Jesus against the (free) market: A Radically Orthodox read of Matt. 6:25-34 and the Irony of Roger Clemens
Saint Augustine said that part of what makes us human is desire--most aptly expressed in our desire for God. The abundance out of which God creates us spills over into us to lead back to that source. Or, as we desire God, we are expressing ourselves as His creation.
Jesus confronts desire in the sermon on the mount. Our primary efforts should express our desire, he says, for God's kingdom. In 6:25-34 he mentions food/drink and clothing--no doubt tied to cultural status, emphatically not the elevation of the spiritual over the physical. (As in, "Don't worry about eating; other things are more important!") Rather, he says, God takes care of the status of even the smallest things--birds and flowers--and you are more important than little things. For this reason we seek God's kingdom and God's righteousness--God's favour as God's kingdom seekers. The pagans? Jesus says they seek food, drink, clothes--to the neglect of life and the body. Jesus is after the change in desire--found in all, redeemed in some.
Switch gears for a sec. Radical Orthodoxy finds the desire of most--and thereby Jesus' rival--as the freemarket. It is a "gospel" that spans nations; it is transnational. So, you go to Costa Rica and you see malls; you go to England, you see malls... The free market gospel is the gospel of stuff--cheap stuff, mass produced, etc.
Now go back to Matthew's text. The issues Jesus highlights--clothing and food--fit quite easily into the freemarket system:
Clothes: Yesterday I bought a pair of shorts for $15. They were originally $35. The reason they could be sold for $35? They b(r)ought status. The reason they could be sold for $15? They were cheap. The free market supplies both.
Food: The $100 burger should do it (see a few days ago). Or, highlighting restaurants that have $300 meals because celebrities eat there.
The issue, remember, is not food or clothing; we all need these. The issue is desire and humanity. As exemplified above, the free market compromises the humanity of those elevated as the uberhumans. Of course, what really compromises humanity is sin--which is trans-personal, -national, -economical, etc. (This is why specific idols change, but the existence of idols is everywhere, always.)
And now the irony: Roger Clemens bashing his teammates for not doing enough in one game to win after he sits on his can for the first half of the season. Please, please appreciate that with me.
Jesus confronts desire in the sermon on the mount. Our primary efforts should express our desire, he says, for God's kingdom. In 6:25-34 he mentions food/drink and clothing--no doubt tied to cultural status, emphatically not the elevation of the spiritual over the physical. (As in, "Don't worry about eating; other things are more important!") Rather, he says, God takes care of the status of even the smallest things--birds and flowers--and you are more important than little things. For this reason we seek God's kingdom and God's righteousness--God's favour as God's kingdom seekers. The pagans? Jesus says they seek food, drink, clothes--to the neglect of life and the body. Jesus is after the change in desire--found in all, redeemed in some.
Switch gears for a sec. Radical Orthodoxy finds the desire of most--and thereby Jesus' rival--as the freemarket. It is a "gospel" that spans nations; it is transnational. So, you go to Costa Rica and you see malls; you go to England, you see malls... The free market gospel is the gospel of stuff--cheap stuff, mass produced, etc.
Now go back to Matthew's text. The issues Jesus highlights--clothing and food--fit quite easily into the freemarket system:
Clothes: Yesterday I bought a pair of shorts for $15. They were originally $35. The reason they could be sold for $35? They b(r)ought status. The reason they could be sold for $15? They were cheap. The free market supplies both.
Food: The $100 burger should do it (see a few days ago). Or, highlighting restaurants that have $300 meals because celebrities eat there.
The issue, remember, is not food or clothing; we all need these. The issue is desire and humanity. As exemplified above, the free market compromises the humanity of those elevated as the uberhumans. Of course, what really compromises humanity is sin--which is trans-personal, -national, -economical, etc. (This is why specific idols change, but the existence of idols is everywhere, always.)
And now the irony: Roger Clemens bashing his teammates for not doing enough in one game to win after he sits on his can for the first half of the season. Please, please appreciate that with me.
posted by Aaron Perry at
10:59 AM
22 Comments:
Once again, AP writes an eminently practical blog deeply steeped in theology. Once again, the harpies moaning about the impracticality and therefore irrelevance of theology are silent. Once again, that silence is deafening.
I suspect that this silence betrays a secret fear: bibliophobia. The argument (flawed in both form and content) would run as follows: "If theology is impractical and irrelevant, I don't have to read books. I fear reading books. Therefore theology is impractical and irrelevant."
And Roger Clemens is a bigger ass than Joseph, David, Abraham and all the rest of those OT sinners combined. But, to paraphrase Lincoln, he wins.
CG
LOL. Even when you offer a compliment, CG, it comes out Crusty! :) Part of why I love you.
Truly, though, I can't wait until another CG in our family is blogging.
Alas, with all hte flooding in Binghamton, my sermon is turning to Jesus walking on the water this Sunday, with all the OT hints going on there. I'll save Matt. 6:25-34 till next Sunday.
Well, you can always move to North Korea.
CG
Roger Clemmens was retired until recently and since he's joined the team he's been amazing. I think he's earned the right, by his amazing career and, from what I understand, unmatched work ethic, to call his teammates to account.
Besides, the Tigers won again and that is good. :o)
Reponding to the first point last: most likely the "harpies" who think theology is impractical and irrelevant don't read AP's blog...cause it's about theology.
:oP
I should stay annonomous....but....
John
Wow anonymous thanks for revealing your identity. By telling us your name is John I have only 274 guesses as to who it might be. I'm leaning towards John Jacob Jinkleheimer Schmitt. On Roger Clemons I think he is just over. He should have retired last year and stayed retired. This is a lazy man not wanting to put in all the effort of sprinmg training, working out and building a team. You gotta love him.
I love the fact that Roger Clemens can pitch as well as he can at his age and at this stage of his life and STILL get no run support from the Astros. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson from the past couple of years and decide to finish his career in the only city worth playing in that would also give him some run support. (ahem, Boston)
Good post AP. I have been accused (wrongly--Theology has never been the harpies issue...how could anyone think that theolgoy is impractical... it is theologians that can be impractical) of being one the the "harpies" so I will give my 2 cents worth... in the form of a question:
Wasn’t Jesus’ argument here a standard Jewish “how much more” argument?: If God cares for the birds, how much more does he care for humans… I agree that the ultimate issue is seeking God’s Kingdom…but doesn’t this passage have more to do with worry and faith? Maybe I missed the connection… Sorry if I am causing you to be redundant.
Cheers!
I meant to site Craig Keener in my argument...I checked out his comments on this passage.
Hey Benson.
I am having a little trouble working out the question. When you ask if the passage is about worry/faith, do you mean to ask whether Jesus tells us not to worry for basic provision and trust God for it?
If that's your question, then I think partially, but not mainly. He says not to worry about what we will eat/drink; what we will wear. But this isn't, "Don't worry where your next meal is coming from or how you will clothe your kids," because he then follows it up with, "Isn't life more important than food? The body more important than clothes?" Evidently, then, the "worry" that is being committed over food/drink/clothes is not for basic provision necessary for physical existence, but for something that is less important than life/body. Further, it seems strange if Jesus is addressing these as basic provisions that he would condemn the pagans for seeking after them (v. 32), when he commends giving clothing, drink, food in Matt. 25. So, the two aspects of body/life being more important than those objects of worry and the condemnation for those who seek them make them not basic provision, but objects of status. His command is to seek first God's kingdom--thereby keeping life/body more important than food/drink/clothes as status.
Finally, this passage is also found in the context of chapter 6 with doing the Torah ("acts of righteousness") as loyalty to God and not for cultural acceptance (he highlights fasting, giving, praying and their connections with temple worship). So, consider the example he uses: Solomon wasn't found splendor because of snazzy clothes, but because of the empire he built--the status he had even drew the Queen of Sheba. But Jesus says, "That clothing (splendor, status) is not even worthy the grass of the field. A lilly has more splendor because God clothes it!"
Of course, Jesus is not neglecting basic provision. He says that God knows we need basic provision. So, I think he is making food/drink/clothing do double duty in this passage. And the point, then, becomes the less than human desire of anything but God's kingdom. Desiring anything above God and pursuing a kingdom other than his ruins the pursuit of even good things.
Depends on what is meant by "free market". I take "free market" to specify the free trading of goods and services by mutually consenting persons, as distinguished from a control economy in which production and price is determined by the masterminds at the top.
Who wants a control economy? The kind of folks who still hold on to overly romantic ideas about the nobility of the poor and wickedness of the powerful. (Of course the noble academics who somehow see through all this and feel called to rile the poor stupid ingrates to revolution).
But I suspect that the critique of the 'free market' here is really a critique of what I call the 'ubiquitous market'. In a human community like ours, with an 'ubiquitous market', the only way speak publicly of value is to speak of market value. We cannot publicly speak of what is valuable or good, except in terms of the market. What is of value? That which is demanded in the market. What is good? That which keeps the consumption rolling.
So what's the problem? Not the freedom of the market. Rather its omnipresence.
There are some things which are valuable whether of not they are in demand. There are some things which are good, even if they work against the perceived health the market.
But to speak publicly of value or goodness apart from the market is to break the presumed secularist truce. Since we cannot agree on ultimate issues of truth and value, we have decided that as a community we won't speak publicly of deep truth or value.
Instead we will organize our community around the principle of the autonomy of the individual will. So long as one's will and actions do not do too much violence to another's, one has fulfilled his obligations to his community.
But isn't this is free market reasoning applied to the full reality of community life? The ubiquitous market? And that is the problem. Some things ought not to be bought and sold at the market price. Some things have a kind of value which makes buying or selling them in markets completely immoral. And one has not met one's obligation to one's community by merely participating in the market, engaging in consensual and mutually benefitial trade, and getting one's fair share. A human community after the fall which has no kindness, mercy, guilt, or generosity is a bad community.
Hey ap
As C.S. Lewis said somewhere (paraphrase):
"Seek first things first, and secondary things always will follow. Seek secondary things first, and you'll miss out on both secondary and primary things."
Also, (given that it seems you enjoy N.T. Wright as much as me) wouldn't you say that Jesus was not here teaching a timeless principle about desire and worry. Instead Jesus was explaining that his presence in Israel was bringing on (or had brought on) a special urgency in terrms of the unfolding of redemptive history. He was calling a new Israel out of Israel to follow him to Jerusalem. This meant leaving behind family and farm (etc.) which would be very scary. But following Jesus in his reorginization of Isreal around himself was more important that worrying about what to eat.
In a sense we still live in that urgency. In another sense we don't. We are not called by Jesus to flock to the earthly Jerusalem to see him welcomed as Messiah, inagurate the return of Yaweh to the temple, and act powerfully to save Israel.
Also to trust God for provision is (usually?) to trust God to act through secondary means. Through real people on earth, real vegetation on earth, and real dirt. (etc.) So to trust God for provision is not to stop living in community with other people and cooperating so that food and clothing can be brought forth from the earth.
excellent point, ed.
only in seeking God's kingdom can one interpret the growth of vegetation as gift--not as, say, (again the market)--product.
the RO read is, of course, just one read. the nationalistic read is as much present--what kind of Jew doesn't worry about what they eat/drink/wear after the morning devotions in Deuteronomy? ;)
anonymous john,
i am enjoying the tigers season if only for your sake!
The problem, of course, is that every human attempt to erect the Kingdom of God is (ultimately) at odds with the Kingdom of God.
But, within the fallenness with which we have to deal, some attempts are more fallen than others. I'll stick with those fallen attempts that allow me to critique them. If all I ever do is just condemn them, then I may as well move to North Korea.
And on an ironic note, the fabulously wealthy plutocrats you excoriate are far more likely than lower strata of society to be (or to vote for) Democrats. Having too much money of their own, they want to make themselves feel better by spending the money of the middle class. To quote H. Ross Perot, "Now that's just sad."
CG
here i highligh the parentheses around "free" in the title. i agree with RO that markets themselves are not neutral. however, they do have potential for good. the free market does establish the situations i condemned above. but because markets are not neutral, all other markets create sinful expressions, as well. this is not optional.
in another context, then, it could have been "Jesus against the (controlled) market."
the issue, then, is not just hte market, but one's allegiance and pursuit of God's kingdom. to defend a market could show one's allegiance to it; to critique a market could show one's allegiance to another. of course, neither critique nor defense necessarily put one at odds with God's kingdom.
anyway...i guess this just means that i'm between sojourners and ted haggard. no surprise there.
AP,
AP said: "only in seeking God's kingdom can one interpret the growth of vegetation as gift--not as, say, (again the market)--product."
I'm sympathetic with what you (and others) are trying to do here, nevertheless there are some major cracks in this:
(1) The kingdom of God is a thoroughly Jewish idea - centered around the expectation that God will finally act powerfully to save Israel from her enemies, return the Glory to the temple, and set the whole world right through the priestly ministry of the renewed nation of Israel. Jesus reinterprets/reveals this as fulfilled in/around him.
You don't need to tap into this 'kingdom of God' way of life to see vegetation as gift. Many pagans give thanks to the god(s) for their food. Some give thanks to the food itself.
(2) 'Product' is roughly 'fruit'. In most languages it the same word. The language of 'production' is a language steeped in the organic/biological aspects of the world. (A world of which we are a part and participate in. We are organic and biological) The language of 'production' is primarily organic/biological, and has only secondarily been co-opted by modern economics. But this co-option seems not entirely without warrant.
So, in terms of food and clothing, I say it is just as pious to speak of products and production, as it is to speak of gifts and giving. The two ways of speaking are not mutually exclusive. Each includes and presupposes the other. This is because the gift is product (fruit) and the giving is production. Unless you are still trapped in an improper nature/grace dualism.
You also said: "the RO read is, of course, just one read."
But, as the people of the God, the Church, we are not free to read the holy scriptures in an unlimited number of ways. This, even if the holy scriptures are multifaceted and multi-themed. Further, it may be that one read needs to bend another into shape.
Tim,
I suggest that what is fundamentally wrong with modern economics is the ubiquity of the market - that the only means of publicly speaking of value and the right ordering of the exchange of goods, services, resources (etc.) is through the market.
But agree that the 'free' aspect is also a problem. But there is a deeper problem behind this problem. I say the deeper problem is the lack of mediating structures of authority. Instead we simply have (1) an all powerful state, and (2) individual citizens. If that is all there is, the only way that the 'freedom' of the market could ever be limited is by an act of the state. (I could go off here, RO style, on how the modern 'secular' state is really a heretical parody of the Church - but I only buy half of that, and then only half the time.)
To clarify I offer two points:
(1) The modern state is unable to finally save us from our problems with the "free" market.
(2) The problems with the free market are real, and cannot be finally solved through the free market itself.
So what can we do? I say we need to relearn how to engage in a kind of public moral discourse. And I say this can only happen in and through mediating social structures (like the churches, the Church, guilds, groups of authoritative specialists, etc.). But we modern folks have become so used to the contract between the absolute state and individual citizens that it is hard for us to imagine being ultimately bound (especially in trade between consentual parties) by anyone other than the coercive secular state.
Still, it is pretty complicated. The free-market brought a lot of good things. Too much more to be said.
Peace.
Hey Ed,
Good point on other religions. I should have written, "*In seeking* God's kingdom, one must come to interpret vegetation as gift...." Others can and have come to this conclusion via other narratives. I affirm the language of God's kingdom, though. (I am not sure what issue you wanted to address by making it a Jewish notion.)
On products/fruit, I thought it was clear that I meant economic product--a product for use, and only use, in trading, selling, etc. An example: Carrots as food means that one cannot let carrots rot just to change its market price. Carrots as economic product means that one can do so. In God's kingdom, one cannot interpret carrots as (economic) product in the above sense.
So, in 'product' I am not meaning 'humanly created goods,' which can still be seen as gifts.
Last, sure, different ways of reading need conversion. Perhaps Radical Orthodoxy will have elements of repentance as a theological attitude. Perhaps not. (I think yes, if what CG is telling me about Paul Janz's latest book.) The above read, however, is well within the parameters of the Matthean text, the Christian faith, and the Greater Binghamton area (and I think North American--as well as some other nations). So, I affirm the faithfulness of this RO read. Of course, it's not the only RO read (not THE RO read--some ROers would disagree, I expect!). In offering different reads, I affirm the contextualization of the gospel; not the unhindered fluidity of the text or unchastened freedom of the reader.
AP,
You said:"I am not sure what issue you wanted to address by making it a Jewish notion."
My point is that it is NOT "only through seeking the the kingdom of God that vegetation becomes gift." Because that would mean that only Jewish/Christian people treat vegetation as gift. Not true.
You said: "On products/fruit, I thought it was clear that I meant economic product--a product for use, and only use, in trading, selling, etc."
I think that is a pretty uncharitable reading of modern economics. Do you really think that, for them, products are merely a thing merely to be used? I think that, in the final analysis, that's more a cheat shot than something they'd recognize of themselves.
An economic product is presumeably a fruit generated through/by/in the modern economic system. The economic system is the activity of real human beings in community, viewed as a whole, in which people generate wealth and exchange it.
I suppose you have a problem with the abstract category "product", where "product" could be any number of fruits of the economic system.
But I don't buy the whole anti-abstraction rhetoric that gets tossed around so much. The language of modern economics is based around abstraction and simplified models. These have limited value, but real value.
I'll agree that it is immoral to treat all economic products as "mere product", without carefully considering what kind of product it is.
Anyway, enough on all this. I need to go check on my iced tea.
If you feel like it breifly fill me in on your theological journey over the past bunch of years. You seem to be reading a bunch of the same books as me.
What you are writing doesn't fit with my faded memeories of you. I imagined you'd end up as a goofy dancing youth pastor silly man.
email@gmail.com
{replace "email" with "pilgrim.not.wanderer"}
Re: Kingdom. Gotcha. Just wondered if there was another issue hiding in the paragraph that fleshed out Kingdom. Guess not.
Re: Economic product. Perhaps more nuance was needed. I wasn't trying to condemn economics, though, so much as a position of hyper-capitalist view (who, perhaps, doesn't exist). Of course, I have met a few tree harvesters who do think of trees as money. (But I do recognize that they hire people.)
Anyway, hope the iced-tea was good. Uh...silly, goofy youth pastor, eh? I wish. I love those guys. Of course, my knock on economics could be returned here! ;)
Well, all I can say is Tim has no sense of humour whatsoever. He will be a great missionary in North Korea, where senses of humour are also punishable by death.
CG
i'm not sure that was fair, CG.
perhaps this article highlights some aspects of nationalism that filter its ways into Christianity:
http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=52538827-39CE-4C5E-8CF3-6E7EE4868999
http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/
story.aspx?content_id=52538827-39CE-4C5E
-8CF3-6E7EE4868999
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