Pentecost 2, Year A 2008 May 25, 2008 St. Stephen Episcopal, Oak Harbor The Rev. Rachel K. Taber-Hamilton                              Consumerism vs. Reciprocity in Spiritual Economy. Last week, I mentioned how the Europeans who came to the shores of this continent brought with them both the consumerist ideology of colonialism as well as the Christian faith.  The former used the latter to justify the eradication of cultures and peoples in light of a doctrine of Manifest Destiny, in which Christian Europeans believed them selves to be entitled to the ownership and rights of the exploitation of all the earth.  There is no shore of any continent that is unaffected by this heritage and history even today. The Jamestown settlement in what became known as Virginia was primarily a capital venture by European investors working under the Crown.  And yet, in addition to business entrepreneurs ventured religious believers seeking freedom of worship and reformed religious expression.  They sought the ability to be in relationship with God and one another in ways that they believed were unvarnished, less ostentatious, and more scripturally based.  Many of these seekers aspired to restore their human society to a condition of innocence or purity akin to the human condition prior to the fall of humankind as depicted in the Book of Genesis.   In a real sense, they were looking for a new Eden in which to restore a right human relationship with God – a relationship based primarily on obedience and trust. To a certain extent the two quests are at odds.  Economic venture through the boundless harvesting of natural resources is in direct conflict with the spiritual venture to preserve or restore Eden.  Jesus statement in the Gospel of Matthew, “No one can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and wealth (Matt 6:24)” is never more true than when considered in light of God’s Creation and human responsibilities of stewardship.  Unfortunately, perhaps in part because of the influence of a world view in which Creation is simply a bunch of stuff to own and hoard for personal gains, Christians can tend to understand stewardship of Creation as “stuff management.”   When I lived in Alaska, I had very little stuff; everything I owned fit into seven small boxes, a back pack and a large suitcase.  In some places today that would constitute the resources of an entire village.  However, as a young adult, it was a very important learning to me to be able to experience my ability to take care of myself and see the direct correlation between my labor and meeting my basic needs to survive in the arctic environment without running water or electricity.  If I froze to death it was going to be my own fault.  If I was warm, clean and well fed in addition to getting my graduate papers in on time, that was because of my own efforts.   God was certainly beside me, but you can guess which one of us got to chop the wood (for which I developed a deep spiritual gratitude, mind you). While in Alaska, I would often be invited to Native potlatches and various gatherings.   Because cultural identity is closely linked to food items found in specific regions, honoring people means graciously accepting whatever you are given to eat.  To reject food is to reject the people who prepared it.  Food is important cultural communication, and I ate some things that I might not eat if I was a hermit or someone living outside the realms of human relationship.  But life is with people, and so I ate things like the Tlingit delicacy of herring eggs laid on kelp (it has the same texture and noise production as bubble wrap) and Athabaskan beaver stew (with overtones of the swampy waters where beaver’s live). Native communities for the most part continue to adhere to a form of community economy known as reciprocity.  The potlatch of shared foods and “give aways” of distributed goods are examples of reciprocity; what I give you today will be given in turn to me when I am in need, and we all contribute the goods and skills we have.   Within a model of reciprocal relationship, how stuff is managed is not based on one’s own need but on the needs of others.  What Saint Paul describes as gifts of the Spirit were viewed as gifts given by God to meet the needs of the community; each person’s gifts are exercised for the life of the community and are not motivated by self interest.   Frankly, the concept of the Spirit is much more in keeping with an economic model of reciprocity than with an economic model of capitalism.  Spiritual reciprocity, however, is also about much more than stuff though how we deal with stuff becomes a spiritual exercise in relationship. These days, I have lots of stuff to manage.  But I tell you, as meaningful as some of it is to my memories and as valuable as some of it is to my estate, I believe there is real truth to the idiom that the opposite of rich is not poor but freedom.  Having stuff can be quite a burden, ownership and even managing assets for the future needs can keep us from focusing on what is in front of us.  And what is in front of us, with us, all the time is the Kingdom of Heaven which beckons for our attention in the present moment. In the Old Testament reading from Isaiah that we have heard today (Isa 49:8-16), the Servant of God is given as a covenant to the people made manifest in the relationship between the land and the people who shall know pasture and shall not hunger or thirst.  God has compassion, remembering and receiving the wayward people in a nurturing embrace as a mother who inscribed them on the palms of her hands.  This feminine image alludes to an ancient Middle Eastern practice of women painting elaborate henna designs on their palms in celebration of important events such as weddings and births of children.  God loves the people and will provide for the people.  God will manage the stuff, knowing that we need food and drink and clothing, generously and abundantly giving these things to us without charge.  We are not to think of ourselves as stewards of stuff; that is God’s part of the covenant incarnated in the Servant. In Paul’s first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, Paul states that as those who serve Christ, Christians are stewards of God’s mysteries.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches that the people are not to strive primarily for stuff – even the basic stuff – rather, the people are to strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (also translated “justice”).  The concept of God’s Kingdom has about it some of the same ideals of the first colonists to these shores in their quest for a new Eden – ideals of freedom, justice, and trust. However, the literal understanding of Eden as a place is similar to the misconception that the Kingdom is yet to come.  I believe that Eden is best understood (and achieved) as a state of spiritual relationship with God, a quality of trust in God and trustworthiness as stewards of God’s mysteries.  These mysteries stem from a grace which is radically inclusive, never earnable and is always lovingly and abundantly given.  Grace has no price tag; the force which created the universe gives us everything we have and we are, every day.  Are we grateful?  What responsibility do we have if any to respond to what we are given? Being trustworthy stewards of God’s mysteries seems tied to Christ’s primary directive to his followers to strive for the Kingdom of God.  Work, effort, human labor – like chopping wood from a tree created by God – plays a part in revealing the Kingdom of God, which is within and is therefore with us even now.  Through Christ’s teaching, how we use God’s stuff unfolds the Kingdom of God whenever we practice actions of compassion, selflessness, generosity and courage within socially reciprocal relationships in which justice and love conspire to meet the needs of all people.  Our needs are met by loving God, who is served when the needs of the people are served.    It is ironic to me that the colonists who came to North America ultimately contributed to the destruction of the very way of living with the land and with the Spirit (as lived by indigenous peoples) which they sought to create for themselves.  Within systems of economic reciprocity, every item exchanged was considered a gift.  Walking though life, giving and receiving gifts, seems a much more spiritual way to relate to all that God has made and all that we have made from God’s Creation through the additional God gifts of the Spirit.   God keeps giving everything away all the time, even his own Son.  By his example we are also called to give God’s stuff away.   A day will come for each of us when all we have will be given away on our behalf if we do not first gift it ourselves.  We do not know when that time will come, but the gift of today gives us the opportunity again and again to love and serve others generously.  Rather than worry about our needs tomorrow, Christ’s asks us to pay deep attention to the needs of one another today.   May our prayer each day be, “I rest and trust that God will care for me, even as he trusts me to care for all the rest.”  Amen.