A penny for your time...

Economy.

Do you feel scared?  Angry, perhaps?  Anxious even a little?  Right now that four-syllable word is being thrown around in American politics and media like a racial epithet.  It's being murmured around water coolers as if it were an office rumor about layoffs.  And it's being prayed about around dinner tables as though it were the name of a beloved family member on their deathbed.

I had an interesting thought the other day, and I'd love to share it with you.  Three words that are central to the study of economics are supply, demand, and scarcity.  Scarcity is the problem of infinite human needs and wants (demand) in a world of finite resources (supply).  Supply and demand are inversely related.  This means that when supply of an item is high, its demand drops for lack of need or want, and therefore its value drops.  When its supply is low, then the need or want often increases, which raises its value.  The study of these dynamics is the focus of economics. 

The most universally finite of all of our resources as humans is time.  That's not to say that time is finite--it's just that the amount of time that we have to live is very limited.  Because of this, we feel greatly compelled to get a good value for our time, because its supply is so utterly limited. 

We seek high paying jobs because it seems to say to us that our time is of more value than other people's time.  We honk and yell in traffic jams as a protest of the injustice that is inflicted upon us when someone or something steals our highly valued time.  And we fail to spend time with our families, churches, or hurting people because, "Darn it, we're earning money to put food on the table, to tithe, and to pay for the welfare system."

One of the most beautiful things to me about Christ's message is the idea of a resurrection from death.  If you believe that Christ died and was resurrected to show us what will one day happen for those who make Him the Lord of their lives, then a very interesting thing should take place in your personal economy of time.  You see, supply of time has sky-rocketed for the believer who trusts in Christ for the resurrection.

This should, effectively, decrease the value you place on the importance of time--especially as it relates to your own personal goals.  In a Christian worldview where we believe that time is given to us by God in great abundance even beyond death, when would it ever be appropriate for us to not give our time away to someone who was in need of aid?  Time is of little economic value to the Christian, except that he or she invests their time in relationships with other people, or cultivates their personal talents through their time to help others who are in need or can't support themselves.

What, then, does Christ say IS of value to a person who wants to be like Him?  Well, while your personal ambitions should not be of great importance to you (and isn't very important to God), He places INFINITE value on poor people, hurting people, sick people, immoral and imprisoned people, and lonely people.

Infinite value.  If we, as strong and secure Americans, are not giving radically of our time and money to aid the people around us, we are investing in a market that will eventually collapse.  It is only through a life that lives itself outward--oriented towards the needs of others--that we can hope to "redeem the time, because the days are evil," as the apostle Paul instructs.

So, in these hard economic times for America, be of good cheer.  The economy within which Jesus calls us to participate is not a collection of external systems that flux and fail.  The economy that Jesus calls us to participate in is one that springs up from within us as believers, reorienting us towards the needs and desires of others instead of our own. 

This is the gift of Jesus to the world which we in turn must give to others.  This is the wellspring of peace that surpasses understanding.  This is the economy of grace.