LTS Chapel, Thursday, October 10, 2024

  21st Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

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I learned the other day that the top two industries contributing to the world economy, which together account for two-thirds of our global economy, our global life, are manufacturing and retail. Two-thirds of our daily economic existence, which means our material and physical existence, are entangled with and reliant upon the world making things and buying things. And really, the manufacturing industry exists to make things that people buy, so really two-thirds of the global economy relies on people buying things. The top industries in our world aren't health care or education or the arts, not even sports. They're about buying things.

So, for the world to survive, and by that I mean for billions of people to keep living, working, eating, having shelter over the heads and clothes on their bodies, for all of that to continue, we all need to keep buying things. We all need to participate in what is called a growth economy. A growth economy is based on, well, growth. In order to keep people employed, the economy has to produce both goods and more people to purchase those goods. Only in this way can the economic cycle continue so that everybody connected to this cycle can work, buy what they need, and live. 

The growth economy, as Greta Thunberg so famously put it in 2019, is "a fairy tale of eternal economic growth." More goods, more people to make those goods, more goods to serve those people, and on and on. Forever. It's not actually sustainable, but my point today is that in this fairy tale, the ones with the power to purchase goods flourish at the cost of those who have produce those goods. The heartbeat of our economy is goods, not people. And therefore, the production of those goods is prioritized over the well-being of the people who make them. People, who are one of the means of production, become the tools of production, forced to produce as many goods as possible, at high cost to themselves. The standard of measurement in a growth economy is gross domestic product, not the quality of life of the workers, and so we have an economy where the exploitation of people becomes a necessary part of the system. 

And yet how are we to extricate ourselves? How is this world's economy to come to a halt and move to a place of equilibrium, which will require what some call degrowth? How can we possibly shrink the world's economy without inflicting collateral damage on those who are most precariously situated in our economy, the ones whose lives, exploited as they are, depend on production? The piece workers who make the clothes, the oil field workers who extract the materials for our cars and our houses, the miners who extract lithium for the electronics that we are using right this very moment, they will be completely without any wages at all if we take a concerted effort to cut production. A degrowth economy, a global reduction in consumption, will cost millions upon millions of people their livelihoods. Their children will starve. Of course we hate this current growth economy. Of course we understand how exploitative it is. But what other option is there?

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Jesus, looking at the rich man, loved him and said, "go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor." When the rich man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Systems that rely on exploitation of goods and labour have been around for centuries, actually. Even in Jesus' time. According to Biblical studies scholar Steven Friesen, "In agrarian society [like Galilee] wealth was based on the ownership of land. Most land was controlled by a small number of wealthy, elite families. The landowners rented the land for tenant farmers, who - together with their families and possibly slaves - actually worked the land." Those tenant farmers were responsible for ensuring a productive enough harvest that they could feed themselves and from which they were to pay their taxes, which in turn paid for the ruling class's luxuries. (Taxes came first, mind you.) And yet without farming, the labourers would have no home and no food. Their children would starve. The rich man could have sold what he owned, but then where would his farmers and their families live? The money they received from the sale of his land would not be enough for them to purchase their own land.

It was a system that seemed impossible to overturn, even though everybody participating in it knew how destructive it was. So of course when Jesus told his disciples that this economic system was a barrier to God's kingdom, they asked, "then who can be saved?" How can we live otherwise? How can we literally exist in any other way? Of course we don't like this system. Of course we hear the prophet's words in Amos that God hates this system. "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God." But what other option is there? If we are all tangled up together in this system, where bringing down the system will cause pain and suffering, who then can be saved?

"For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." 

For a long time, I thought Jesus was saying that even though we are all caught in sinful systems, we can be saved because God makes it possible to forgive us. Very soteriological - whichever atonement theory you prefer, because God sent Christ, who accomplishes our salvation, God makes it possible to save us. For God, all forgiveness is possible.

But I'm not so sure that's what Jesus is saying here. I mean of course, yes, we are forgiven because of Christ. But I'm not sure that specifically is what Jesus is saying here. Because if God saves us through Christ, what's the point of Jesus rebuking the rich who take advantage of the poor? If we're all saved in the end, it doesn't matter. And yet that isn't what we see in Scripture. The prophets, old and new, all spend time talking about the evilness of the system. And they tell us that God punishes those who participate in the system. When Jesus says that for God, all things are possible, I don't think he's offering an escape clause for the rich.

I think Jesus is reassuring us that there is, actually, a way out of the entire system, a way in which we can all thrive without a growth economy. I don't know what that way is. I can't imagine how we might both exit the growth economy and build something different without people suffering. BUT, I think that is exactly what Jesus is saying. For mortals, it is impossible for us to imagine, but for God, all things are possible. 

This is Jesus telling us that while we cannot envision something different, God can. While we cannot imagine a global economy that is NOT built on growth, God can. While we cannot envision a church that is not built on increasing membership, God can. While perhaps we cannot envision a seminary that is not built on increasing enrollment, God can. God alone can. 

I don't know if you caught that - the first thing that Jesus says to the rich man is, "No one is good but God alone." It's a variation on the prayer that every Jew knows, Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Ehad, sometimes translated as, Hear O Israel, God alone is our God. When Jesus says that God alone is good, and then calls the rich man and all his listeners out of their economic captivity, he ends that call by saying, in essence, I know you all think this is impossible, but not for God; for God alone all things are possible. God alone can extricate us all from economic captivity.

Which is why, even in the work of our classes, in the work of the seminary, in the work of the church, in the work of the congregations and ministries you participate in, we are called to focus on God alone. Not on economic viability, or sustainability, not on ensuring our own career prospects or livelihood. Because these things all trap us; they are all part of the growth economy. Instead, we are called to focus on Christ, who calls us to trust in God, who alone is good and who alone provides. Christ calls us to trust in the God who corrects things so that the first are last, and the last first, and around again and around again, so that in the end all receive what they need to thrive, as it should be in the kingdom of God. And so, regardless of what life plans or strategic plans or retirement plans tell us we need to do, we trust God alone, who in the face of the impossible, makes our collective well-being possible. Thanks be to God. Amen.