Solemnibus

And I’ve just thought of something else (following what’s below). As a common bartering stock, money itself has a power over us. It is a god, a power. Its value can and should be contested.

Sometimes, we will acquire or give away things with complete disregard for the consequences to our accumulated bargaining stock (money). In that case, we are refusing to price the thing acquired or given away. That is, we are not measuring its value according to the universal system.

This has great prophetic value. It may remind people that money is not a trustworthy god, especially when the universal system is so dominant as to completely rule people’s lives. Jesus often did shocking or inexplicable things precisely because he was refusing to buy into the universal system of his day, pointing instead to another, God-like way of being Jewish. The church acts as prophet when it ritualises and enacts the disregard of money in preference for love, compassion and nurture. It denies Mammon in service to God.

Keeping one day in seven for a rest from the measure and use of money is one such enacted ritual. It says to the world, “money and economics may not rule all. There is another way. God has freed us from slavery, including economic slavery.”

Of course, traditional Sunday rest is not worth much if the other six days are characterised by money-ruled dollar-slavery. Therefore it is not to be a strange Church ritual isolated from the rest of life, but must stand as constant call, reminder and pointer to the rest of life.

As Isaiah said (how might we inhabit his words today?):

“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

According to the Dominion Post, Dr. Brash has implied that he treated Helen Clark with greater respect and restraint during their first head-to-head leader’s debate, because she is female.

Ms. Clark has replied that she finds this ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘quaint’, while Winston opines that people enter politics not because of gender, but because of ability – and therefore he does not understand Dr. Brash’s point.

It’s a great shame that these people apparently consider that the only relevant difference between people is their ability to get the job done. This only demonstrates how much our social attitudes are being influenced by the economics of the production line.

We are becoming otherwise undifferentiated units of economic efficiency: being remade in the image of our chief god.

The result is a loss of genuine humanity, which respects the things that make us different and keeps us interdependent. Our lives are becoming shallow, plastic, fake, and mercenary.

My recommendation: reclaim some humanity, reject the idol. Start treating people with respect for who they really are – in all their diversity, representatives of the creator God.

Green Party wants gas-guzzling vehicle owners to pay

Slapping gas-guzzling car buyers with super-high registration fees are among the Green Party’s tools for tackling rising fuel costs.

The “feebate” policy was among a “peak oil tool-box” of solutions to gear the country up for the end of cheap oil that were announced yesterday by party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Those buying vehicles which were more fuel efficient than the New Zealand fleet average could pay no registration fees or even get a cheque, while those buying less fuel efficient models could pay up to $200 extra.

“The point at which we can best change New Zealand’s fuel consumption for the future is the point where a vehicle is brought across the border.”

An online database of fuel efficiency rates for vehicles would help people decide what to buy. Other policies included banning imports over seven years old and requiring fuel companies to sell renewable fuels. “Probably they would add an ethanol blend to the range of petrol sold and either blend biodiesel or sell it separately.”

Ahehehe.

The Passage

The oddest things happen while preparing for a shower. Two nights ago this passage suddenly resolved itself into clarity:

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

The Points

The point here is threefold. Firsly, there is a contrast of image, or likeness. Caesar’s image is on the coins. They belong to him. But God’s image and inscription are on his people. They belong to him. Jesus, confronting an Israel constituted and marked by Torah, drew the contrast.

Next, there is the contrast in the nature and scope of each realm. Caesar’s image is on a coin used for taxation in an oppressive, pagan Imperial system. But God’s image is on his people, and they are meant to be salt and light, used for the world’s liberation. Everything else is God’s too: the cattle on a thousand hills.

Lastly, there is the contrast of allegience. The coins authorised by Caesar and minted with his image are the currency of his Lordship. The Pharisees resented having to give up Roman coins to the Roman Lord, and wanted to keep them: by implication, to be part of the system. But Israel and the creation, stamped with God’s image through Torah, were called to be the counter-Imperial kingdom.

Therefore the question from Jesus’ point of view is not one of abstract law or principle about who has the highest authority to tax (God or Caesar?). The question is one to be answered prophetically, making an answer with a point: an image on coins is all Caesar has; therefore, Israel, give it to him. One can almost hear the assertion that Caesar is a beggar. But Israel was not part of that Imperial system, being stamped instead with God’s image. Therefore Jesus calls the Pharisees to decide the question of allegience with their coins.

The Effect

This enormously clever response achieves much. Firsly, it answers the question of loyalty to God and Torah without resorting to rebellious and confrontational tax resistance. This is significant in two respects: it avoids the legal trap laid for him (violation of Jewish law is he pays taxes, violation of Roman if he doesn’t). In addition, it provides Jesus with a way to rebuke the confrontational, constantly-simmering zeal for rebellion felt by the Jews.

Secondly, it provides an incisive commentary of the true poverty of Caesar’s realm. What is money, after all, and what is Caesar’s kingdom? Thirdly, it brings the Pharisees to crisis, precisely because Jesus casts Roman money as belonging to Caesar’s realm, and the desire to keep it as a rhetorical question: to whom do you belong?

And this is, I think, the question that we must face, too. I don’t think Christ’s response means that Christians are to abandon money. He was not laying down a timeless law, but responding to a specific situation with a prophetic voice. But because we may share that voice, his example shows that we too may strictly relativise the value we place on money. There are times when money, still the image and instrument of the state, may be relatively benign. At others, it will become the symbol of yet another poverty-stricken, oppresive Imperialism.

The way we confront that Imperialism, though, is shown to be quite remarkable. It is not by playing Caesar at his own power-game and seeing who wins. It is by giving him what he wants, as a testimony of his poverty, and alligning ourselves with a far richer, redemptive realm. In other words, we do and care for the things that really count as God’s image – and wait for the gates of Caesar’s realm to crumble.

The Challenge

To what extent today, when economic measures rule everything, are we therefore called to render unto God what is God’s, and to take up the prophetic voice with respect to money? How shall we gladly render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, ceasing (as is common in Reformed circles) to grumble about taxation and to plot methods of reduction? We know that his kingdom is ended, his poverty is assured, and that we herald, to those in captivity, a better and more glorious King. What will we do and value to show this?

Defending Michael Cullen’s approach to the surplus
Think, or lose

10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time
‘Economic Aid’ and the American Empire