What grace is that to you?

Here’s what the children are doing as they gather at the front:

Guess what, everybody!  I need your help with an economics lesson.  Did you know you would come to church to worship today and learn about economics?  Of course not!  Nobody saw this coming! 

It’s just that Jesus said a bunch of really difficult things to the people who want to follow him—we call these people “disciples”—and I think it will help us understand where Jesus is coming from when he says some of these things. 

Like, one difficult thing he said was this: “love your enemies.”  That’s silly!  Why would you love someone who is your enemy?!  And get this: if someone slaps you on the cheek, Jesus said you should show them your other cheek so they can hit that one too!  And now it gets really weird: Jesus said if someone takes away your coat, you should also give them your shirt.  And then what?  You’re just running around naked?  But Jesus said “Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again.”  How can Jesus be serious?!

So here’s where the economics lesson comes in.  Economics is a fancy word for “household management,” so it includes the money needed for your household and for your family, and everything you need for your family to be healthy and fed and living their best. 

Sometimes when you hear the word “economics” or “the economy,” it means all the money in an entire country and where that money goes, like who’s buying what things from which people, and how is the government using the money that they get from taxes, and stuff like that.  Maybe the grown-ups in your home get nervous or upset about things when they’re talking about “the economy.”

So I want to show you some words that describe a “Little Economy,” which is usually the economy we are talking about.  These ideas come from Wendell Berry.[1]

Values of the Little Economy:

Scarcity—this words means there is never enough, we’re afraid of running out of what

we need

Possession—this means the stuff that you call your own, like your toys or your shirt (the

SHIRT THAT JESUS SAID TO GIVE AWAY which is such a silly thing to say!)

Concentration—means that stuff can get stuck all in one place, like all the things you

need are in a pile over here, but all the money is in a pile over there, things get

“concentrated” into a place

Stratification—that means levels, which means there are levels of wealth because some

people have a lot more than other people

Autonomy—means you decide what to do for yourself because you only take care of

yourself

Privatization/Debt—Stuff belongs to people and if you want to buy that stuff, you’ll owe

money to someone else.

Exhaustion—When you’re always trying to make more more more, there’s never enough

and you get exhausted or tired, and the earth gets exhausted too. 

The Little Economy is the system of NEVER ENOUGH because there is never enough money, never enough stuff, never enough time to get everything you want.  All these pieces fit together like a pie, and there’s only one pie and for one person to get a bigger piece, someone else has to get a smaller piece. 

But there’s another way: the Great Economy.  It’s totally different and doesn’t even fit into a pie.  This is God’s Economy, and these are the values of

the Great Economy:

Abundance—this means there is more than enough for everyone

Gift/Commonwealth—everything is given as a gift that is held in common by everyone,

like it’s “common wealth”

Circulation—that means the stuff gets to everybody, it moves around and circulates and

doesn’t get stuck in one place

Equity—This means each person has what they need.  Everybody doesn’t need the same

amount of stuff but each person has what they need to live.

Interdependence—no one is by themselves, we all rely on one another and we depend

on each other.

Sharing/Release—this means I can give up some of what I have, I can release

ownership, so that someone else can have what they need.  Because everything

is a gift, the stuff wasn’t mine to start with, and I have the freedom to give away

what I have when I have more than I need.

Limits—this honors the natural limits of life.  Like, when it was so cold last week, I felt

really sleepy and couldn’t do as much, so I gave my body more time to rest.  And

another example of a limit: Sabbath, which is a day of rest, one day every week

to give myself rest, to let creation rest.  That’s a limit, and it’s important to get

rest so that I don’t overwork myself because that can wear me out and make me

feel sick. 

I printed these words out, and made some cards up here, and I want you to color on them because we’re going to share them later with everyone else.  We have enough for everybody. 

(Now speaking from the pulpit)  Is anyone still listening?  I think there’s good reason why today’s Gospel lesson begins with Jesus saying, “But I say to you who are listening…” because a lot of us stopped listening after the Gospel reading last week, which was the whole thing about blessed are the poor and blessed are the ones who are getting persecuted and in fact, when people are persecuting you, that’s when you should leap for joy!  I’m still a little stuck on that idea myself—I can’t figure that one out so I’m not really ready to move on to the next lesson, either. 

But Jesus keeps on truckin’, and his lesson gets progressively worse: love your enemies.  If someone says “forget you” then you respond back to them “And God bless YOU!”  And let someone hit you in the face and give away your shirt and give to anyone who asks of you and don’t keep records of what you give away because also don’t ask for them to repay you.  Jesus’s teachings just get worse and worse and worse. 

And you know what’s the worst part?  I think he meant it.  These sayings aren’t metaphors or poetry—these are straightforward instructions.  Like, I think Jesus was serious when he said these things. 

Ched Myers described it this way in his book: studying the Bible can sometimes seem like studying an old musical score.  This would be like if you opened the hymnal just to look at the pages.  Which you can totally do--it doesn’t hurt—you can admire the words and the lyrics of the hymns, and we could even do that here in worship.  Read inspiring words, or maybe even say the words together.  Why not?  But we never do that!  What do we do with all these words in the hymnal?  WE SING THEM. 

Turns out, those mysterious lines and dots that we call musical staffs and notes—those markings have a meaning, and if you’re just looking at it, it makes no sense.  But if a musician plays the notes and then people are singing along—well!  That’s when the music comes alive.  It’s not music until you sing it, and it’s not really a hymn until we’re all singing it together. 

Ched Myers says this: “A musical score is only truly realized through community performance.  Similarly, only when we try to embody a scriptural text in our context are we truly interpreting it.” 

Jesus’s words won’t make any sense if we’re not even trying to live them out.  The finer points of loving one’s enemies, the discipline of nonviolence, the creativity that’s required to resist an empire—this stuff is hard.  And sure you can do it alone, just like any one of you can take the hymnal and play the songs by yourself or sing by yourself, and that can be a beautiful expression of devotion to God and a way of praying, and yes that’s important too.

But we have each other to share ideas about how to live in this way of Jesus, to imagine what in the world it could possibly look like to be disciple in this world and in this economy that we’re living in.  If we’re not even trying to live these words, Jesus isn’t going to make any sense. 

And that’s fine: Jesus still died for you, God still loves you, and you don’t have to understand everything.  But if you happen to want to grow in wisdom, if you suspect that this world is not all there is, if you are tired of feeling like a loser in the economy of NEVER ENOUGH, well then, my friend, turns out I’ve got some good news for you after all. 

Good news from Jesus the economist, a bold move considering his occupation, which one of my kids even noticed and asked me one day: “Did Jesus ever have a real job?”

So, real quick: look again at the Gospel lesson, and look at all the places where Jesus says the word “you”—love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, etc.  All of those yous are plural: so it’s “y’all.”  Love y’all’s enemies.  Do good to those who hate y’all. 

How different does it sound when Jesus is addressing a group?  This is not a lesson to take individually, which means Jesus is not telling you to remain a victim in an interpersonal relationship. 

Similarly with the idea of forgiveness—consider what forgiveness looks like as a group activity.  Forgiveness does not mean that the person who has been harmed is required to tell their abuser “aw, it’s okay now.”  Forgiveness is a gift for yourself, to refuse to allow hatred or vengeance to destroy you. 

And love y’all’s enemies—love doesn’t mean there’s no accountability.  Love doesn’t mean there are no consequences for people’s behavior.  Love does not mean warm, happy, positive feelings—love means committing oneself to remaining human and refusing to give up your humanity.  Loving your enemies probably means making sure they have what they need, and taking steps to promote healing in a broken relationship, and as much as possible working toward reconciliation. 

This stuff definitely isn’t easy, but when the work is shared among people united in their love for God, grounded in their values of love and forgiveness and nonviolence…well, with even a small group, it begins to look possible. 

Because this stuff, Jesus’s teaching, is absolute nonsense when considered in the context of the Little Economy, the economy of “never enough.”  But the Great Economy—God’s economy, living in creation as God’s household—where there is always enough…imagine the freedom of just giving things away because you know with certainty that there’s more where that came from! 

Imagine if no one could take anything away from you because you know you have plenty.  No one can take your dignity by merely hitting you in the face, so go ahead and hit me again.  No one can take my coat and expose me to the elements without me exposing their cruelty, so here, have my shirt too.  I can give away money because it wasn’t mine to begin with: everything that exists came from God, and God gave creation plenty for everyone to live.  It’s a gift. 

When Jesus says “if y’all love those who love y’all…if y’all do good to those who do good to y’all…if y’all lend to those from whom y’all expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you?”  What’s weird in this translation is the word “credit”—what credit is that to you?  The Greek word used there is never translated “credit” anywhere else, and the word comes up plenty: it’s charis.  Grace. 

If you love those who love you, what grace is that to you?  If you do good to those who do good to you, what grace is that to you?  How is it grace if you can only love and do good to the people who love you and do good to you? 

Grace is always a gift.  Grace comes from God, freely given, in quantities as much as you need.  Grace from God is the unending love of Jesus, the assurance of healing, the promise of restoration and reconciliation of everything in creation that is broken, and all the second and third and fourth chances to try again in relationship with God.  How is it grace if you’re just trading it back and forth as some kind of currency in the economy of “never enough?” 

The Godly Play story of creation starts like this, with a question: what is the biggest gift you ever got?  Some gifts are so big, you don’t even realize they’re gifts. 

I don’t know, y’all.  I think all this stuff that Jesus says: somehow, it is actually good news. 

Amen. 

Pastor Cheryl

[1] Wendell Berry, “Two Economies,” Review and Expositor, 81 no.2 (May 1984), pages 189-90; quoted in Ched Myers, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2025, page 18.