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InkenSoul

Write the World

The Economics of Rebirth

Posted on | March 18, 2010 | Comments Off

In Chapter 6 of The Irresistible Revolution, author Shane Claiborne, takes us beyond the brokerage of capitalism and the vague idealism of communism, to the economy of love. In the Simple Way ministry, potential donors are not asked to simply write a check, they are asked to come and visit, to see the tent villages and hungry children. “Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love.”

I watched the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night, and was struck by what Charlie’s grandfather said when the boy offered to sell his golden ticket so that the family would have money to eat. The old man said that there was plenty of money in the world and only five golden tickets. Don’t trade it for something as common as money.

Claiborne discussed the complexity of simplicity. Consider the complexity involved in producing a dollar bill to hand to the poor. The government must establish the legal tender. The printing press must be created. The paper woven with special fibers and inlaid strips. The ink specially colored. The printing and cutting. The distribution. And the time it takes for the giver to earn the dollar. Now consider the simplicity of looking a person in the eye and telling them that they are worth something.

How simple it is to separate ourselves from those in need by dangling a dollar in front of them, using currency as the current through which our charity flows. The distance of a dollar is all that has ever been necessary to keep us from truly loving one another.

I have at many times in my life been in the economic classification of ‘destitute’, but I have never been so poor as to not be able to give love. For when all else is gone, love is the one thing I have left. And despite all the tools and machinations we humans devise to produce it, love is truly the only currency we ever need and will never run out of.

As the author discussed fasting and feasting, he wrote that early Christians taught that charity was merely returning what we have stolen from the poor, for the extra coat in your closet, the bread in your cupboard, and the shoes you never wear all belong to them. When considering the Buddhist idea of nonattachment and the willingness to transcend the egotistic idea of ownership of material possessions, we put ourselves in the grand consciousness of the Theology of Enough whereby we are granted the inexhaustible joy of sharing what has been placed in our path with those who stumble upon theirs.

God’s economy does not measure how much grain we have in our warehouses or how much interest we earn on our 401K, but how many lives are changed by the simple steps we take on our way through the lives that are given to us.

I’ve often heard speculation on the miracle of the fish and the loaves, when Jesus managed to feed 5,000 people with only a basketful of food. Some say that as Jesus and the disciples started distributing their food, others in the crowd followed suit, and it was enough to feed the entire crowd. Whether one believes that fish and loaves materialized out of thin air or that viral generosity created the abundance, it is still a living example of the mystical multiplication of the kingdom of God . From the dust of the earth, God created man, and from his love, God creates abundance.

In this day and age, there are many whispers of another economy among an outpouring of abundance preachers who teach that God’s wish is for us to be financially prosperous. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from believing that abundance is our birthright, but I see it as a tell tale sign that in all of the teachings of this paradigm that I have seen, right at the top of the list of ‘things you need to know’ are to give of your time, talent, and treasure.

The crux of living a life of abundance is not only having all that we need, but in generating the spirit of giving our time to establish relationships with those who need to be visited by pure love, giving our talents to serve the machine of community, and giving of the money we earn to fill in the gaps for others who have less. Through this giving of ourselves, we realize the radical interdependence of the world, and the spiritual truth that we are all One. As Jesus said, “When you’ve done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done it unto Me.”

The chapter ends by the author defining himself as a theological prankster, as exhibited by the Wall Street Jubilee event at which the Simple Way ministry filled Wall Street with $100 bills with the word ‘Love’ written on them. Others threw change into the street. Some shared food and clothing. I only wish that I could have been there to witness it.

As it is, this chapter reveals the utmost point of God’s economy: “The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away.”

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