Home Economics

My friend Timy once created an amusing statement: "Asking a Christian if he's taken a vow of poverty is like asking a Eunuch if he's taken a vow of celibacy."

It is funny how we have so easily omitted a theology of possessions from our ethical practices. The only thing Jesus talked more about than money is the Kingdom of God. The faith has tremendous economic implications, far beyond the relative "don't be greedy" and the guilt-ridding "give ten percent."

Timy's quote does not imply every Christian should physically deprive himself of money (though probably more Americans are specifically called to this than the number who actually do it). However, it does imply that all Christians should take a vow of poverty in terms of worldview. The Earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. We cannot own anything, because all belongs to God.

We own nothing; we get to partake in the joys and blessings of what has been given to us. Think about how this world would look different if our sense of entitlement to things was non-existent. Christianity is the most widespread religion on the globe (and certainly not the only religion which teaches this concept). If all Christians proclaimed that nothing was theirs (from dust we came and to dust we will return), think of the true peace which would become apparent. No sense of entitlement to the land allows indigenous cultures to thrive again. It stops wars and ethnic cleansing. No sense of entitlement to money stops greed. Few disputes would go to state courts. Situations would be settled and property shared. Life would be lived together! And what a radical change that would be for many of us.

But these are macro-level implications. The point of this post is to explain how I, on a "home economics" level, have interacted with the Christian teachings of non-ownership in my home of Harrisburg.

At the beginning of the semester an old friend Brett called me, explaining that although he was accepted at Messiah College, he could not attend because of financial reasons (which was enough to make me pissed at my school as it is). He had to go to Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) as a fall-back plan. However, he still needed housing and didn't have the money for it. Knowing that my housing in the city was free due to being "on staff," I invited him to crash at my place as long as he needed to, until a more solid plan fell into place. I was a single person living in a two-bedroom apartment. All the better to share the space with a friend!

Brett also offered me money, but I could not accept, knowing the space was free to me also. We are both poor, for all intensive purposes relative to Americans. We are not yet the bottom of the barrel, but we will be. We are at a point in history where my generation is coming out of school with the most debt and (statistically) the least hope of eliminating that debt. Let's be real.

So how do we get by? The answer is collaboration. Whenever Brett comes over, he brings something with him. It is often food - leftover chicken patties from an old job he worked, small gluten-free meals, anything he can get his hands on. Having Celiac disease makes "living off the land" very hard in America, where everything is made from wheat. Many of my friends don't recognize this unless they have Celiac. They don't understand why I refuse to buy groceries, and they sometimes offer me food with wheat in it, not knowing I have Celiac (or sometimes just forgetting). But Brett, who doesn't come from the same economic background as many of these rich Messiah-friend families, knows to keep my health in mind.

On the other hand, though, I sometimes eat things with wheat in them. I just pray before eating that God will "bless this food to my body." I can't imagine that me eating wheat is any worse than the disciples partaking in human flesh (the literal translation of Jesus telling His followers to eat His body is "chew my flesh" - no wonder the early Christians were sometimes seen as cannibals!). This prayer causes me to trust the miracle of God, that He can use seemingly horrible things to create good. It also reminds me that I cannot live on "bread alone." In fact, with Celiac I cannot live on bread at all. Because wheat is America's staple food, it makes it all the harder to not worry and trust that God will feed me tomorrow in an even more intimate way than He feeds the birds.

Environmental sustainability is so trendy nowadays. People buy organic and local food half due to a conscience and half due to looking cool. I think, though, that freeganism (what I do - eat whatever is provided to me for free) looks pretty stupid. It makes me look like a mooch and feel guilty. People even call me a mooch. I do recognize that if everyone did what I did, it wouldn't work out because not all of us are farmers. Nonetheless, there is an incredible amount of waste in our current world. I can eat leftover/free meat, chocolate, non-fair-trade goods, etc precisely because I am not contributing to the demand for those goods. In addition, I am decreasing waste and redistributing (both to myself and others) food which would ultimately end up in a landfill.

Though at this point in the semester I am running low, my pantry has not run dry. I still have food and have not gotten as hungry as I did last semester. The best thing about having food is sharing it and valuing it. When somebody takes me into the campus dining hall, I value that experience far more than those who have a meal plan with the school. I appreciate what is given to me (how appropriate for the season of Thanksgiving). I get to be free with the things I possess because I do not possess them. My door remains unlocked, and anyone can come in at any time and eat what they please. The same goes for my books. A few housemates have borrowed textbooks for class or just wanted something to read leisurely, and the renunciation of possessions allows me to share "my" books, ultimately bringing them joy (in a good read) and me joy (for fulfilling me human need to give).

Food is important because people are important. We need it to live just as we need Christ's body to truly live (and not merely survive for a time). We too often advocate for individual responsibility, saying that our personal actions determine the course of the world. While this is partially true, it does little to change things and still reinforces individualism. Sharing the things that don't belong to us anyway is one of the most subversive things we can do. We can transform the world through this far more than we can through being smart consumers.