There he stands at the assembly line, patiently loading powder and ball bearings into steel globes about the size of a grapefruit. All day long. It can't be an exciting job. But he's probably got a family to feed. Honeywell pays better than his last employer, and he hopes to buy a newer car before the year is out. Like his neighbors, he expects a rising standard of living. But in the empire of Mammon, one person's living means another's death.
Perhaps you have seen the NARMIC slide show on "The automated air war" and have, like me, been appalled at the technological monsters our scientists, corporations, and tax dollars have produced. Winged grapefruit-sized bomblets, spreading out from one big canister bomb, will explode over an area of several football fields and freeze in a deadly instant all that moves and breathes there.
Although in 1973 there was a cease-fire in Indochina, there was no repentance in Washington. The Department of Defense was already planning a $4 billion increase in spending for 1973, and the manufacturers of bombs have contracts to fulfill. Peaceful Canadians also have cause to mourn. Their government, in 1971, was the world's fourth largest seller of weapons.
But what else can we expect in a society of mass consumption and economic competition? When social progress is measured in terms of our gross national product, then we will have prosperity at any price. We have to invest and sell overseas, and must build military bases to protect this wealth. In 1972 the U.S. people taxed themselves $400 per person for "defense"—more than the average person in the third world earned all year. The United Nations told us "that at the end of the 1960s there are more sick, more undernourished, and more uneducated children in the world than there were ten years ago." In the empire of Mammon, one person's living means another's death.
Mammon, as Jesus taught us, is money and property ruling over people. Mammon has the power of deluding slaves into thinking they are free. We are kings of the supermarket; we can choose among ten brands all leading the same affluent life style. We are king-puppets manipulated by advertising and built-in obsolescence to consume and produce more and more for corporations' rising profits. We ravage and pollute the earth, believing that Mammon's arch-angel "technology" will save us.
We seek our own security, amusement, careers, and sexual gratification, and have to live on guard to make sure we get our fair share out of all our relationships. Our labor and creativity are paid for and consumed by men we never meet. As professionals we serve those with wealth more than those with needs, for only money can express a demand. Who in our society knows, without rationalizations, what she or he really needs to live on? Who of us is in touch with others' needs so we can love our neighbor as ourselves? True communion between hearts escapes our lifelong grasping for it. In the empire of Mammon, each one dies alone in a crowd.
The unending year of Jubilee. Because we are everywhere surrounded by the empire of Mammon, it molds our consciousness and confuses us about what age we are living in, of what land we are citizens. We think, perhaps, that we are living in an age of corporate capitalism or that we are citizens of the state of United States or Canada. But these things will pass away. Followers of Christ have chosen to live as citizens of the age to come, witnessing by all our relations to the good news of God's kingdom.
This kingdom is not just a heavenly vision at the end of time. It had its beginnings way back in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 25, for example, the Hebrews are commanded to celebrate the year of Jubilee. Every fiftieth year, all that grew in the fields was free for the poor and strangers to gather as needed. Slaves were released, debts were canceled, wealth was redistributed, and celebrations echoed across the land. But for reasons necessary to those with power, the practice of Jubilee had fallen into disuse.
When Jesus launched his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed an unending year of Jubilee that none of his hearers could misunderstand:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Lord has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor, the Lord has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to announce the year when the Lord will save his people!" (Luke 4:18-19).
Jesus declared war on Mammon, on everything the present age holds dear. He came in God's power, the power that gives everything away, and to follow him we must overthrow all our perceptions. Jesus gathered his disciples, calling them to leave possessions, families, and careers in order to form a new society living out the good news of God's kingdom in their fellowship and service.
Modern people have tried to make Christ's teachings on possessions complicated to understand and easy to do. In truth, these sayings are simple to understand and hard to do. Who can follow them on his own?
Blessed are the spiritually poor (Matthew 5:3).
Blessed are the poor (Luke 6:20).
When someone asks you for something, give it to him or her ... (Matthew 5:42).
Do not save up riches here on earth ... (Matthew 6:19).
Do not worry about the food and drink you need to stay alive ... (Matthew 6:25).
Give first place to God's kingdom and to what God requires, and God will provide you with all these other things (Matthew 6:33).
Faith and Riches
We want to believe that we can go on living as we do, and by some change of attitude serve God as well. That's what the rich young man believed when he asked Jesus the secret to eternal life. He claimed he had always kept the law, that he honored his father and mother, that he loved his neighbor as himself. But Jesus put his claim to the test, for he had not loved his neighbor as himself. Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me (Matthew 19:21). As the old Hutterite saying goes, "You can't boil two soups in one pot"; it's God or Mammon.
Voluntary poverty and community of goods are clear emphases of Christ's message and life. When his spirit of love and freedom was let loose on his followers at Pentecost, the war on Mammon was taken up again, and in the liberated zone where Mammon was routed, we see the fellowship of believers ...
... one in mind and heart. No one said that any of his or her belongings were his or her own, but they all shared with one another everything they had. ... Those who owned fields or houses would sell them, bring the money received from the sale, and turn it over to the apostles; and the money was distributed to each one according to his or her need. (Acts 4:32-35).
Some say the church eventually abandoned this sharing because "it didn't work." That is like saying, "It doesn't always pay to tell the truth." We live Christ's way because it reveals the nature of the Father, because it is the only way peace will come on earth. To say "it doesn't work" ignores the fact that in every age there have been communities and individuals who have followed Christ's teachings of voluntary poverty and radical sharing.
The Bible does not teach the cramped ascetic view that the material world is inferior and that we should withdraw from it. Jesus came to bring us the abundant life. But the secret of abundant life is not in the accumulation of personal possessions, which are the sacraments of Mammon worshipers: Jesus teaches us that sharing makes things holy and creates the joyous fellowship, while private possession makes things an idol and separates us from our brothers. Wherever Christ's spirit liberates people we see the practice and celebration of Jubilee.
Poverty, persecution, and the joyous fellowship.
"So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he or she has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33).
O Christ, your words hang like a heavy stone on our hearts, for we know that Mammon is in possession of our lives.
"What I earn and own is my own business."
"Who'll take care of me in my old age?"
"Giving up my things would make me so unhappy, and God, you surely don't want us to be miserable."
Oh how guilty we feel, and angry at those who make us feel guilty. But guilt, like most feelings, doesn't last long and has little power to change our lives. Surrender is not a new moralistic assignment, but a way to reorder our lives so that light and warmth and clarity may break in and grasp our whole being. God doesn't just want to save our possessions; he has a far more joyful alternative for us.
Peter spoke up: 'Look, we have left everything and followed you.' 'Yes,' Jesus said to them, 'and I tell you this: anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me, and for the gospel, will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields—and persecutions as well; and in the age to come he or she will receive eternal life' (Mark 10:28-31).
Those who have, in our day, given up their possessions and joined in Christian community are finding new meaning in these verses. In community they find brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. They find that, though they call nothing their own, yet everything is theirs as they have need. This is the joyous fellowship where work belongs to us and care belongs to God. The nuclear family is no longer a millstone that burdens us with its demands for security, but is part of a larger support group that encourages and liberates us to take risks for the kingdom. Here God is calling God's people out of the Egypt of enslavement to possessions and is leading us through the wilderness of simplicity where there is manna for all.
If you would like to take up with Christ the battle against Mammon, then reach out to others of like mind and covenant to meet regularly. A first step together might be to share honestly information about your income, property, and debts. Struggle together to learn your real needs—perhaps the county welfare standard may be a guide to loving your neighbor as yourself. Then use all your resources to bear each other's burdens, for the work of God's kingdom.
A word of caution: once you move to trust each other and God, rather than in Mammon, you will find that many suppressed personal conflicts will boil to the surface. These seeds of mistrust must be faced openly and worked out in truth and love, for this is the business of the church. Love alone can win the victory over Mammon.
You will need each other, since persecution is sure to follow if you continue in Christ's way. People are either violently threatened or attracted when they see the kingdom; they cannot ignore it. The empire of Mammon will not allow its idols to be ridiculed. States cannot rule men and women who fear God alone.
You will find that the oppressed and alienated will come to your door, for Mammon does not take care of them. It is with the least of these that you will have fellowship and show the nature of God to the world.
David H. Janzen was a member of "The Bridge" community in Newton, Kansas, when this article appeared.
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