Kingdom Riches
September 23, 2007
Luke 16:1-13; Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
So my mom sent me a story from the Chattanooga newspaper last week about this guy who’s written a book about church signs and other roadside evangelical Christian icons that abound in the southern United States. His collection includes some pretty standard fair, such as “You do the math: 1 cross plus 3 nails equals 4-given,” as well as some amusing ones, such as “stop, drop and roll does not work in hell.” My favorite was, “eternal life guaranteed, just $49.95.”
Signs of southern culture? To be sure. Signs of the times? Perhaps. Signs of the Kingdom? Well ….
Still, I loved that last one because it provides such a wonderfully mixed, and, well mixed up metaphor. I think Jesus would be amused, although, I’m pretty sure he’d want to remind us that the economy of the empire is not at all the same as the economy of the household of God.
Jesus targets that mix of economies in the profoundly strange little parable of the dishonest manager. What are we to make of a story in which the guy who rips off his boss is held up as an exemplar of faithful living?
First, let’s acknowledge the unsettling familiarity of the tale. A guy in middle management gets a pink slip. One supposes that neoconservatives control the system so there’s no social safety net for him to rely upon. He’s feeling the sting of economic insecurity. Whether or not you’ve ever actually lost your job, it’s not difficult to imagine the sense of desperation this guy feels. He’ll do just about anything to protect himself, and, one supposes, his family. There’s really nothing at all unusual about any of that – about the desperate feelings that lead us to consider all kinds of actions.
But it what he does do that makes this story so profoundly strange, so unsettling, so utterly at odds with typical middle class morality.
In the midst of a crushing debt system – think extreme sub-prime mortgage lending with Tony Soprano as your banker – in the midst of that, he practices jubilee! He forgives debts. He realizes, albeit rather late in the game, that the system he is caught in is profoundly unfair, and he steps outside of it completely to practice kingdom economics rather than empire economics.
His realization, the story suggests, comes only at this moment of profound personal crisis. Until he gets the pink slip, presumably, he has gone along to get along and done just fine for himself.
Step back from this strange tale for a moment. Let me suggest that while it may be, in some sense, about any one of us as individuals, the word of God in this text is first and foremost for the church. Because we have gone along to get along for a long, long time in this culture. So much so that, in some instances, we can put up signs promising eternal life for less than 50 bucks and not even recognize that we’ve become captive to a culture and economy that are completely at odds with the movement Jesus set in motion.
We North American Christians find ourselves at the dawn of the 21st century no less exiles in a foreign land than did the people of Israel in the land of Babylon. We are living in the midst of our own Babylonian captivity and, like frogs in a pot of water headed toward boiling, we are too warm and cozy most of the time to recognize the we about to be cooked.
We do not know enough of our own condition to sing the sorrow songs of Jeremiah.
We so comfortably enjoy our unwitting service to the god of mammon, to the economy of the empire, that we do not think to ask after the balm in Gilead.
Yet the signs of the times – the signs of kairos time – are all around us – though seldom on church marquis, to be sure. Steep declines in church membership across the entire spectrum of Christianity – including conservative evangelical denominations – are but one such sign. Indeed, sometimes I believe that the declining membership is actually a sign of the health of gospel as it sheds a certain version of middle class American respectability.
Of far deeper concern than such measures as attendance and budgets, though, are the numerous instances of the ongoing cultural captivity of the church, and the signs of this are everywhere around us. At its most extreme, we witness church leaders blessing the military adventures of the empire and conflating cross and flag in public displays of support for the architects of empire.
Writing this summer in the Boston Globe, UVA professor Charles Marsh reflected on one such event: “a photograph in Time magazine during the 2004 presidential election of Christian Coalition activists in Ohio. Two men, both white, and both identified as Coalition members, are holding two crosses aloft. The crosses upon closer inspection appear to be made of balloons twisted together. Across the beam-section of one of the crosses was the "Bush-Cheney" logo, and alongside the president's name was the image of an American flag. In the second cross, the president's name appeared in full at the places where Jesus's hands were nailed.”
The image would have been every bit as offensive had the words read “Kerry-Edwards,” but militaristic aspect of the church’s cultural captivity tends to be expressed primarily in conservative evangelical circles.
In more progressive mainline churches, the cultural captivity of the church tends to be expressed more often in terms of our relationship to money, and our trust in the god of the market over the God of the universe. Too often, we really do believe we can find salvation on sale for $49.95; and if we’re really good shoppers we can find a better deal down the road. We do not really believe that our daily bread will be sufficient to our needs, but we do believe – as our lives testify – that we can surround ourselves with enough stuff that we will never hunger or thirst.
We don’t trust living water; we’d prefer bottled water instead, thank you very much.
And thus we live closer to the waters of Babylon than to the waters of baptism.
All of this is driven by our own deep-seated fears: fear of the other, fear of our own inadequacies, fear of failure. But we do not have to remain there. There is good news in all of this – indeed, the situation itself may be received as good news if we hear in it the call of Christ to live here and now as if another way is possible – because it is.
We can see it contours, as if through a glass dimly to be sure, but nonetheless emerging in our midst – in this very room.
We are called, in the present moment, not only to a certain shrewdness akin to the manager in Jesus’ tale, but moreover, to practice a kind of kingdom economics as well, shaped by the disturbing logic of jubilee – a mix of Sabbath rest and debt forgiveness that has both deep spiritual implications as well as practical applications to the situations we find ourselves in every day.
Got a grudge you’ve been nursing? Practice a bit of jubilee forgiveness and then take a Sabbath rest from resentment. Owe someone a debt of apology? Pay it off according to the economics of the beloved community – seven times seventy times and find in the transaction a bit of Sabbath peace and restored relationship.
In these and so many other ways, we become an alternative community of compassion, doing the work of justice in the world – not conformed to the values of the world but rather transforming them according to the gospel vision of love and justice.
All of this built on the network of relationships that binds together the beloved community of the church of Jesus Christ.
As I have noted before, in terms of community building, such relationships are critical, and they are built on our willingness to share of our own lives and experiences. So we’re going to take a couple of minutes now for the sharing of stories. Find someone here who you do not know well, and spend the next few minutes sharing your own response to some jubilee experience in your own life. When has someone forgiven you – or you forgiven someone else – that really made a difference in your life?
Luke 16:1-13; Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
So my mom sent me a story from the Chattanooga newspaper last week about this guy who’s written a book about church signs and other roadside evangelical Christian icons that abound in the southern United States. His collection includes some pretty standard fair, such as “You do the math: 1 cross plus 3 nails equals 4-given,” as well as some amusing ones, such as “stop, drop and roll does not work in hell.” My favorite was, “eternal life guaranteed, just $49.95.”
Signs of southern culture? To be sure. Signs of the times? Perhaps. Signs of the Kingdom? Well ….
Still, I loved that last one because it provides such a wonderfully mixed, and, well mixed up metaphor. I think Jesus would be amused, although, I’m pretty sure he’d want to remind us that the economy of the empire is not at all the same as the economy of the household of God.
Jesus targets that mix of economies in the profoundly strange little parable of the dishonest manager. What are we to make of a story in which the guy who rips off his boss is held up as an exemplar of faithful living?
First, let’s acknowledge the unsettling familiarity of the tale. A guy in middle management gets a pink slip. One supposes that neoconservatives control the system so there’s no social safety net for him to rely upon. He’s feeling the sting of economic insecurity. Whether or not you’ve ever actually lost your job, it’s not difficult to imagine the sense of desperation this guy feels. He’ll do just about anything to protect himself, and, one supposes, his family. There’s really nothing at all unusual about any of that – about the desperate feelings that lead us to consider all kinds of actions.
But it what he does do that makes this story so profoundly strange, so unsettling, so utterly at odds with typical middle class morality.
In the midst of a crushing debt system – think extreme sub-prime mortgage lending with Tony Soprano as your banker – in the midst of that, he practices jubilee! He forgives debts. He realizes, albeit rather late in the game, that the system he is caught in is profoundly unfair, and he steps outside of it completely to practice kingdom economics rather than empire economics.
His realization, the story suggests, comes only at this moment of profound personal crisis. Until he gets the pink slip, presumably, he has gone along to get along and done just fine for himself.
Step back from this strange tale for a moment. Let me suggest that while it may be, in some sense, about any one of us as individuals, the word of God in this text is first and foremost for the church. Because we have gone along to get along for a long, long time in this culture. So much so that, in some instances, we can put up signs promising eternal life for less than 50 bucks and not even recognize that we’ve become captive to a culture and economy that are completely at odds with the movement Jesus set in motion.
We North American Christians find ourselves at the dawn of the 21st century no less exiles in a foreign land than did the people of Israel in the land of Babylon. We are living in the midst of our own Babylonian captivity and, like frogs in a pot of water headed toward boiling, we are too warm and cozy most of the time to recognize the we about to be cooked.
We do not know enough of our own condition to sing the sorrow songs of Jeremiah.
We so comfortably enjoy our unwitting service to the god of mammon, to the economy of the empire, that we do not think to ask after the balm in Gilead.
Yet the signs of the times – the signs of kairos time – are all around us – though seldom on church marquis, to be sure. Steep declines in church membership across the entire spectrum of Christianity – including conservative evangelical denominations – are but one such sign. Indeed, sometimes I believe that the declining membership is actually a sign of the health of gospel as it sheds a certain version of middle class American respectability.
Of far deeper concern than such measures as attendance and budgets, though, are the numerous instances of the ongoing cultural captivity of the church, and the signs of this are everywhere around us. At its most extreme, we witness church leaders blessing the military adventures of the empire and conflating cross and flag in public displays of support for the architects of empire.
Writing this summer in the Boston Globe, UVA professor Charles Marsh reflected on one such event: “a photograph in Time magazine during the 2004 presidential election of Christian Coalition activists in Ohio. Two men, both white, and both identified as Coalition members, are holding two crosses aloft. The crosses upon closer inspection appear to be made of balloons twisted together. Across the beam-section of one of the crosses was the "Bush-Cheney" logo, and alongside the president's name was the image of an American flag. In the second cross, the president's name appeared in full at the places where Jesus's hands were nailed.”
The image would have been every bit as offensive had the words read “Kerry-Edwards,” but militaristic aspect of the church’s cultural captivity tends to be expressed primarily in conservative evangelical circles.
In more progressive mainline churches, the cultural captivity of the church tends to be expressed more often in terms of our relationship to money, and our trust in the god of the market over the God of the universe. Too often, we really do believe we can find salvation on sale for $49.95; and if we’re really good shoppers we can find a better deal down the road. We do not really believe that our daily bread will be sufficient to our needs, but we do believe – as our lives testify – that we can surround ourselves with enough stuff that we will never hunger or thirst.
We don’t trust living water; we’d prefer bottled water instead, thank you very much.
And thus we live closer to the waters of Babylon than to the waters of baptism.
All of this is driven by our own deep-seated fears: fear of the other, fear of our own inadequacies, fear of failure. But we do not have to remain there. There is good news in all of this – indeed, the situation itself may be received as good news if we hear in it the call of Christ to live here and now as if another way is possible – because it is.
We can see it contours, as if through a glass dimly to be sure, but nonetheless emerging in our midst – in this very room.
We are called, in the present moment, not only to a certain shrewdness akin to the manager in Jesus’ tale, but moreover, to practice a kind of kingdom economics as well, shaped by the disturbing logic of jubilee – a mix of Sabbath rest and debt forgiveness that has both deep spiritual implications as well as practical applications to the situations we find ourselves in every day.
Got a grudge you’ve been nursing? Practice a bit of jubilee forgiveness and then take a Sabbath rest from resentment. Owe someone a debt of apology? Pay it off according to the economics of the beloved community – seven times seventy times and find in the transaction a bit of Sabbath peace and restored relationship.
In these and so many other ways, we become an alternative community of compassion, doing the work of justice in the world – not conformed to the values of the world but rather transforming them according to the gospel vision of love and justice.
All of this built on the network of relationships that binds together the beloved community of the church of Jesus Christ.
As I have noted before, in terms of community building, such relationships are critical, and they are built on our willingness to share of our own lives and experiences. So we’re going to take a couple of minutes now for the sharing of stories. Find someone here who you do not know well, and spend the next few minutes sharing your own response to some jubilee experience in your own life. When has someone forgiven you – or you forgiven someone else – that really made a difference in your life?
posted by David Ensign at
6:37 AM
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