In my previous article, I argued that Jesus preached a
Kingdom gospel. A gospel which maintained that the long-awaited shalom of the
Rule or Kingdom of God, prophesied by Isaiah and other prophets, was breaking
into history and could be entered into now by anyone who would take Jesus’s
yoke upon him- or herself, learning from him how to live, learning from him how
to appropriate the blessings of this Kingdom shalom—the blessings of
forgiveness, peace, justice, healing, joy, and God’s sweet presence—and minister
them to others. To be sure, I suggested, Jesus thought of these blessings as
available at present in only a preliminary sort of way. The Kingdom, said
Jesus, is like a mustard seed: it starts small.
But don't underestimate the power and goodness of this
mustard-seed Kingdom shalom. For though it is now small in our midst, and we
enjoy but foretastes of its blessings of forgiveness, peace, justice, healing,
joy, and God’s sweet presence, the foretastes of these things are good, deeply
precious, like a pearl you might find, said Jesus, which is so valuable you'd
be willing to sell all that you possess to lay hold of that pearl.
I suggested in that article that a central practice
enjoined by Jesus on his followers, a practice whereby they could enter into
these blessings of Kingdom shalom and minister them to others, was the practice
of familial community—relating to one another as family—and that a central mark
of their practice of that family life was economic sharing with the poor and
marginalized. In this article, we’ll explore that theme in more detail.
Just what sort of economic sharing was envisioned by the
early Jesus movement? What did it look like? What was Jesus’s teaching about
sharing one’s personal wealth and possessions with those in poverty and on the
margins? And what implications does it have for us today as followers of Jesus?
What sort of economic sharing ought we be practicing?
Those are our questions.
Two paradigms
Toward answering them, let me briefly explain two very
different paradigms for thinking about money: two very different philosophies
of wealth. These two philosophies of wealth before us, we can ask which comes
closest to the practices Jesus was endorsing.
Perhaps the best way to get hold of the differences
between these philosophies is to start with a question: What sort of moral
claim, if any, do the needy have on my excess goods (goods above and beyond
what is necessary and useful for life and work: luxuries)?
Put differently,
what, if any, of my excess wealth do the needy have a right to?
According to the Roman view the answer is “none.” I am
not morally obligated to give anything of my excess wealth to those in need. I
may decide to give up some of my excess goods in an act of charity, but
charity, on this view, is what ethicists call supererogatory: commendable but
not morally required.
So the Roman view
of wealth: The poor and needy have no right to my excess wealth; I am not
morally obligated to use any of it in care of those who suffer. I may choose
to, but that falls into the category of charity: what is good but not
obligatory.
The alternative view doesn’t have a widely accepted label;
I’ll call it the “rigorist” view.
The rigorist’s answer to the question what, if any, of my
excess wealth (wealth above and beyond what is necessary and useful for life
and work) is, well, all of it.
On this view, use of my surplus to care for the poor and
needy is not a matter of charity—good but not obligatory—but a matter of
justice: it’s what the poor and needy have a right to.1
An interesting
contemporary defense of the rigorist view is found in the writings of the controversial
Princeton ethicists Peter Singer. Singer’s argument takes its start from a thought
experiment:
On your way to work each day, you pass a small pond. One
day, you notice that a child has fallen in and is having trouble staying
afloat. You look around and see that you are the only one who can help. You can
easily wade in and save the child, but after a moment’s thought, you realize
that, if you do, you’ll ruin the rather expensive shoes and slacks you’re
wearing and be late for work. You pass by and the child dies.
What would we think of someone, asks Singer, who behaved
this way? We’d think such conduct morally abominable.
Compare though to this “case of the shoes”:
In your mailbox is a fundraising letter from the Against
Malaria Foundation. After reading it, you realize that, were you to send them a
regular portion of your excess income each month toward the purchase of
mosquito nets for use in the developing world, you could prevent the deaths of
several children who would otherwise die of malaria. But you throw the letter
into your trash basket, using the excess money instead for regular and
unnecessary shoe purchases.
And here is something puzzling: were someone to do this,
we likely wouldn’t think such conduct morally abominable. We’d think: that’s
life in America. Most of us do this sort of thing all the time, without
thinking twice about it.
The reason this is puzzling is, when you stop to think
about it, it is difficult to see what morally relevant difference there could
be between the two cases. Put differently, when you stop to think about it,
it’s difficult to isolate a feature present in the pond case but absent in the
shoes case that explains why it is that, in the former case, one’s conduct is
morally abominable, but in the latter, it’s not.
1 Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent work on
justice gives powerful and eloquent expression to this idea. See, for example,
Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 62ff.
Let me give some
examples of features some have cited as attempted explanations of the moral
differences between these cases:
A. Physical
Distance
Some have suggested that, whereas in the pond case, you
are in close physical proximity to the endangered child, in the case of the
shoes, you are not, and that’s the explanation of the moral difference between
the cases.
Here’s a way of showing, though, that physical distance
doesn’t explain the moral difference between the cases: find a case which is
morally similar to the pond case (a case in which failure to help someone in
need is manifestly morally abhorrent), but in which there is physical distance
between the one failing to help and the one in need of help. If we can find
such a case, that would show that physical distance doesn't, all by itself, cancel
an obligation to help.
So consider this
case of the submarine:
While on the dock preparing your speedboat for a day of
boating, you overhear shouting about some children on a school field trip
trapped underwater in a submarine quite a long distance off shore. You are in a
remote area, and your boat is the only boat fast enough to speed the rescue
divers to the submarine’s location. But you were really looking forward to this
outing, and you won’t have a chance to go boating again anytime soon. You
decide to let someone else figure it out, go on your outing, and the children
die.
Here’s a case, then, which is morally similar to the pond
case (a case in which failure to help someone in need is manifestly morally
abhorrent), but in which there is physical distance between the one failing to
help and the ones in need of help. This shows that physical distance doesn't,
all by itself, cancel an obligation to help.
B. Social Distance
Some have suggested that, whereas in the pond case, you
are confronted by a child in your social group (he’s a neighbor, a citizen of
your city, or your country), in the case of the shoes, we are talking about
children who live on the other side of the world and aren’t members of your
social groups: they’re not neighbors, fellow-citizens, etc.
Perhaps we don’t have much by way of obligation to such
people.
Reply: Consider this second case of the submarine.
While vacationing in a strange and exotic foreign land,
you are on the dock preparing your speedboat for a day of boating and overhear
shouting about some children on a school field trip trapped underwater in a
submarine quite a long distance off shore. You are in a remote area, and your
boat is the only boat in the area fast enough to speed the rescue divers to the
submarine’s location. But you were really looking forward to this outing, and
you won’t have a chance to go boating again anytime soon. You decide to let
someone else figure it out, go on your outing, and the children die.
Here’s a case, then, which is morally similar to the pond
case (a case in which failure to help someone in need is manifestly morally
abhorrent), but in which there is social distance between the one failing to
help and the one in need of help: the ones in need of help, in this case,
aren’t members of your tribe: they aren’t neighbors, fellow countrymen, etc.
This shows that
social distance doesn't, all by itself, cancel an obligation to help.
C. Perceptual directness
Some have suggested that, whereas in the pond case, you
see the child in need, with your own eyes, not so in the case of the shoes:
here you merely read about needy children.
Perhaps that’s the
difference; perhaps we don’t have much by way of obligation to those
whose plights we don’t directly see (or otherwise
directly know about by use of our perceptual faculties). But both our above
submarine cases show this suggestion implausible: in each case, you can’t see
the kids in need, and yet, one thinks, you’re obligated to help.
Singer suggests,
and I think he’s right, that there is no morally relevant difference between
the cases, no feature present in one case but not the other capable of making
the behavior in one case morally different than behavior in the other. But if
so, then since one’s behavior is manifestly wrong in the first case, it follows
that it is wrong in the second case as well: Spending money on needless
items—on luxury and frill—when we could instead be using the money to prevent
suffering and death from poverty-related causes is wrong, just as wrong as
letting a drowning child die so as to not to dirty one’s fancy shoes and slacks.
And if that’s
right, rigorism is right: The poor and needy have a right to my surplus wealth,
all of it. Use of my surplus to care for the poor and needy is not a matter of
charity— good but not obligatory—but a matter of justice.
So far, then, Peter Singer’s argument is for the rigorist
view of wealth. What is extremely interesting for us as Christians is that, as
church historian Justo Gonzales demonstrates in his fascinating Faith and
Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use
of Money, all of the main teachers and writers of the early Church, from the
first through fourth centuries of the Christian era, were rigorists. Comments
like the following are remarkably commonplace among early and influential
Christian writers:
“…it is monstrous for one to live in luxury,
while many are in want.” — Clement of Alexandria
“He who is able to
succour one on the point of perishing, if he fails to do so, kills him.” —
Lactantius
“What is a miser?
One who is not content with what is needful. What is a thief? One who takes
what belongs to others. Why do you not consider yourself a miser and a thief
when you claim as your own what you received in trust? If one who takes the
clothing off another is called a thief, why give any other name to one who can
clothe the naked and refused to do so? The bread that you withhold belongs to
the poor; the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes
rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod.” — Basil
“You strip people
naked and dress up your walls. The naked poor cries before your door, and you
do not even look at him. It is a naked human being that begs you, and you are
considering what marbles to use for paving. The poor begs you for money and
gets none. There is a human being seeking bread, and your horses chew gold in
their bits. You rejoice in your precious adornments, while others have nothing
to eat. A harsh judgment awaits you, oh rich! The people are hungry and you
close your granaries. The people cry and you show your jewels. Woe to one who
can save so many lives from death, and does not!” — Ambrose
“I beg you to remember this without fail,
that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and
deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth but
theirs.” — John Chrysostom
“Not to give to the needy what is superfluous
is akin to fraud.” — Augustine
In many of the
most influential writers of the early church, then, we find a Peter Singer style
rigorist view of wealth: the poor and needy have a claim on all my surplus
wealth (wealth above and beyond what is necessary and useful for life and
work); caring for them out of my excess is not a matter of charity—good but not
obligatory work—but a matter of justice: it’s what the poor and needy have a
right to.
So which, if any, of these options represents Jesus’s
view of the matter?
We get an answer to this question, I think, by reflecting
on an ethical principle at the heart of Jesus’s thinking about the rule of God
and its inbreaking shalom: the love command.
The Love Command
In each of the synoptic gospels, you find Jesus
interacting with the question which is the greatest commandment in the Law.
Matthew's version of this goes as follows:
“But when the
Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves
together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher,
which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH
ALL YOUR MIND.’ ”This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is
like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. ’ ”On these two
commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." — (Matt 22:34–40)
Note the bit at the end: For a devout first century Jew,
the Law and the Prophets sum up the whole of morality: they lay out the basic
lineaments of right and wrong. To say, then, that the whole of the Law and the
Prophets hang on these commands is to suggest that in these commands, we have
the heart of morality—that these commands, in some sense, sum up the whole of
morality.
We’ll focus on the second command, the command to
neighbor love (henceforth, “the love command”).
What does it mean? What exactly is being enjoining on us
here? An answer to this question requires an answer to three preliminary
questions.
1. What sort of love is in view in the love command?
2. What work is the expression ‘as yourself’ doing in the
command?
3. Who is my neighbor?
The Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent
work on love and justice is helpful here (for example, his Justice: Rights and
Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2009)).
He distinguishes three kinds of love:
Love of attraction: the love you have for something when
you are drawn or attracted to it, in its grip, because of some good-making
feature you discern in it. Romantic love is a species of this, but there are
other varieties: you can be drawn to, in the grip of, someone’s prose styling,
some piece of music, a mountain, the smell of a rose, etc.
The love of benevolence: the love you have for something
when you seek its good, its well-being, its flourishing. Love as attraction
typically carries in its train love as benevolence: we typically seek the good,
the well-being, of those things we are drawn or attracted to. Likewise in
reverse. We are typically drawn or attracted to those things we seek the good
of. But not always: sometimes we pursue the good of people we do not find
attractive, people we might even find repulsive.
The love of attachment: the love you have for something
when you have bonded with it, become attached to it. Wolterstorff gives the
example of a cat: you offer to replace my cat with a better one: fewer
allergies, veterinary needs, and so forth. But no thanks, I’ll keep mine. I’m attached to this cat; this is the one I
love. This sort of love typically comes with the love of benevolence: we typically
seek the well-being of those things we’re attached to. It may or may not come
with the love of attraction: I’m attached to a friend in the throes of heroin
addiction, would miss him terribly if he died, but he has become something
deeply unattractive to me, even repulsive.
So: Three sorts of love. Which, if any, is in view in the
love command?
At least the second, as is clear from its original
context in Hebrew Scripture, Leviticus,
Chapter 19, verses 9-18:
“When you reap the
harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge,
neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not
strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your
vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the
LORD your God. ”You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not
lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the
name of your God: I am the LORD. “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob
him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the
morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the
blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. ”You shall do no injustice
in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in
righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall
not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. "You shall
not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your
neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or
bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” – (Leviticus 19:9–18)
Plausibly, the command to neighbor love at the end of
this passage functions as a kind of summing up of what has come before. The
Israelites are commanded to leave extra in their fields for the poor, to be
truthful with one another, to not oppress the neighbor nor rob him, to pay the
poor man’s wages promptly, to care for the disabled, to administer legal
justice impartially, to reprove the neighbor so as not incur guilt because of
his sin. In sum, they’re to love their neighbors as themselves.
Since leaving extra in one’s fields for the poor and the
stranger, paying wages promptly, treating the disabled well, etc., are ways of
seeking the neighbor’s good, the love enjoined in the summarizing command—love
your neighbor as yourself—is, obviously enough, at least partly a matter of
benevolence.
Is it more than that? Does it also enjoin the love of
attachment? The love of attraction?
It doesn’t seem so. The Israelites are commanded to leave
extra in their fields for the poor and stranger, not to steal from or lie to
one another, and not to swear falsely in God’s name. But obedience to these
commands has little to do with attachment or attraction. One would presumably
never meet many of the poor fed by the surplus in one’s fields. And one could
refrain from stealing and lying to the neighbor without much by way of
attraction or attachment to him. Obedience to these commands has much to do
with seeking the wellbeing of the neighbor, and not much, apparently, with
attraction or attachment.
Benevolence love, then, is the sort of love at issue here:
seeking the good, well-being, flourishing of the neighbor. At any rate, that’s
the sort of love at issue in the command as it occurs in Leviticus. Jesus gave
no indication that he understood it differently.
What sort of good at issue here?
It would be nice if we could say a bit more; the notions
of human good, well-being and flourishing are notoriously slippery. What sort
of well-being am I to pursue for the neighbor? Maximization of his happiness?
Make sure he has an iPhone? What?
The material in Leviticus 19 leading up to the love
command suggests an answer to these questions. Once again, the Israelites are
commanded to:
• leave extra on their fields for the poor and stranger
• not steal from or lie to one another
• not swear falsely in God’s name
• not oppress their neighbors or rob them
• pay their laborers promptly
• not curse a deaf man or put a stumbling block before
the blind
• do no injustice in juridical matters, showing no
partiality to rich or poor
• not slander the neighbor nor take his life
• not hate the neighbor in one’s heart
• reprove the neighbor so as not to share in his sin
• take no vengeance nor bear any grudge against the
neighbor
These commands can be classed under three broad headings:
1. Commands concerned with meeting the neighbor’s
sustenance needs.
The commands to
• leave extra on their fields for the poor and stranger,
and
• pay their laborers promptly
2. Commands concerned with the neighbor’s security
against harm.
The commands to
• not steal from or lie to one another
• not swear falsely in God’s name
• not oppress their neighbors or rob them
• not curse a deaf man or put a stumbling block before
the blind
• do no injustice in juridical matters, showing no
partiality to rich or poor
• not slander the neighbor nor take his life, and
• take no vengeance nor bear any grudge against the
neighbor
3. Commands concerned with protection of the neighbor’s
dignity.
The commands to
• not curse a deaf man or put a stumbling block before
the blind
• not slander the neighbor
• not hate the neighbor in one’s heart, and
• not bear any grudge against the neighbor
Imagine, now, a community in which the commandments
falling under these three headings are adhered to. What sort of community would
it be? What sort of community is such that the sustenance needs of all in the
community are met, all are safe from harm, and the dignity of all is respected
by all? We saw the answer in the previous article: a shalom community. Shalom:
the communal state of well-being or wholeness, described throughout the Old
Testament, in which there is material sufficiency (the sustenance needs of all
are met), security (against violence, attack, enslavement), and the dignity of
all is respected by all.
It is this vision of human well-being that unifies the
disparate commands of Leviticus 19.
Communities in which practice of these commandments
predominates are communities in which there is enough food, for everyone,
including the poor and sojourner. The members of such communities don’t lie to,
cheat, slander, hate, steal from, take vengeance on one another. Poor laborers
in such communities are paid promptly so as not to go to bed hungry; judges
judge in accord with justice. Neighbors do not hate one another, but help and
care for one another. Such are the ways of shalom. The commandments of
Leviticus 19 mark the pathways of shalom.
The summarizing command, love your neighbor as yourself,
then, is a command to behave in these ways toward the neighbor, a command to do
the things that make for the neighbor’s shalom. It’s akin to Psalm 34’s:
“Come, O children,
listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. What man is there who
desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? 13Keep your tongue from
evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek
shalom and pursue it.” — (Psalm 34:14)
Says the love command, then: Seek your neighbor’s shalom;
pursue it. Or, since shalom is perhaps best thought of as a property of
communities in Old Testament thought, maybe a better way of putting it is: seek
the neighbor’s inclusion in the shalom community.
What is the force of the “as yourself ” bit of the
command?
So we get this answer to our first question, the question
what sort of love is at issue in the love command: it’s benevolence love,
seeking the neighbor’s good, where the good at issue is shalom. We’re to seek
the neighbor’s shalom.
This takes us to our second question, the question what
work the “as yourself” part is doing in the command.
Note in this connection just how demanding Leviticus 19’s
commands are. Leaving one’s fields partially unharvested in times of scarcity;
never stealing or lying; always paying one’s laborer’s promptly; never bending
the rules of the legal system; never hating one’s neighbor in one’s heart;
never taking vengeance or bearing grudges against the neighbor: living in this
way would, no doubt, have been difficult. Serious obedience to these commands
would have required putting a high value on the neighbor’s well-being.
Here, I propose, lies the force of the command’s “as
yourself” clause. For that is how we pursue our own shalom: with serious
resolve and intensity; we put a high value on it.
Leviticus is urging us, I think, to put that same value
on pursuit of the neighbor’s shalom, to put pursuit of her shalom on a par with
pursuit of one’s own.
So we have this picture forming: The command to neighbor love,
as it first occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, is concerned with the things that
make for shalom. The command is to pursue the good of the neighbor, where the
good in question is shalom, and we are to put pursuit of the neighbor’s shalom
on a par with pursuit of our own.
Who is my neighbor?
Finally, there is the question: Who, from the point of view
of the love command, is my neighbor?
Jesus famously takes this question up in the parable of
the Good Samaritan in Luke, chapter 10:
“On one occasion an
expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do
to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you
read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do
this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus,
“And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus
said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by
robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him
half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw
the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the
place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he
traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He
went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the
man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day
he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he
said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may
have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell
into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had
mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” —(Luke 10:25–37)
The lawyer’s question, then: who is my neighbor? Who is
the neighbor I am enjoined by the love command to love? Jesus’s answer: do what
the Samaritan did. It didn’t matter for the Samaritan that the robbed man was a
member of a hated, rival ethnic group who had ostracized and oppressed his
people. It didn’t matter that he was ritually unclean because covered with
blood (which is why the priest and Levite passed him by). He was a human being
in need and in reach of the Samaritan man’s love, so the Samaritan helped him.
Do what he did, says Jesus. Love anyone in need and in reach of your love.
That’s your neighbor.
Jesus is radicalizing the love command here. For the
average first century Jew, the neighbor whom the love command bids me to love
is a fellow Jew, or maybe just those in my clan or village. Jesus here blows
open the category of neighbor to include anyone in need and in reach of my
love: even members of hated, enemy ethnic groups, even those deemed unclean by
my culture’s purity code.
In some Gospel passages we’ll discuss later, he further
blows it open to include even my enemies: even those who attack my country,
occupy it with a hostile military force, burn my cities, crucify my countrymen,
and drive my family and I into poverty and degradation by oppressive taxation:
these, even these, are my neighbor. These, even these, are to be the object of
my love. But more on that in my next article.
Summarizing
Pulling it all together, then, we have this read of the love
command: Seek the shalom of the neighbor (anyone in need and in reach of one’s
love), putting pursuit of her inclusion in shalom community on a par with
pursuit of one’s own.
Such is the fundamental principle of the shalom of the inbreaking
Rule of God; such is the basic moral fabric of the Rule of God. When we are
living under the Rule of God, drinking in its inbreaking shalom, we will be
living in the love command, living in love.
Application of the love command to question whether Roman
or rigorist view of wealth
Return, then, to our question: which comes closest to
Jesus’s view of wealth: the Roman view, on which the poor have no right to my
surplus wealth (wealth above and beyond what is necessary and useful for life
and work), though I might choose to direct charity toward them (morally good
but nonobligatory help), or the rigorist view of the early Church fathers, on
which the poor have a right to my excess, all of it—on which giving away one’s
surplus is not a matter of charity but a matter of justice: it’s what those in
need have a right to?
The Love Command suggests an answer: Suppose I know of
someone in dire need, someone at risk of suffering or death from lack of food,
shelter, or medical care. I can do something to alleviate her plight, but I
don’t, because I’m committed instead to the project of living like the rich man
in Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus, “dressing in purple and fine
linen, joyously living in splendor every day.” Then I am not loving this
neighbor as myself: I am not putting pursuit of his inclusion in shalom
community on a par with pursuit of my own.
The love command is demanding! I am to put pursuit of the
neighbor’s shalom on a par with pursuit of my own. So long as I know of
neighbors in reach of my love but without the enough of shalom—enough food,
clothing, shelter, safety, etc., and I have the means to help them without
thereby sacrificing my inclusion in the shalom community, the love command
enjoins me to help. Else I am not putting the needy neighbor’s shalom on a par
with my own; I am not loving him as I love myself.
Should I give to a point at which I am sacrificing my inclusion
in the shalom community —at which, for example, I or those in my household don't
have enough food, clothing, shelter, safety, etc. (the Scriptures recognize
special obligations to family and one’s close community)—I will have gone too
far; at any rate, I will have gone beyond what the love command requires. (I
will, in effect, have put pursuit of neighbor shalom above pursuit of my own
rather than on a par with pursuit of my own, which is more than is required by
the love command.) But putting pursuit of neighbor shalom on a par with pursuit
of my shalom does require a level generosity and sacrifice up to and including
the point at which, were I to continue sacrificing, I would be putting the
shalom of me and mine at risk—we’d be threatened with not having enough food,
clothing, shelter, safety, etc.
The love command is demanding!
If so, if all this is right, then the love command suggests
the rigorist, not the Roman, view of wealth. Divesting oneself of surplus
wealth in care of the poor is not a matter of charity; it is not a matter of
what is good but not morally required. It’s a debt of love owed to those who
suffer. To withhold it is to wrong them. Divesting oneself of surplus in care
of those in need and in reach of my love is not a matter of charity; it’s a
matter of justice.
And this explains, I think, why Jesus said these sorts of
things to his followers:
“So then, none of
you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” - Luke
14:33
Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves
break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. … ”No one can serve two
masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."
- Matt 6:19–24
"Fear not,
little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags
that do not grow old, with a treasure in the
heavens that does
not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.” - Luke 12:32–34
“How hard it is for
those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom
of God.” - Luke 18:24–25
And why immediately after Jesus’s resurrection, his
disciples were living as described in Acts, chapter 4:
“And the
congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of
them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were
common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving
testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon
them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners
of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay
them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had
need.” -Acts 4:32ff
Jesus thought of the love command as the heart of the law
and the prophets, and the heart of the inbreaking shalom of the Rule of God. To
appropriate that inbreaking shalom, experience its blessings, and minister them
to others, one must live in love.
And that, he thought, means living in radical simplicity
and generosity: divesting oneself of surplus wealth, not storing up extra
whilst others are hungry, but giving it away in care of the suffering, to whom
it belongs by right anyway—to whom it belongs, as a matter of justice.
In my previous article, I suggested that a central practice
enjoined by Jesus on his followers for appropriating the inbreaking shalom of
the Rule of God and ministering its blessings to others was familial community
with other Jesus followers. Now we’ve another: radical simplicity and
generosity.
To lay hold of the inbreaking shalom of the Rule of God
and minister its blessings of forgiveness, peace, justice, healing, joy, and
God’s tender presence to a hurting world us, we must live in loving, familial
community with other Jesus followers, and together we must live in radical
simplicity and generosity, divesting ourselves of surplus wealth, so that, as
Acts 4 puts it, there is no needy person among us.
In closing
As with yesterday’s talk, let me close by imagining with
you what this might look like in practice. Imagine with me, then, that you eat
together weekly with a group of twenty or so brothers and sisters in the way of
Jesus: twenty or so men, women, and children living in the teachings and
practices of Jesus. It’s a group of all ages, old and young, a group of
differing economic backgrounds—some come from the ranks of the rich, others
from the ranks of the poor—and a group of differing ethnic and racial
backgrounds, black, white, and brown, men, women, and children living in the
teachings and practices of Jesus.
You live near enough to one another that you see each other
frequently throughout the week. There is time to talk deeply with each other,
to play hard together, laugh hard together. You worship and pray together
often, studying the scriptures and great writings of the church together. Your
children participate in all of this, and are known well by all the adults in
the group.
You practice simplicity together: Not every family needs
to own a car, so your community bought a couple cars to share among households.
Not every family needs its own set of tools, so you share tools: one
centrally-located family keeps the community tools in its garage. Not every
household needs a washing machine, so you wash your clothes together at the two
or so homes in the neighborhood with washing machines. Not all food needs to be
bought, so you share produce from several gardens in your backyards. You forego
lavish vacations, camping together regularly instead. You forgo buying new
things when quality used things will do. You forgo fancy new clothes when
quality used clothes will do.
These and other practices of simplicity free up quite a
bit of money in the community, which you pool together to care for the
vulnerable: You run a regular grocery ministry at a local motel, where a number
of food-insecure families live, families in the ranks of the working poor who
work but are unable to save enough for the first- and last-month’s rent required
to rent an apartment. Your community shows up there the last week of each month,
the time each month their food stamps tend to run out, with a truckload of groceries.
Several folks you’ve met at this motel have moved out of
the motel and into spare rooms in several of your homes—“Christ” rooms, as the
early church called them, rooms where the poor are received as Christ. They’ll
live here until whatever was causing their homelessness is resolved. It might
be years. In the meantime, they’ll participate in the warp and woof of your
community life, be enfolded into your faith family, and minister to you by
helping you to see what real and daily dependence on God, for everything, looks
like.
A few business-minded folks in your community have started
small businesses to employ those in transition from prison and homelessness.
They run a Christmas tree lot, a T-shirt company, and a small restaurant, all
of whose employees are either ex-prisoners or ex-homeless, transitioning back
into mainstream society. Most of these folks are regulars at your weekly
community meal. They do great good in your lives, showing you how to depend on
God for everything, every breath, how not worry about the unimportant things in
life, how not to get caught up in the very un-Kingdom-like quest for worldly
status and power.
Quite a bit of your money goes overseas to the desperately
poor, those living on just a few dollars per day, where you send thousands of
dollars each year to micro-lending organizations who lend the money at low
interest, mostly to poor women, who then use it start businesses to support
their families.
The spirit is palpable in your midst: there is a powerful
love and a powerful sense of God’s presence that pervades your common meals,
your celebrations, and your common work, that can only be attributed to the
spirit of God in your midst. Your experiments in caring for the broken of the
world come to you as a kind of adventure, and have been, for the most part,
deeply fun.
This picture, I want to suggest, is in the vicinity of
what Jesus envisioned when he spoke of the inbreaking shalom of the rule of God
and urged his followers to enter into it, to lay hold of it, by practicing
familial community, not storing up earthly treasures, but giving them away in
love, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless.
It’s a main way of drawing near to God, moving into
ever-increasing, intimate experience of his sweet and tender presence.
And it’s for us today. It’s doable today. It’s being done
by Jesus communities around the world. I’ve tasted it in part, and can report
that it’s good, deeply good. I want more.
Next, we’ll further develop the picture by thinking some
together about Jesus’s invitation to extend the love of the love command to
even our enemies.
-Thomas Crisp
