If only Jesus had read Adam Smith, or perhaps Ayn Rand

The Rich and Therefore Blessed Young Man

1. As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him, and asked, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 2. And Jesus said to him, “What have you done so far?” 3. And he said to Him, “Well I was born into a wealthy family, got into a good school in Galilee because my parents donated a few thousand talents for a building with a nice reed roof, and now I have a high-paying job in the Roman treasury managing risk.” 4. Looking at him, Jesus felt an admiration for him, and said to him, “Blessed are you! For you are not far from being independently wealthy." And the man was happy. Then Jesus said, "But there is one thing you lack: A bigger house in a gated community in Tiberias. Buy that and you will have a treasure indeed. And make sure you get a stone countertop for the kitchen. Those are really nice." The disciples were amazed. 5. Peter asked him, “Lord, shouldn’t he sell all his possessions and give it to the poor?” Jesus grew angry. “Get behind me, Satan! He has earned it!” Peter protested: “Lord,” he said, “Did this man not have an unjust advantage? What about those who are not born into wealthy families, or who do not have the benefit of a good education, or who, despite all their toil, live in the poorer areas of Galilee, like Nazareth, your own home town?” 6. “Well,” said Jesus, “first of all, that’s why I left Nazareth. There were too many poor people always asking me for charity. They were as numerous as the stars in the sky, and they annoyed me. Second, once people start spending again, like this rich young man, the Galilean economy will inevitably rebound, and eventually some of it will trickle down to the poor. Blessed are the patient! But giving the money away, especially if he can’t write it off, is a big fat waste.” The disciples’ amazement knew no bounds. “But Lord," they said, "what about the passages in both the Law and the Prophets that tell us to care for widows and orphans, for the poor, for the sick, for the refugee? What about the many passages in the Scriptures about justice?” 7. “Those are just metaphors,” said Jesus. “Don’t take everything so literally.”

- James Martin, SJ, The Not-so-Social Gospel.

There are a couple more where that came from: The Lazy Paralytic and The Very Poorly Prepared Crowd. Evidently, Jesus needed to take Economics 101.

How to be rich

"For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."

- 2 Corinthians 8.9.

We are rich, wealthy beyond measure, because of the gift of Christ. Born amongst beasts, dying amongst thieves, he came into our poverty to bless us with grace upon grace. We are recipients of life we did not earn, forgiveness we did not deserve, a Spirit who blows where he will, all from a God we cannot control. We share a living planet we did not create, a family we did not choose, a history we did not fashion and a future we cannot determine. We are gifted with divine promises to trust, neighbours to bless and possibilities to imagine and implement. All these treasures and more are ours. We are wealthy beyond measure.

Our riches cannot be placed in a bank, fluctuate with the stock market or depreciate with excessive use. They are multiplied by sharing, accrue interest when given freely away.

One man who seemed to grasp something of this was philanthropist Andrew Carnegie when he said, "To die rich is to die disgraced." Our wealth lies not in what we hoard, not in what we earn, but in what we receive without deserving and what we joyfully share or give away. So pour out your life for others, for it is rich and full and overflowing. Pour it out because the Spirit of Christ has filled you and cannot be dammed. Pour it out because then you walk in the footsteps of Christ and share his blessings. Pour it out and become a child of God who receives every good gift from above.

Merry Christmas!

The Word became flesh: looking again at Jesus IV

A sermon from John 1.1-14: Part IV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. From the start, before anything else, God is vocal. He is expressive. He relates to one other than himself, and yet one who is so intimately tied to him as we are to words we breathe out. Sometimes we can say that we are our words; when my words threaten, or promise, or apologise, I threaten, promise, apologise. This Word is God himself in action. Yet this action is happening even before there is anything made to act upon. God in himself is dynamic, is expressive, is communicative. He is relational from the start.

Now already, one verse in, we face a threat to our comfortable ideas of God. We like to think of God as beyond words, as indescribable, as so great and mysterious and other and beyond, that he is safely unknowable. But in the beginning God put himself into words, he articulates himself. He is not silent. He is not beyond speech. He is dangerously discussable.

Yet this is also generosity. We come to know someone else primarily through their words. Tim will look at this in more depth next week, but from the start, even right back in the beginning, God gives himself in his Logos, his Word. He opens himself up for relationship, for a conversation. In the beginning was the Word. We are being invited into a conversation we did not begin. We are being invited, individually, communally and as the human race, into a conversation we did not begin - a conversation with the one who made us, who made all things, who made us and all things by speaking, and now invites us to converse with him.

And here is another shock to our idea of God. God is on the front foot; he takes the initiative; he takes the first step towards us. He starts the conversation, before we were even around, in the beginning was the Word. We might sometimes think of him like the teacher in a busy classroom, whose attention can only be gained by our being either exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad. We might think of him as the distant father, working into the night in his study. If we want to talk with him, we need to gather up our courage, marshall our excuses, thicken up our skin, creep to the door and knock, hoping our interruption will not be too much of an annoyance. But no, he’s not the overstretched teacher in a chaotic classroom or the distant father locked working in the study. He starts the conversation. In the beginning was the Word – before we’ve had a chance to make up our minds, to do anything good or bad to get his attention, before we can draw breath, in the beginning was the Word. This is a gift, a free gift we couldn’t earn and which we have no right to ignore as though God were merely a unwanted phone call to offer us a new mobile deal, or a piece of spam email promising to unbelievably enlarge our wallets or body parts. What a gift: God speaks to us. Are we listening?
Fifteen points for guessing the Sydney location.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

"Give me more time! Give me time!"

[...] to have time for another, although in the abstract this says little, is in reality to manifest in essence all the benefits which one man can show to another. When I really give anyone my time, I thereby give him the last and most personal thing that I have to give at all, namely myself.

- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2, 55.

This is how to be generous when you are rich. And of course, most importantly, God has time for us.
Eight points for naming the source of the title of this post (without using Google - you'll appreciate it more if you spend a little time remembering).

In praise of... generosity

To kick off this series (introduced here), I want to praise an act of creative Christian generosity initiated by Ben Myers on my behalf, and taken up by many others. As mentioned previously, Ben set up an account to which many others also contributed in order to allow me to make Amazon purchases from my wish list. In a few days, US$242.54 (plus a US$20 voucher) was raised. From a friend whom I've only met once, this lovely gesture has been one of many times I've been touched, encouraged and challenged by his warmth and thoughtfulness (for another example, see here). And for the many who gave (many of whom I've never met outside the blogosphere), I thank God for your gracious sharing and desire to be a blessing with the things God has given you. I am excited about the many treasures being shipped Sydney-wards as I type! Although Ben has already published my choices, I thought I'd do so again with some brief explanations of why I picked this tasty menu of treats.

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
An important book on theological method that has set the agenda for much subsequent 'post-liberal' theology. I almost picked it to review for a college assignment last year, but read the much thicker Drama of Doctrine* by Kevin Vanhoozer instead. Since it has come up repeatedly in Patrik's recent meme (e.g. here) about most important theology books of the last 25 years, I thought I should grab a copy when Amazon had it for a reduced price.
*Drew rightly wants us to link to original publishers rather than Amazon, though WJK Press directed me to Amazon when I did a search. Go figure.

Robert W. Jenson, On Thinking the Human: Resolutions of Difficult Notions
I'm down to give a few sermons later in the year on doctrine of humanity as part of a five-part series inspired by this fascinating post from Kim Fabricius. I think this is my only pick from the wish list I had up when Ben launched the appeal. My apologies to those who were hoping to see more from this list, though I received a few of my wishes for Christmas and hadn't updated my list. I've always wanted to read more Jenson, one of the foremost living theologians.

David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of The Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Another frequent recommendation in Patrik's meme. A number of bloggers have been reading this book and posting their thoughts (e.g. here amd here and here). It sounds like quite heavy philosophical theology at points, but I'm keen to read it because my love of Nietzsche has driven a large wedge between Plato and Christianity for me and it sounds like Hart is keen to defend some aspects of Plato. I want to see whether such a thing can be done.

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology
I've always been fascinated by Williams from a distance as he does his dance as Archbishop of Canterbury and theologian. I'm glad that this figurehead is both a serious thinker and media savvy, even if I'm sometimes puzzled by his comments (and sometimes delighted - check out this quote). I picked three Williams texts that grabbed my attention in order to get to know him a little better first-hand. I'd like to try to write something on him this year and so need to start getting familiar. This collection of essays has been recommended to me as a good intro.

Rowan Williams, Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St John of the Cross
This text combines two areas of speciality for Williams: spirituality and patristics. Both are fields I've been getting into over the last few months. I'm particularly interested to see what he says about Augustine, though I'd also like to be better introduced to more of the desert fathers, who have not featured heavily in my own theological education, despite being influential on a number of people I love dearly. I'm keen to get more of an idea of what is going on in Christian mysticism.

Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers
See above. The bonus of this book (a republication of what was originally a short little book called Silence and Honey-cakes (a great title) is that it has many extracts from the desert fathers - and is cheap!

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: II/2; III/3; III/4; IV/2; IV,4
Ben regretted that the money wasn't quite enough for a full (paperback) set of Barth's life-work, the unfinished masterpiece of 14 volumes of Church Dogmatics (the greatest theological landmark of the twentieth century - see here for more praise). However, I already own a number of hardback volumes secondhand (I/1; I/2; II/1; IV/1) and so thought I'd do a little detective work for some secondhand Amazon bargains - the postage to Oz is a little steeper than usual, but the prices were worth it for these - each was under US$30 and some under US$10! I make no promises about getting through them all in the next months, but they are a resource for a lifetime of theological depth and pondering. Where Barth gets it wrong, he's still masterfully stimulating.

In all this, I've tasted God's generosity through his people. This imitation of God is also a participation in his giving.

Let us praise what is good.
Series so far: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.