Stanley Hauerwas, Greed, And Me

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

Anyone who has been reading any of this stuff knows that, with Shane Claiborne, and thinking missionionally, and talks of immigration and politics, a lot of my own personal conviction has centered on how we are called to be faithful with our finances.  We live in a world that tells us that we can't have enough and I'm still very moved by Compassion International's comment that the opposite of poor is not rich but enough.

I can't say I've come up with a lot of answers or what this all means for my life, but I'm asking the questions.  I was very happy to find the following comments from Stanley Hauerwas, Christian ethicist, over on Richard Hall's blog, Connexions.  The comments are from Hauerwas' article, "Can Greed Be Good?" at the ABC Religion and Ethics Site -- a site I'll have to look around a bit more.

Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never “enough.” But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need.

Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need.

The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared.

The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations.

As I've talked of the Eucharist, I have always said that it has bearings on economic justice...and how it is that we can share, intimately, in the body and blood of Jesus and then not share when it comes to things as "trivial" as money and goods.   I like Hauerwas' notion that "Greed...prohibits faith."  If one believes that we operate from a position of "scarcity" can one ever really believe that we have a God that gives us all that we need?

My problem with all of this is that I see myself operating from a perspective of "scarcity" in my own life...with my money, my goods, my belongings.  Then how can I fully trust in our God to provide for me.