by Darryl Dash

I got up yesterday ready to speak about God’s upside-down economy. “Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all’” (Mark 9:35). Mind-blowing stuff.

But before heading out, I checked Google Reader. I read about the top religion blogs according to Technorati (http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/living/religion/) and began thinking about how nice it would be to make the top ten.

Later on I heard somebody pray for the staff of the church. “Especially,” he said... I waited to hear my name. “...for Jonathan.” Why not me? I thought. I quickly pushed the thought aside, but I have to admit being glad when he finally got around to me.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the irony. I was about to speak about the first becoming last, servants of all. This is how things work in God’s economy. Jesus himself modeled this. If anybody had a right to be number one, it was Jesus. But he took the path of obscurity and service, a path that lead him directly to his own death.

He even used an infant as an object lesson. Back then, infants weren’t seen as all cute and full of potential. They were seen as resource hogs who consumed and demanded much and gave nothing in return. They weren’t even considered full persons. They were dependent, vulnerable, and unlearned, and had no status or rights. Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.” In other words, whoever welcomes those who are seen as disposable and of no value are living according to God’s economy. We know we get it when we welcome those that everyone else rejects, those who can suck our time and resources and give nothing in return.

I was about to speak about all of this, but I didn’t get it. Not really. I understand the kingdom economy, but I still find myself as baffled as the disciples were.

I’m flunking kingdom economics. It’s especially embarrassing because I pass myself off as one of the teachers.

I’m flunking, but I refuse to drop out. I’m still hoping that I will one day I’ll get it. I take comfort from the fact that the disciples seemed to get it eventually. Maybe one day the world’s economy will seem upside-down, and the kingdom economy will make much more sense.

I’m a pretty poor learner. Good thing that Jesus is a good teacher. 

by Joe Manafo

I’ve been tempted on more than one occasion to ‘key’ someone’s car. With house key firmly pressed between thumb and index finger, I’ve been more than ready to drag it deeply starting from the front fender, across the doors and ending at the taillight. I’m making a statement. I want them to experience the hassle of calling their insurance company, trying to juggle the options of a new paint job, deductible costs, the potential of raised premiums, or (best case scenario) have them live with the scratch as it turns from shiny metal to rusty brown and ultimately creates an access point for full on corrosion.

Until now, I’ve resisted the temptation. Barely.

What would cause an upstanding citizen such as myself to go to such lengths?

An improperly parked automobile.

Well, I suppose that’s the external reason, but its what brews below, it’s the combination of factors that when compounded send me in a direction that is less than respectable.  If I had to diagnose my issue, it would boil down to the following triggers:

The Size Factor

Are cars, trucks and cross-overs getting bigger, or are parking spots getting smaller?

What is it about the general public that has auto manufacturers making oversized vehicles? Is it that we have more stuff to haul than we used to? Is it that we’re fatter than we once were? Or are we compensating for something else?

But maybe its not the cars after all. Perhaps it’s the malls and stores designing the shopping experience to begin meters outside the front doors. I can hear them now… “Let’s create tension in the parking lots. Let’s make the parking spots as small as possible, forcing people to squeeze in and make them feel like they just made it. Then we’ll  stretch the spots as far as the eye can see away from the doors. We’ll intentionally create a culture where people will fight for the best spot up close…A ‘get it before someone else does’ mentality…then they’ll be primed to bring that same angst into our stores, ready to grasp what is rightfully theirs before someone else does.”

The Ripple Effect

One improperly parked vehicle has the potential of disrupting an entire lot.

When one person parks too close to the line it presents a dilemma to their upcomming neighbour: Do I park so close to the improperly parked vehicle that I will have difficulty exiting my own, or do I push the limit on the opposite side creating the exact same problem?

Then there’s the people who feel the compulsion to deliberately take up two spots. A deliberate message is being sent here and it says I’m better than you, the rules don’t apply to me, and even if you wanted to stop me, you couldn’t.

In situations like these one can be left feeling powerless. What are the options? The damage is already done, and things won’t iron themselves out until after closing. And even then, with the next shopping day mere hours away, there is an excellent chance it will happen all over again.

The Alarm Medley

You’ve heard them before. A lone vehicle cycles through a variety pre-programmed sounds and sirens. Crying for help, the stationary vehicle is making a statement: Someone is in my space.  Or maybe its saying ‘Leave Me Alone.’ Either way, a violation of some kind has occurred, and everyone’s going to hear about it.

In my mind, these same triggers surface when a disciple of Jesus comes to terms with his or her own participation in the Kingdom’s Economy:

The Size Factor opens our eyes to the situation we find ourselves in, and calls us to align ourselves with the Kingdom’s imperative of stewardship. In addition, nature and nurture are put aside as one is confronted with who it is they are meant to be in a world that calls them to be something else.

The Ripple Effect begs the question of whether or not we will continue in a destructive pattern, or if we’ll attempt to redeem that same pattern. Even if its only one spot (home/friendship/neighbourhood/church/moment) at a time, the Kingdom’s Economy challenges us to play by a different set of rules.

The Alarm Medley hurts the most. It reveals that left to our own devices, the only time we become vocal is when our own space has been invaded. Potentially, all hell could be breaking loose around us, but as long as we’re not threatened, then all is well. The Kingdom’s Economy leads us to look beyond ourselves, and helps us understand that there’s more to our mission then just keeping ourselves safe and satisfied.

On more than one occasion these thoughts have rushed through my mind. Sometimes I’ve expressed my disapproval out-loud, other times I’ve mumbled expletives under my breath. As of late, however, my first instinct has not been to make a statement or to scrape through clear coat and paint, but to look back to see how I’ve parked.

"Events such as the Evolving Church conference help us address several of our core values.  We are committed to social responsibility and specifically we uphold biblical justice.  Furthermore, we are committed to strategic cooperation, partnering with those of like-minded message, mission, passion and purpose." 

- David Freeman, Vice President, The Christian Missionary Alliance in Canada

by Kester Brewin

It’s one of those stories that jumps from the page at you. A man – a good guy by all accounts – comes to Jesus with the blunt question that others had probably been too scared to ask: how do I get eternal life? You can imagine the wry smile breaking across Jesus’ face. ‘It’s simple, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Just obey the commandments.’ The man is perhaps more relaxed, more confident now, and comes back at him: which ones? To which he gets the obvious reply: don’t kill people, don’t be unfaithful, don’t steal stuff, don’t lie… Yeah, yeah, yeah the man says, cutting Jesus off before he recites the entire list. ‘I’ve done all that…’
 
And then comes the hit. Jesus turns, fixes him with his gaze and speaks right to the heart of the matter: go and sell all you have, and give the money to the poor. The man turns away sadly and walks away, the camera holding a long shot as he walks off into the distance, slowly and thoughtfully. He is a rich man, gutted.
 
As we’re thinking about ‘Kingdom Economy’ I think this story is very pertinent because the economy of the Kingdom is so different to the economy that we are so deeply enmeshed in. Capitalism is not simply an economic system, some way we have chose to order our lives, it is the very iris of our society – almost nothing enters our consciousness without being filtered by it.
 
So if we are to think about how to order our lives around a Kingdom Economy, the first question that must go is ‘how much should I give?’ We’re used to thinking about tithes, about percentages and figures – the amount we can hand over to be ‘good enough.’ Jesus makes it clear: if you’re thinking about how much, you’ve still got your Capitalist glasses on, not your Kingdom ones, your ‘what can I do’ work ethic, not your ‘what can God do’ spirit.
 
Slajov Zizek (a Marxist Atheist philosopher who remains completely fascinated with Christianity) gave a brilliant talk at the Royal Society of Arts recently (see video embed) in which he critiqued the Altruist-Capitalist agenda of ‘the new philanthropists’ like Bill Gates. The issue is complex, but I want to be provocative and suggest that Zizek is right: in Kingdom economics, the Gates foundation is ultimately part of the problem, not the solution.
 
When you are buying a coffee from Starbucks, you are simultaneously ‘buying into’ an act of altruism by doing something for the poor coffee farmers etc. etc. As their strapline goes, "It's Not Just What You Are Buying, It's What You Are Buying Into." Through this sort of company – and through schemes like Brand (Red) we are encouraged to see that we are purchasing our redemption from being only a consumer: we are buying in order to fulfil our ethical duties. We are attempting to buy, in other words, something that cannot be bought – a gift, an act of generosity.
 
It’s this sense of capitalism being the mode by which we will help the poor which I think Jesus is critiquing in this story too. When he tells the rich man to go and sell all he has he is asking him to totally change the economic mode by which he sees the world. He is saying that the Kingdom works not as a by-product of capitalism, but as a radically different economics – ‘ordering of the house’ – altogether. As Zizek concludes with a quote from Oscar Wilde: ‘the worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves.’ Why? Because this superficial pleasantry prolonged a destructive system.

In a world which has been ravaged by the pursuit of profit, grand gestures of altruism by those who have harvested huge profits through companies with less than altruistic market strategies are, in Jesus’ eyes, like the money thrown into the collection box by the rich. Showy, but not part of the solution. In a world where huge bonuses are paid to bankers for making money, while governments step in and protect their jobs when they lose on a huge scale - while letting low-paid manual labourers go to the wall - the new economics of the Kingdom is desperately needed.
 
So in a sense then, Starbucks are right. It’s not what you are buying, it’s what you are buying into. And we need to be very aware of what we think we are buying into whether that be paying for a coffee, playing the stock market or paying for a conference - as James Shelley points out below.

You can view the Zizek video here.