2017-08-07
Brooke Strong
The Economy of God
Isaiah 55:1-5. New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
An Invitation to Abundant Life
55 Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
I painted myself into a corner this week in my sermon preparation. I wrote about half of what would have been probably the most boring sermon I ever preached. You might argue that every sermon I do is boring, but this one would have convinced you.
The material was of great interest to me, but I couldn’t find a way to convey it to you. Not because you are stupid or wouldn’t be able to grasp the lofty and heady concepts I would have offered, but because it showed how nerdy I can be with Bible study and research. When I wrote it up I pictured preaching it and I … kind… of …yawned…
So instead, I focused on a collection of church related jokes that a friend in Kent sends me from time to time. Sort of an exercise to get the juices moving.
Late one night, a preacher was driving on a country road and had a wreck. A farmer stopped by on his tractor as he headed home and seeing the accident he pulled over and asked, “Sir, are you ok?” The preacher said, “Yes, I’m just fine.” Then he paused and measured how this could be an opportunity to share of God’s power. So he added, “Good thing the Lords was riding with me.” After a bit of thought the farmer pushed back his hat and scratched his head and said, “Well, maybe you better let the Lord ride with me because the way you drive, you’re likely to kill Him!”
Ok, second try-
A minister was fond of pure horseradish and kept a bottle of it on his table. He offered some to a guest, who unwittingly took a big spoonful. When the guest could finally speak again, he gasped, “A lot of ministers preach hellfire, but you’re the first one I’ve come across handing out samples!”
Maybe third try is a charm. Actually, this one is a groaner.
A pastor was famous for his sermons lasting exactly 22 minutes. Then one unfortunate morning the sermon went on for 45 minutes. At lunch, his wife asked what had gone wrong. “It was just one of those things,” the minister replied moodily. “My trick is to slide a cough drop under my tongue just before I start the sermon. It always melts in exactly 22 minutes, and that way I know when it’s time to stop. This morning I was 40 minutes in before I realized my cough drop was a suspender button.”
On further reflection, you would probably rather hear my nerdy Bible study results than my jokes. So back on track.
I remember in seminary being introduced to the concept of “The Economy of God” by one of my professors. At that time, the professor was discussing how the idea of economies between the secular world – the plane in which we inhabit, were very different from the kind of economy we see in the biblical understanding of God, and how God manages creation.
Economy, according to the dictionary, is more than the money matters of a culture. Economy’s primary definition is, “efficiency and conservation of effort in the operation or achievement of something.” An economy, then, is an achievement tool by which we measure our accomplishments, goals and intentions. Of course, there is a financial definition as well, but the primary definition of an economy is the operation of the structures that hold up a group, culture or nation.
This is why the political news in Venezuela is of such concern to the people there, and around the world. The vote, which I think is today, will determine many things about the political future of Venezuela, most primary the potential to re-write their constitution. The fear is that the current president, who serves more as a dictator than a president, will force his congress re-write the constitution so that his political views can suddenly become legal.
This action could change many things for what was not long ago the most prosperous nation in that region.
In the mid 1800 Karl Marx began to write about the concept of Communism, which eventually became more defined by Marx as Marxism. The Latin works from which Communism sprouts are the same words we use for Communion. The word both pick up on the idea of “with” (com) and union, or being together.
In Act chapter 2 we read about the very earliest days of the Christian church,
43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Some have wondered if Marx and the early framers of Communism were bolstered and informed by the practice of the early church in Jerusalem. The Early Church began living “in common,” and then selling what they had to create a means to distribute to each one as they have need. While this model is biblical, it also apprises some of what went into the development of Communism. It became an economy but it was missing one major component, and that, it could be argued, was the presence of One who lives above the realm of this life. Communism offered no moderating influence of one above the system. It had not place for God.
This experiment in Christian unity, as recorded in Acts, was a noble effort by early Christians who understood that Jesus was intimately concerned about the poor and needy. The early church was convinced that Jesus was to return at any moment to take believers to Heaven. So to give everything they had to relieve the destitute was something they could see Jesus doing. He was, after all, coming to claim his church and all believers as he said. And he might do that later this week, so let’s sell the donkey, the pottery, the table and take the money and relieve the sadness in the world and leading more people to follow Jesus.
Their fervor was misplaced and as Jesus tarried and the faith spread, there is no evidence that the early Christians ever replicated this practice again. Instead, the scriptures are clear that the early believers began to disperse to the outlying areas, just as Jesus commanded them in Acts 1:8.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus predicted that the early Christians would overflow from the Holy City, into the surround regions and then into the entire world.
And this is a taste of the new Economy that God was instituting.
And now we return to one of the earliest clues that God was going to do a new thing as Isaiah recorded in his prophecy.
Ho, - Part of my nerdy study was to figure out the word “Ho!” The word "ho" is expressive of calling and carries in it an invitation. It is not unlike the modern “Yo!” which is an invitation for a response. “Yo Susi – how you doin?” might be an example. Ho was a word to draw attention and seemed to mean that the listener was being called into something.
Then God begins to really mix things up, and in these following lines you can hear echoes of the early church in Acts. God says if you are thirsty,
everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; you are welcome and invited to come and get a drink. Then it goes deeper and God makes a strange statement, and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come and buy food and drink, even if you have no money. This is a very different understanding of economy.
In Christ there is introduced a new economy of God which breaks from every other human endeavor at creating structures and means to give what is needed to live.
Jesus stood among the people and somehow fed them all by the power of God. The ill were made well. The tormented were freed from their banes.
The disciples sold all they owned and made life better for the poor, giving hope to much of Jerusalem.
Jesus sent his followers into all the world to preach that there is hope in the love and acceptance of God. They followed his command and the world has never been the same.
And sure, there is always someone who loves to point out all of the sadness and abuses that have been played out in the name of Jesus and the church. My response is to take Jesus and the church out of the accusation, and look at the rest of human history and explain humanities inhumanity to each other. It exists without God as much as we are accused as creating it with God.
I have visited incomprehensibly inpoverished villages in South Africa, Puerto Rico, Poland and Eastern Europe, Mexico, Canada and on US Native American reservations, where poverty and hardship snatched the very air from my lungs. I have often wondered how this can be so. How people can be made to live this way.
I have heard some Christians remind me that, “Jesus said the poor will always be with you,” as if that is a valid reason to do less than we might do to help others. I also hear Jesus telling us that when we help the least in our society, then we are truly helping him, as Matthew 25 points out.
So what then is the Economy of God? What is it that Isaiah and other prophets in the Old Testament, and Jesus and the Early Church are trying to convey to us some 2000 years later?
Well, for me the answer of what God wants as we create structures which will provide for us all, are found in these words from the prophet Micah – God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you; but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Or, as The Message puts it, But God has already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.
So if we do the right thing, love to be kind, and walk with God, never placing ourselves above God, well, that’s a pretty sound foundation to live in the kind of world God envisions for all humans.
And, by the grace of God and the blessing of Jesus, we are given a meal in which we might find the strength and courage to live as Christ would have us live.
So friends, as an old gospel songs put it,
“Come and dine the master calleth, come and dine;
You can feast at Jesus’ table all the time.
He who fed the multitudes, he turned the water into wine.
To the hungry calleth now, come and dine.”
Amen