary for all of creation to thrive.
We see God’s love in abundance because there is an abundance of everything we need not only to survive but thrive.
There is enough food, water, and natural resources for all creatures to live into their fullest expression of God’s ingenuity.
God made more than enough to go around for all of creation for all time.
Where there is lack, humanity is getting in the way.
What does it mean to work in the world believing the resources exist?
God’s Economy is Fueled by Compassion, Creativity and Collaboration
There are enough resources to go around. Quantity isn’t the issue.
However, applying and distributing those resources creates many issues.
Greed, fear, racism, class warfare, consumerism, and a host of other factors lead to a concentration of resources for some and lack for many others.
Fortunately, God provided intelligence as one of our resources.
So when an issue of supply and demand arises, our compassion can drive us to get creative and collaborate with each other and the Holy Spirit to solve it.
And I don’t mean in an abstract, spiritualized way. I mean in concrete, boots-on-the-ground, brightest-minds-around-the-virtual-conference-table problem-solving.
I’ll tell you more about an organization doing just this in a bit.
We see example after example of compassion, creativity, and collaboration—ours and God’s—working to meet the needs of real people through Scripture.
There was a wedding many years ago in Galilee where there was plenty of water but not enough wine. A mom saw the need and connected the dots between all that water and her son’s unique skill set. The mom’s compassion was all it took to get the wine flowing.
On another occasion, twelve disciples had two loaves, five fish, and five thousand mouths to feed. They could have sent the people to nearby towns to buy food, or they could have fed them themselves with what they had on hand. Working together, they managed to provide for every mouth and then some.
Centuries before that, people wandered in a desert, starving. They complained to their leader to fix it. The leader complained to God to fix it. God got creative and plopped manna down in the desert every night. As long as the people collaborated with God and obeyed one rule—don’t try to hedge your bets by storing any of it—there was always enough.
When it looks like we don’t have enough, it’s a sure sign that we we need to exercise God’s abundance of compassion, creativity, and collaboration.
It’s time to love God and neighbor with our full heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Fear and hoarding are not the answer.
God’s Economy Carries No Dead Weight
In God’s economy, the ones perceived to contribute the least were the first ones God wanted remembered, considered, and served.
Widows, orphans, immigrants, strangers from strange lands, the ill—all the people that busy, self-sufficient, self-important folks wanted little to do with.
People seen as fiscal, emotional, and social dead weight, contributing little and taking a lot.
But God knew them differently. God knew they offered treasure that couldn’t be stored in coffers. God knew they had something else to offer.
In God’s economy, everyone deserves to be cherished, served, and respected, regardless of production or profitability. The person is the reward.
In God’s economy, those who “hold everyone back” are moved to the front of the line.
It’s as if God knows a community is only as healthy as its sickest member. It’s as if God knows helping the most vulnerable actually strengthens all.
God’s economy carries no dead weight. Only opportunity to encounter Jesus.
We serve and care, and in so doing, encounter gold.
In God’s Economy, It is Also Blessed to Receive
In the culture shaped by Jesus’s character, people did not defend their pride; remain hungry, ill or maimed; or hide their need when offered help.
None of the recipients balked at, refused, or returned what they were given:
A newly formed community comprised of strangers, even enemies to one another— Jews, Greeks, men, women, poor, wealthy, ill, healthy—pooled their resources then redistributed them to any as had need. Church.
A pair of itinerant preachers arrived in a town unannounced and accepted food and shelter from strangers for as many days as the town was willing to listen to them.
There was a woman who used to have leprosy; a man who used to be blind; another woman who used to bleed without respite; and another man who used to be dead. All welcomed Jesus’s help and reveled in their healing.
A dining room was still overwhelmed by fragrance a week later from the perfume the woman had poured over the guest’s feet, pouring out gratitude until it pooled, mixing with the dirt and forming an aromatic mud, pouring still more and more with such profligate extravagance it would have made even Pontius Pilate feel embarrassed for the sheer waste of it.
They asked.
They took handouts.
They thanked.
And they were no less blessed for it.
In God’s Economy, We Receive So We Can Give
In God’s economy, people receive all they have as a gift from God that was created by and for love, because God loves them—and everyone else.
They they appreciate God’s love and know it should never be taken for granted. And they want others to experience God’s love, too.
So they get really smart about how to use all they’ve received and all they are to honor God by caring for the people around them.
They apply every molecule of that love to its nth degree, wisely and shrewdly, so all can experience its blessing.
A talent is given to a steward who is praised for turning it into a hundred.
A widow won’t take no for an answer and prevails upon the judge until she receives justice.
A sheep is lost and the others are left until one is found.
A pearl is buried in a field, so the entire field is purchased to make sure the inherent worth of the pearl is not squandered.
A lamp is lit and brought out from under a bushel basket to offer light for all to see.
In God’s economy, we receive so we can give in a world where there is more than enough.
Why Does God’s Economy Matter?
The Bible is not a book of abstract theory for celestial matters.
It’s a book of real people with real needs, pain, hurt, and fear.
And it reveals how God sees those real people, loves and serves them, and calls others to join God’s ministry of blood, sweat, and tears.
We will be preaching about stewardship to people experiencing the vicissitudes of a human economy.
Some who hear us may be hungry. Some sick. Many will be scared.
Preaching God’s Economy doesn’t mitigate the visceral experience of hunger or losing one’s home. The needs are real, tangible, urgent.
But it does help us believe we are more than the sum of our assets
It helps our congregations understand what it means to participate in God’s good and sufficient creation.
It helps us discern our role in mitigating the suffering of those around us. And reimagining our reality.
God’s economy guides and compels us to make God-honoring decisions about what to do with our God-given resources:
notice God’s love poured into God’s good creation
give what we have of our goods, creativity, and compassion
ask for—even demand—what we need and what others need
receive with gratitude
and never take any of it for granted
That we have the capacity to do so is evidence in itself that we participate in God’s economy of an infinite abundance of love.
May We Introduce You to Folks Doing this Work?
Faith and Finance is reimagining God’s economy with “a bias for action.”
Faith+Finance is bringing together pastors and impact investors, theologians and social entrepreneurs, and other faith and business leaders to respond with courage and imagination to the most urgent and demanding economic, social, environmental, and spiritual challenges of our day. — Faith + Finance website
Their compassionate, collaborative, creative approach is influencing the relationship of people of faith to money and resources.
They’re doing so by examining:
a theology of economics
how churches can leverage their assets, even as congregations and giving shrink
how to apply “gospel values” to the establishment and growth of sustainable businesses
how to be good economic partners to marginalized neighbors
how to invest in ways that are morally and ethically informed and usher in God’s Kingdom
how to establish new models for funding ministry
We encourage you to sign up for their newsletter to stay in touch with their work. Then head to their blog for thoughtful insights about stewardship, money, and faith.