Day 30 - Living together in the household of God

Reading: Psalm 84

As we think about what a living faith requires of us in relationship to the poor, so we are drawn directly into the realm of economics.

The English word ‘economy’ is derived from two Greek words: oikos - meaning house or household; and nomos - meaning law, or rules, or requirements. Thus the word ‘economy’ could quite literally be translated as ‘the rules of the house’ or the ‘management of the household’. In antiquity, the term ‘house’ or ‘household’ was freely used to express the various ways in which people shared life together, from families to clans to tribes to nations. In those ancient times economics referred quite simply to the way in which households behaved and were managed that impacted upon the well-being of everyone in the community as a whole.

This understanding rescues economics from being viewed as an inaccessible, technical and chiefly academic discipline and thrusts it directly into the realm of theology and faith - for the well-being of people is one of God’s primary concerns. Indeed, God is not a neutral bystander when it comes to economics, but has passionate convictions about how our life together should be shared. Thus, to think theologically about economics is simply to allow God’s passionate convictions about the right ordering of “households” (in the broadest sense of that word) to inform our understanding and shape our actions around our common life together.

Over the next few days the metaphor of ‘living together in the household of God’ will be used to consider what exactly it means for us as people to honour what God requires of us economically, particularly as we think about our relationship with the poor. We’ve all heard the expression, commonly used by an exasperated parent to a rebellious teenager, “So long as you stay under my roof you will live by my rules.” God deals with us more graciously than that, but in a similar way lays before us ‘house rules’ that God knows will make for life at its very best, and boldly invites us to live by them.

By contrast, the ‘house rules’ of the economic systems of the world largely reflect a vastly different picture, indicative of our fallen human condition. These economies, often filled with injustice, selfishness, fear and greed, reveal the ravaging nature of sin – personal, corporate and structural – and our desperate need for redemption.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the life we share need not be defined by our fallen human condition. The hope we are called to proclaim and bear witness to is that healing and transformation is possible here and now. This is true not just for individuals, but for families, communities, organisations, churches, corporations, security exchanges and the entire global economy.

Such economic healing and transformation is arguably the most pressing need of our time. Perhaps, like never before, the faithfulness of the church’s witness and its effectiveness in offering the hope-filled alternative of God’s Kingdom to the world, depends on our willingness to allow God’s economic priorities to order our life in a radical way.

Question for reflection:

In what ways, specifically, can you see the fallenness and inadequacies of the economic systems of the world? List the things of an economic nature that come to mind that you think are just plain wrong. (For example, children of poor parents get inferior health care and education.)

Prayer:

Lord, open my eyes that I might see the things in this world that are wrong. For it is in seeing what is wrong in our world that I, at last, can join those women and men of living faith who are praying and working for justice. Amen.