Oikonomia
Wednesday, 03 February 2010 18:44

by Len Hjalmarson

In his seminal work “Liberating the Church” (1983) Howard Snyder reminded us that our word "ecology" is related to the Greek word "oikos" (house) and oikonomia (economy). The whole world is God's household, and his ordering of it is his economy. 

Snyder writes that, “Fundamentally, the Universe is not ordered logically,, psychologically, nor sociologically, but ecologically.” (50) Synder goes on to connect God’s rule to shalom, an embracing metaphor. He continues, 
 
Will we opt for technology or ecology? This is not an either-or choice, but a question of dominant models. Will we view the world essentially as a machine or as a garden? Will we see the earth as a factory or as a home? Will we opt for technology or ecology? This is not an either-or choice but a question of dominant models… If the controlling reality is technosystem, mechanistic technology takes over and life suffers from being squeezed into the “clockwork orange” habitat for which it was 
never meant…. (43)
 
The word "economy" is important in the New Testament. Occurring in Eph.1:10, it describes God's plan for all creation. Christ is seated "in the heavenlies;" He is Lord of all. The Church is called to manifest the first fruits of a plan of reconciliation which extends to all creation, for "the whole earth is full of His glory." Redemption includes the liberation of creation from its bondage to futility (Ro.8:19-22). The Jesus follower, receiving the inheritance of the Spirit and promised the world, is set free to let go of the drive for wealth and power: set free to serve.
 
It’s a radical picture that has been hammered into us in the past few years by NT Wright, Brian McLaren, William Cavanaugh, James KA Smith, and the list goes on. It feels like we are finally escaping the dualism of sacred/secular, spirit/body, social/spiritual.
 
The ordering of God's house extends to all creation. The Christian's role, then, is to be an "oikonomos," a steward in God's house, extending the kingdom by incarnating Jesus' loving Presence. The exegesis of Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2 makes Christ the archetype for human dominion over nature. In the Old Testament Psalm the point is made that the world is in humankinds' care. 
 
In Hebrews, Christ is identified as the Word of God through whom all things were created. In Col.1:15-17 He “upholds all things.” Christians are called to participate in Christ's role as sustainer of creation.
 
This sense of connection to the land recalls many voices from the Old Testament. "Land" is the fourth most frequent occurring noun in the OT, becoming a more dominant theme than even "covenant." Elmer Martens points out that land has four theological dimensions: as promise, gift, blessing, and in relation to a specific life-style (God’s Design).
 
From Mt. Sinai had come these words: "When you come into the land which I shall give you, the land shall keep a sabbath unto the LORD" (Lv.25:2). The text which follows points up two purposes: a religious one--to witness to God's ownership; and a humanitarian one--that the poor of the people may eat.
 
Martens points out that land, Yahweh, and Israel were bound together in covenant. Richard Austin in his book, Hope for the Land, (1988) wrote that those who manage land are "tempted to create a sabbathless society in which land is never rested, debts are never cancelled, slaves are never released . . .and all of life can be reduced to a smoothly functioning machine. The powerful must resist this temptation, stop managing, and relax in openness to their community; then concerns for equity, justice, and mercy may come to the fore.”
 
And all this relates strongly to the vision we have been sold of “the good life,” the gospel of Empire. Brazilians destroy massive tracts of Amazonia because it somehow represents for them the hope of a prosperous future. The forests of British Columbia and Washington fall for similar reasons. Overfishing, toxic waste and the irretrievable loss of one hundred species a day: the welfare of the entire world hinges upon the land, but somehow the more immediate concerns about jobs and profits take precedence. In the words of a great native American, Chief Seathl, we "kidnap the earth from our children."
 
Land, then, is more than acreage or territory. It is a theological symbol. I love that we are coming to the place where habitat and habitus may again merge. In The Solace of Fierce Landscapes Belden Lane describes the intimate connection between spirit and place. Belden writes that this connection,
 
“..is hard to grasp for those of us living in a post-Enlightenment technological society. Landscape and spirituality are not, for us, inevitably interwoven. We experience no inescapable link between our “place” and our way of conceiving the holy, between habitat and habitus, where one lives and how one practices a habit of being. Our concern is simply to move quickly (and freely) as possible from one place to another. We are bereft of rituals of entry that allow us to participate fully in the places we inhabit.
 “Without a habitus - particularly one that is drawn, at least in part, from the rhythm of the land around us - our habitat ceases to be a living partner in the pursuit of common wholeness. We become alienated from an environment that seems indifferent, even hostile. Habitat turns into scenery, inconsequential background. Habitus is reduced to a nonsacramental, individualistic quest for transcendent experience. We lose any sense of being formed in community, particularly in a tradition that allows us to act unconsciously, with ease and delight, out of a deep sense of what is natural to us and to our “milieu.” We are, in short, a people without “habit,” with no common custom, place, or dress to lend us shared meaning.”
 
Land, place, habitus -- land is real and spatially definable. In modernity we privileged the Universal over the particular. It’s taking some time to unlearn this worldview and recover a shalom reality. Habitus points to the wholeness and value of life in this world. Quality of life is all-embracing: relating to Yahweh, neighbor, and the environment. Shalom embraces all these meanings. The promise of land and all that it signifies keeps God's design firmly rooted in the world, in theincarnation itself, and leads us to see the wholeness of the call to discipleship, an ecology of God’s design.

  

Len is a writer, pastor, student and software developer living in Kelowna, BC, in the heart of the vineyards and orchards of the Okanagan valley. He is a regional representative for RESONATE. He is a co-editor of Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ekklesial Revolution. He is currently involved in co-editing Fresh and ReFresh: Church Planting and Urban Mission in Post-Christendom Canada. He is the father of two teenage girls, married to Betty, an RN who works with women in transition. They also care for a Siamese cat who thinks she is God.  He blogs at nextreformation.com

 
 

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