God’s Economic Plan

I am no economist. Most of the time I get my wise business practices from Marketplace Morning Report on N.P.R. In my new life as part of a married couple our household is working on having a better grasp of finances through taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. Still I am no economic expert; however, if you asked me about how God’s economy might work, I have more than my fair share to say.

God’s economy does not run the same way that our worldly systems do. We often believe an undergirding assumption that there is a thing called scarcity in which not enough resources exist for everyone to get his or her share. This is what creates the demand for products in our world. In God’s world there is no such thing as scarcity, but rather everything exists in abundance. When everyone wants some collector item or is ogling over a new gadget or gizmo God is beckoning us to see what truly matters, what is of deeper value. Some of us get this more easily than others.

Today we remember Saint Aidan who was Bishop of Lindisfarne in England. For much of his life Aidan served God in a monastery; however, when King Oswald ascended the throne in Northumbria restoring Christianity to the realm he called for a new bishop. Most at the time would have looked to Canterbury for a bishop, but not Oswald. He had been exiled in Iona, so he called there for a new missionary. Aidan was sent from Iona and he not only restored Christianity to that area of the island, but south through the Midlands almost to London. More than his gentle spirit, Aidan was known for his love of the poor.

The Venerable Bede, the great historian, remembered Aidan in such a positive light. He wrote, “He neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately to the poor whatever was given him by kings or rich men of the world” (Holy Women, Holy Men, 552). Aidan knew the abundance of God’s economy. He understood that in giving away he still always had more than enough. At times though this reality can be hard to comprehend. We all may struggle with the concept of giving away all that we have.

Bishop Aidan understood this struggle, and so he often invited any person he saw, rich or poor, pagan or Christian, “to embrace the mystery of the faith” (Holy Women, Holy Men, 552). This overwhelming belief in something he could not fully comprehend emphasized how he could do what he did. If he trusted and embraced the mystery of God. If he was able to hold fast to a God who would take care of him, even when Aidan knew he would give away all things, then he could go deeper into the mystery of the faith and more fully embrace the overwhelming love of God.

This is the difficulty and the gift of our faith. We must have open arms to embrace God’s mystery. We must have open hands both to receive what we are given by God and to give to others from the abundance given unto us. This is the flow of God’s economy. It is not in hoarding and hiding away that we become rich, but it is in being like Aidan a good steward of God’s gifts who so freely shared of the abundance of this Creation!