I believe that it was the irrepressible Ched Myers who first alerted me (and many others) to Mark's "master metaphor": the urgent call to "keep awake" and the prophetic gift of "seeing." Discipleship involves a community-wide project of "watchfulness"--interrogating the way things are with an eye on the way things might/should be, awake to the promise of God's kingdom (God's commonwealth) even and especially in the broken systems of the here and now. To follow Jesus requires dis-location and re-location: as the beloved community chooses vigiliance, economic justice and repentance in worship, practice, politics and service. Vision seeks another path, an old prophetic way.
When the disciples fall asleep in Gethsemane, we're reminded just how hard this project is, especially in the heart of empire, when all reason argues for the status quo. When the women "look again" on the third morning, and see the stone rolled away, we're stunned into hopefulness all over again, awakened once more to the project of discipleship and the renewed vocation of the beloved community. He lives...means...we follow.
Losing the Economy to Save the Economy
If it's true that Jesus' 'kingdom' is the prophetic vision of justice and balance--the wholeness of creation when all are involved and life is shared and earth is cherished--then Jesus' project is very much about a just and balanced economy, an economy that honors human diversity and planetary communion and the creator's passion for praise and equity. In my own prayers, I often use the version of Jesus' prayer that uses 'commonwealth' for 'kingdom.' That was the point, I think: the prophetic vision of Isaiah and Amos, the first-century project of Jesus himself. A commonwealth. On earth as in heaven.
But "seeing" this is not simply repeating it, in prayer or preaching or otherwise. "Seeing" the gospel means "following"--and "following" means a sustained lifetime of dis-location and re-location. It means leaving some of the old ways behind, and going off with the waymaker to experiment in new patterns, new economies, new paths of faithfulness. And this, indeed, is very, very hard.
Jesus says, at the heart of Mark's story: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8:34-37). Tonight, I hear Jesus, teacher and waymaker, through the strange and dangerous and unsettling experience of COVID-19, a pandemic many anticipated but most of us never imagined. Tonight, I hear Jesus from my seclusion, from my isolation, from my quiet apartment in Dover: as I do everything I can to stay away from public places, as I do everything I can to simplify my economic activity, as I pare my life to the bare essentials. To honor life, to cherish my neighborhood and city, to save my "household" (oikos), I must turn inward. I must turn away from consumption, from old patterns of behavior and spending and driving and using. After all, "what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" In a season of pandemic and disease, it's time to give up the economy...in order to save the economy.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it's time to give up (lose) one approach to economics (the management of our global household)--in order to claim an new approach to economics. Before the pandemic arrived in our midst, we were talking urgently about climate change, about earth's distress, about the very real chance that we've done irreversible damange to the "household of God." To turn the human project around, to renew our commitments to one another and to Mother Earth herself, will require dramatic, collaborative, loving transformation: spiritual and cultural, economic and poltiical. Indeed, to bless the planet and partner to save the planet, we'll need to "lose" or give up one kind of economics (consumer-driven, wealth-driven, greed-driven) in order to claim a new kind of economics (the prophetic vision, the commonwealth of god, the communion of communities on earth).
Household Experiment
What we've done--pretty much--over these past six weeks is a grand experiment in economics. We haven't "shut down" the economy as the President insists. We have (in a time of great pain, terrible loss and horrific fear) begun to experiment with a different kind of economy. The earth is still doing her thing. The seas are still playing and swelling. The forests are still mulching and growing. The crops are still growing in God's fields. But we (as a human community) have slowed down (at the very least)--and begun to experiment with a very different kind of tending and working and priortizing and caring.
As we anticipate the great challenge ahead: transforming human culture so that we are again a blessing to the planet, so that we are partners in creation, so that we are tillers and keepers (not consumers) of the earth--we may learn something from all this, even this pain. Perhaps we can "lose" capitalism at last (or at least, unfettered, deregulated capitalism), in order to embrace our human vocation. After all, what good does it do us--or earth herself--if we gain big pensions and huge fortunes and great estates but lose what really matters? What good does it do any of us if we destroy the great economy of living seas and fertile fields and choirs of creatures? Maybe we've got to lose one economy for the economy that really matters.
Along the way, I've been moved by the work UCC theologians and economists have done--over several decades--thinking about things like this and articulating a vision for the church. Here's one such piece: it may be 30 years old by now. But it still speaks to our shared commitments to the commonwealth of god. I'm happy to share it here.
From "Do Justice: Linking Christian Faith and Economic Life" (Rebecca Blank)
Defining Economics in a New (Old) Way
The word "economics" is derived from the Greek word, oikonomos, which is the combination of two words. Oikos means household and nomos is the word, or the law. Oikonomos, or economics, can therefore be interpreted as "the law or the management of the household."
The imagery of the household is a familiar one for Christians, for it is present throughout the Bible. The word "household" appears in both the Old and New Testament. Its most familiar use to Christians may be in the steward parables of Jesus, where Jesus tells of stewards who mismanage their household and bring forth the judgment of their master. In the Old Testament the "household" that is referred to is typically the household of Israel. But in the New Testament, the "household" is vastly expanded to include all people. The neighbor becomes not just the one next door, but the one in need, whatever his or her ethnic background. Even the Samaritan (the Russian, the Iraqi) is a neighbor to those who follow Christ. It is this uncomfortably inclusive household of God that we are called to manage.
But economics is specifically concerned with a particular aspect of household management: the distribution of the physical resources of the household. Those who have access to the physical resources of the household are assured of survival. They are given life. Those who are denied access to the physical resources of the household face exclusion, poverty, and malnourishment. They are denied life. It is not enough for Christians to define economics in a morally neutral way as "the allocation of scarce resources." Our faith gives us a moral context out of which we are called to affirm a stronger positive statement. As Christians, we are called to provide life to all within our household. Thus, for the Christian, economics can be defined as the management of God's household so that all may have life.
Managing God's household so that all receive life implicitly emphasizes the need to care particularly for the well-being of the poor. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Bible again and again points out God's special concern and care for the poor. In making economic decisions, it is those whose livelihood is most threatened for whom we should be most concerned. Thus, our economic decisions must always involve the question "What will this do for the poor among us?" Policies that limit the access of individuals and groups to the resources and opportunities of the larger household/economy are a mismanagement of God's economy and are unjust. Indeed, the most effective way of "seeing" economic injustice in our world is to observe the world through the eyes of those who have been excluded from the economic abundance received by middle and upper-income Americans.
Jesus Christ came so that "they may have life, and have it abundantly [John 10:10]." Abundant life for the Christian surely has a spiritual context; abundant life cannot occur for an individual who feels separated from God's love and mercy. But abundant life is not solely spiritual. To live abundantly one must first have access to the necessities of physical life, including food, drink, and shelter. Abundant life also requires a community--a place where an individual can find human love and concern. In short, abundant life requires the effective functioning of the entire household. To follow Jesus and to preach the Good News is to be concerned with all aspects of our community life together, spiritual, physical and interpersonal.
Managing God's Household
We are called to manage God's household--to be God's agents in a world filled with economic choices. As such, economic life and economic justice are a central and necessary concern for a people of faith. It is a valid Christian calling for an individual and for the church to be actively engaged in the struggle to reform and transform the economy so that it may provide all human beings with the access to livelihood and abundant life.
This is not a task we undertake alone. We will constantly need God's help as we seek to transform our individual lives and to work for greater justice in the structure of our economic and political institutions. It is only because we are assured of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the mercy of God that we dare undertake the task.
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