The Uneven Exchange

There are some people, perhaps even in this room, who may be familiar from personal experience with the barter system. A farmer, for instance, trades several baskets of fresh eggs in exchange for a service rendered by a blacksmith, or something comparable to that. There are places in the world where this is still in use, even today, although it’s not so common in this country.

The closest many of us might come to bartering is quid pro quo arrangements. Maybe a church offers use of its space for a musical ensemble to make a recording. In exchange, the ensemble offers to sing a free concert for the church. In such arrangements, good faith is required, trust is necessary, and resources other than money are seen as having an equivalent value. There’s some degree of risk in this way of conducting business, because the exchange is hard to quantify. Somebody just might get the short end of the stick. But it seems to me that the purpose of such arrangements is that they are not completely financial in nature. Services and things are measured beyond a cold assessment of numerical value.

And yet, there is still an exchange. This for that. Quid pro quo. The idea is that, even if money doesn’t change hands, there is still some kind of balancing that takes place.

This doesn’t strike the modern ear, especially the modern American ear, as being unreasonable. Our system of commerce is based on solid principles of this for that, of supposedly equal exchange. The car you buy is evaluated at market value, even if you spend some time negotiating its price. There is really no such thing as a free lunch. But we also know that things get messy in equal exchange arrangements when someone seems to be shortchanged or cheated. If someone reneges on their end of the bargain, there needs to be some kind of justice for the system to retain its efficacy.

Now, I would guess that many of us apply our understanding of the exchange of goods or services to our own spiritual lives. We hear Jesus’ exhortations to decent, godly behavior, and we assume that if we follow those guidelines, things will work out well. The Golden Rule might best exemplify this even exchange. Treat others as you want to be treated in return. Fair enough, right? If I say my prayers and go to church and engage in service to those in need, I can expect some kind of eternal reward. If I welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, I gain some kind of spiritual extra credit. Or at the very least, I get an honest grade for the work I’ve done.

But if we’re clear about today’s Gospel passage, we will find that Jesus’ math doesn’t quite add up in our bartering system or quid pro quo mentality. Jesus’ words are well known: those who lose their life for his sake, will find their life. Those who wish to save their life will lose it. To follow Christ, you not only have to deny yourself—give something up—but also take up a cross. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like an equal or fair exchange.

Jesus continues: If you amass all the things you really want, the things of the world, your life is somehow forfeited. The conclusion is that there is no way to barter one’s life.

We’ve heard Jesus offer this same bad math before. The laborers in the vineyard who only spend a few hours working at the end of the day get paid the same as those who worked from early dawn. The Prodigal Son receives a sumptuous feast from his father, even after wandering away for a while, and elder brother is none too happy because of it. This doesn’t seem fair at all.

And so, we might even expect that Jesus’ arithmetic is a bit off and call it a day. Okay, we say. Maybe the exchange rate is not entirely even in human terms. We give fifty acres of land in exchange for two apples. But we can come around to accepting Jesus’ system of trade. What it means is that we need to expect to deny ourselves and give up a lot of things that are dear to us, but we can fully expect that some kind of beautiful eternal reward is waiting around the corner for us. If it’s not fair from our worldly mindset, we at least get something out of it.

This is how we are tempted to read Jesus’ concluding words in today’s Gospel lesson. Matthew is clear: judgment is nigh upon us. The Son of Man will return and repay everyone for their actions. So, we get on with the business of doing as much good so that we can be repaid well. It’s worth giving up some of our comfort to gain that everlasting reward.

The problem is that we have actually come full circle and are back where we started. Even if we accept the unequal exchange of Jesus’ math, we are now, once again, bartering. We do something and we expect something in return. Quid pro quo.

It turns out that the language used in the original Greek of this passage is quite commercial in nature. It is the cold, calculated, measured language of an exacting exchange. The profit and loss of those who barter with their lives is echoed in the description of the Son of Man’s judgment, too: the Son of Man will repay people for what they have done. Tit for tat, quid pro quo. It’s as if those who treat their relationships with their neighbors as a bartering game can expect the same in judgment.

The rub lies in how we view our neighbors. If our brothers and sisters are seen as mere commodities, the judgment upon us, wrought by our own actions, is that we only see our salvation as something to be commercialized. This way of dealing with everyday life can so permeate our being that we end up applying it to God. We are used to giving favors to gain favors, or consorting with the powerful to earn power, or paying special attention to certain people so we can get something in return, and so God becomes another bargaining deal for us.

But it goes even deeper. Even when we think we are being altruistic towards our neighbor, doing good and not expecting anything from them, it might turn out that we are secretly expecting something from God.

And Jesus, in the words we hear today, encourages us to see things differently. Crucified on the cross, between two criminals, Jesus looked to his Father in heaven while his arms were extended outward in forgiveness towards the condemned men on either side of him. The cross itself entreats us to look not only vertically but horizontally.

When our actions, even if good, are simply geared towards the vertical relationship, then our salvation has become individualistic and narrowly personal. The good we do is quid for the quo that we anticipate from God.

Jesus’ economics are quite different. He did not offer his life to win favor from his Father. He willingly gave his life for those who hated him and ridiculed him. And in doing so, Jesus directed our gaze to the economy of God. This economy is no even exchange. Nothing can be bartered here. For what would it profit us to gain the whole world if we end up losing our life? How can we even put an economic value on our life?

The exchange rate in God’s economy is vastly and gloriously uneven and unfair, and hopelessly stacked in our favor. We gain untold merits by Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection by virtue of being God’s beloved children. We don’t do anything to earn it. We don’t negotiate a quid pro quo for our salvation. It is freely offered. And what we end up gaining is immeasurable. God’s mercy and compassion cannot be squeezed into any numerical system. And when we try to do so, we are repaid accordingly.

It would seem that Paul understood God’s economy all too well from his Letter to the Romans. The system of exchange that still governs much of our world, is an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. A nasty word is returned for a nasty word, and cold shoulders invite more cold shoulders. Broken agreements render more broken agreements. But Jesus breaks this vicious system of quid pro quo by extending his loving arms on the hard wood of the cross so that everyone can come within the reach of his saving embrace.[1]

In God’s economy, salvation cannot be divorced from neighbor. Our actions and intentions must not be oriented towards our own personal reward alone but must come to encompass those around us. And the exchange rate is not even, because if it were, too many people would end up losing.

Our own bishop has constantly reminded us during this pandemic that as the living Body of Christ, we are incarnational, not transactional. The Church doesn’t operate as Walmart does. The life of faith is not measure for measure. Scarcity is not traded for scarcity. Instead, with God’s generous provision, scarcity is always traded for abundance. Mustard seeds are traded for mountains. It all seems unfair and uneven, and that’s why it’s so good.

And thanks be to God that his mercy and compassion are not doled out based on how much we give to others, even if our actions inform how much we are able to receive that mercy and compassion. Thanks be to God that the exchange rate is uneven, because its unevenness is the hope for all the downtrodden and those who despair.

Look at how our vision has changed with Jesus’ disruption of the quid pro quo of the world. The dry vines in our vineyard are still capable of yielding much fruit. And even when—especially when—our resources seem too meager to reach out our arms in love to the neighbor, we do it anyway, not to gain a reward, but because God’s salvation of the world works through our arms extended to another. The vertical is expanded into the horizontal.

The way of the cross is full of potholes and stumbling blocks that threaten to trip us up, but we walk it nevertheless, because in the detours and in the long, circuitous paths off the road, we find our neighbor. And then we find ourselves back on that beautiful path, not bartering our way along to heaven, but losing our lives so that God opens up a new a more glorious one to us.

A Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
August 30, 2020
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

[1] From the Collect for Fridays in Morning Prayer, the Book of Common Prayer