Rural economy
Many people think that economic matters are purely about money, for money makes the world go round. In our society, buying and selling, obtaining goods and services and trying to make our lives comfortable and without anxiety all depends on how much money is available. In the countryside, the divide between economic prosperity and intense, desperate poverty can be acute.
However, God, too, has an ‘economy’ which covers the divine relationship with creation. The terms of God’s economy as revealed in scripture, taught to us by Jesus and expedited through the unceasing activity of the Holy Spirit, sometimes jar severely against what we think we should be doing with our lives and our resources.
So Jesus, in talking about use of money and about rich and poor in human society, makes people think about the right relationship with God. When he is offered the trick question about paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22.15ff), he turns the
trap round to make a spiritual point – pay Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s. There is a sting in the tail of this reply. If you are bothered by this question about taxes and government, you have forgotten to listen to God’s desire. Similarly, Jesus turns out the traders in the temple, not because buying and selling is wrong, but because of the encroachment of commerce (with all its feeding off the poor) into a place where people should be focussed on a relationship with God.
The New Testament is clear that our relationship with God grows by means of a cost to us, which can be measured through offering time, talents and sharing money and possessions with others. This fashions us to fit within God’s economy, in which all human beings are equally valued and loved. That is why the parable of the vineyard seems so difficult to swallow – for us it is scandalous for someone to receive the same reward for five minutes’ work as someone who has worked all day. The
prodigal’s brother also voices protest against God’s scandalous love, preparing a costly feast for the person who chucked away the profits. But God’s economy does not conform to our ideas of effort and reward.
Jesus continually warns us to get beyond these ideas and start to think as God thinks, to put ourselves in a state of readiness. Ready to sacrifice ourselves to the needs of others, ready to go the extra mile and more to help those who cannot help themselves. Ready to reach out to those who are in trouble rather than to point the finger and condemn. Ready to give more than is asked, to release from debt, to change the lives of people who want and hope for nothing. By thinking like this we realise that it is possible to transform both human and spiritual economy, and to prepare ourselves to inherit the richness and treasure of heaven, eternal life with God.
Dr Anne Richards
Mission Theology Adviser, Church of England
www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk
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church and economy
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