Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15
“Gifts literally cease to be gifts if they are not used, if they are not constantly consumed, if they are not relinquished…Our property can devour us if we hoard it. God the Economist seeks to keep the gift in motion.
Market exchange and gifting generate different kinds of relationships. The exchange of commodities aims at a stasis or equilibrium. When I buy a hammer at the hardware store, I exchange what is considered equal value for the hammer. I pay in order to balance the scales. In the transaction there is neither motion nor emotion. I am the former owner of the hammer part company, confident that neither owes the other anything…
In gift-giving, on the other hand, am imbalance is created that causes momentum and creates new relationships. Gifts obligate. Persons in older generations used to respond to a gift by saying, “much obliged.” Now one seldom hears this in our society, for we do not want to be obligated.
But the fundamental logic of the economy of God is that Jesus Christ is the charis (which means both gift and grace), the unexcelled generosity by which God has gifted us with God’s own life in order to redeem us from the nothingness of death, and this gift is what obligates, moves, and empowers our lives for serving life against death in the world.
Accordingly, at stake in Jesus’ command to relinquish possessions is not simply a life free of possessions and their hold on human life, a freedom offered by many philosophies. Rather, the issue is entrance into God’s basileia economy. By gifting what one has, one becomes free for the new life of the kingdom and the discipleship of Jesus. Radical freedom for gifting is possible because of God’s radical provision of God’s righteousness.”
M. Douglas Meeks in God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989) 118-119.
I’d appreciate your prayers for me as I speak today and tomorrow on life in God’s economy at the EFCA North Central District Conference.
Also ask the Holy Spirit to help you look honestly at your own life. Does your life reflect that you are keeping God’s gracious gifts in motion?