The cost-of-living crisis has, in recent years, seen inflation rise above normal levels because of a combination of global issues including the Ukraine and Iran conflicts. This comes after years of austerity where our governments implemented a series of sustained reductions in public spending all intended to reduce the budget deficit. As a result, we live in a time of relative scarcity compared with years of a booming economy prior to the time of austerity. When we are in a scarcity mindset we focus on all the deficits in our situation, all that is wrong, all we have lost and all that we don’t have.
When St Paul contrasts one who sows sparingly and also reaps sparingly with one who sows bountifully and also reaps bountifully, he is contrasting a scarcity mindset with a mindset of abundance (2 Corinthians 9.6-15). Harvest Festivals are times to remember the abundance of God’s provision in our world and to reflect on the difference between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset.
Today, we often experience a sense of scarcity in the Church as well. In our generation God has given his Church a financial crisis, and this can only be for one reason: to teach us that abundance does not lie in financial security, and to show us that only in relationships of mutual interdependence, relationships that money obscures as often as it enables, does abundant life lie.
Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide. That is what we celebrate annually in our Harvest Festivals and is what Paul commends to the Christians in Corinth when he calls us to be cheerful givers recognising that God provides us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work.
As Christians, we don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10.10) Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. God is a God of abundance who is continually giving us all we need even in the midst of scarcity and trouble; perhaps, especially, in the midst of scarcity and trouble. Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation. The Church of today needs to rediscover his teaching because God gives us the abundance of the kingdom to renew the poverty of the church.
Why then do we often live with a scarcity mindset instead of an abundance mindset? Firstly, we often overlook what we already have. John McKnight and Peter Block are pioneers of asset-based community development. In their book The Abundant Community’ they talk about our consumer society as an economy of scarcity because it ‘constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate community.’ Instead, they argue that ‘we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can be the architects of the future where we want to live.’
This is true too for churches, which thrive when the gifts of all their members are released and they build on one another’s assets. The currency of the kingdom of God is of things that never run out. ‘The secret of happiness is learning to love the things God gives us in plenty. There’s no global shortage of friendship, kindness, generosity, sympathy, creativity, faithfulness, laughter, love. These are the currency of abundance.
Our problem, though, is not just that we don’t always recognise the gifts that God is giving, it is also that we sometimes reject and do not receive the gifts he is giving. A key temptation we face as God's people is to a scarcity mindset in which we reject or fail to recognise the gifts that God is continually sending to us.
Jesus is described as the stone that the builders rejected. Sam Wells notes that 'the rejected stone became the cornerstone, the keystone – the stone that held up all the others, the crucial link, the vital connection. The rejected stone is Jesus. In his crucifixion he was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives.'
Then, when we do recognise that God provides us with every blessing in abundance, we need to become cheerful givers so that, by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. We can become cheerful givers because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to us.
In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us, that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.
Oliver O'Donovan writes that, “Generosity means: not staying within the limits which public rationality sets on its approval of benevolence. An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation.”
So, the challenge for us as a church and as individuals is this, are we going to live in the economy of scarcity, ‘the economy that is fine as far as it goes, but turns out not to go very far – the economy that only includes certain people, only buys certain things, only lasts a limited length of time – the economy of anxiety and scarcity?’ Or are we going to live in the economy of abundance, ‘the economy where the only use of wealth is to make friends and set people free, the economy in which you are never homeless and you cannot be destitute because you have spent your time and money making friends who will always welcome you into their homes – the economy of abundance, where generosity is the best investment? Which is it to be?’
If we live in the economy of scarcity, we will spend our lives fearing for our jobs, our livelihoods, our reputations, our health, our families, our lives themselves. If we live in the economy of abundance we won’t fear anything. We’ll have the things that money can’t buy and we’ll know the things that hardship and even death can’t take away from us. We’ll have learned to love the things God gives us in plenty. We will be living truly abundant life. We will experience Harvest all year round.
But, in order to see what God is truly giving us, our mindset needs to change from a scarcity or deficit mindset which sees problems to an asset, abundance or Harvest mindset which looks for resources around us where we are. Then, as St Paul writes, each of us will be able to give as we have made up our minds, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver as we recognise that God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. May that blessing of God be true for each one of us in abundance this Harvest. Amen.
But, in order to see what God is truly giving us, our mindset needs to change from a scarcity or deficit mindset which sees problems to an asset, abundance or Harvest mindset which looks for resources around us where we are. Then, as St Paul writes, each of us will be able to give as we have made up our minds, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver as we recognise that God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. May that blessing of God be true for each one of us in abundance this Harvest. Amen.
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Corinne Bailey Rae - Before The Throne Of The Invisible God.
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