Kingdom economics....

Matthew 6: 19-34

19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

As we have seen in the previous section of the Sermon on the Mount, Piety is: the practice of justice through generosity, prayer, forgiveness and fasting. Jesus goes on to teach in our current passage that the living out of this type of piety results in a practice of Kingdom economics within the lives of individual disciples and the communities that they form. The witness of the community of disciples will be demonstrated in the economic practices of the community. There is much political debate and squirming around these passages by theologians and denominations. Some people are always trying to get Jesus to endorse their system, politics and economics. The disciple of Jesus does not look for personal endorsement of our own lifestyle from Jesus words and practices; we look for personal and community transformation. We presume we have a tendency to meet our needs our own way and we look to Jesus for the liberation He promises from poverty, imprisonment, and blindness of meeting of our needs our own way.  It is a sad reality that for most of the history of the church, the church has preferred to endorse political and economic systems now abandoned to the trash heap of history. In the West since Constantine there has been a general reluctance to radically live out the teachings of Jesus of the Nazareth sermon (Luke 4: 16:30; Matthew 5-7 and many other passages). The idea that it is possible for the State to practice and enforce the teachings of Jesus while its members remain alienated from the transforming power of the teachings of Jesus is not only bizarre but socially repressive. The ‘separation of Church and State’ ensures that the opportunity to follow Jesus and participate in the inaugurated Kingdom of God by Jesus is authentic, real liberation and the expression of God given freedom. It allows the people of God to witness and speak truth to power through radically transformed lives and it safeguards the right of others to dissent and practice their way of worship and life in the same freedom disciples of Jesus cherish. Jesus teaching on economics and wealth is therefore ‘trans-cultural and trans-historical’ that is to say; they are to be practiced by His followers no matter the historical / political circumstances we find ourselves in. Jesus is not endorsing or indeed calling us to undermine contemporary secular historical political and economic systems; He is calling us as individuals and as community to be transformed and proclaim through participation and practice the ‘in breaking’ of Kingdom of God, soon to be completed at His coming. Transformation is achieved by putting into practice the teachings of Jesus.  It is transformation through accepting the Grace of God and living it out in circumstances that may not be of our personal choosing.  Our heart is our identity and source of commitment. Jesus calls us as His followers to be transformed in the production, storage, exchange and distribution of our wealth. Kingdom ethics is most visible through Kingdom economics practiced and advocated for in the community of disciples. If we will not practice these principles we have no right to advocate that others do.