The Economics of the Eucharist: Learning to Desire Rightly within the Christian Community.

1. A Peculiar People.
Time and time again in the scriptures we are confronted with the fact that the pilgrim people of God are called to be a different sort of people. We are a people that are not of this world (Jn. 17:14, 16). Peter even refers to the people of God as aliens in a strange land, therefore, as aliens we ought to conduct ourselves in a very different manner (1Pe. 2:11; 2Pe. 1:4). In fact, Paul writes “that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace,” (2Cor. 1:12). Truly, Paul was an example of someone who lived in the world but was not of this world. His conduct in the world was holy and sincere and did not make much sense according to the wisdom of the world. How then is it that Paul ended up in prison under the watchful eye of the Romans (and later killed at their hands)? Perhaps he truly did live a life that was ‘set-apart.’
The Christian tradition which I grew up in (I would argue that the same thing applies for most of North American, especially evangelical, Christianity) tended to spiritualize holiness. What was holiness? Well to be holy was to do your devotions, pray, go to church, and to avoid any sort of “bad” behaviour (i.e. swearing, drinking, smoking, bad movies, secular music etc). The problem is that all of these things tend to relate to ones private spirituality. Generally, as a teen I was free to live life like your average North American teen provided I followed a couple of extra rules. This is precisely the problem. The church is all too often guilty of not actually living as aliens. Our material lives and desires are more often shaped by cultural values and norms than by scriptural ones. Our private spirituality often fails to inform and shape our public life together.
In this paper I would like to examine how Christians, as followers of Jesus, ought to inhabit and enact a wholly alternate way of life which is itself rooted in an alternate narrative of the world and its inhabitants. Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus that the mystery of God’s will in Christ has been made known to us and it is this, that he will “bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ,” (Eph. 1:10). This is revealing for a few reasons. First, to suggest the idea here of God’s reign Paul uses the word oikonomia which is about ordering and managing ones household. There is a particular order to life as God intends it to be, namely, abundantly fruitful for all. Secondly, Paul says that “all things” will be brought together under Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord of all and this means that the ordering of his household extends to all of creation. To paraphrase Abraham Kuyper, “there is no sphere of life over which Christ Jesus does not cry ‘mine.’”1 The church then, is called to embody and be the first fruits of a plan of reconciliation which extends to all of creation for “the whole world is mine,” proclaims the Lord (Ex. 19:5; Ps. 50:12). Hopefully we can begin to see how this de-privatizes our faith and thrusts it into the public square via the vehicle that is our daily life together. The believer then is called to be an oikonomos, a steward within the household of God, who extends the reign of God by making the love and presence of Christ incarnate in the world.
1.1 An economic space marked by the body of Christ.
It is impossible to avoid talking about economics at this point since the very word ‘economy’ is derived from the Greek oikonomia. Given then that our faith has dramatic implications for our daily lives together perhaps this is no where more evident than in our attitude towards our money and our stuff. Consequently, perhaps our failure to embody our faith is no where more evident than in our attitude towards these things. However, for many North American Christians (myself included in this mess) there is a massive disconnect between our faith and how we practice our economics. All too often we look to Bay St. for wisdom and guidance in financial matters when we need look no further than the crucified, risen, exalted and returning Messiah. The way of Bay St. is not the same as the way of the cross and if the church is to be faithful to her calling to be a “city on a hill”, an embodied witness of the good news for all of creation, then we need to allow the cross, and not Bay St., to shape our economic life together.
As has been hinted at already I would argue that the church is a community that enters and embodies an alternate way of life, a more abundant way of life, in order that we may be a witness in the midst of a world that is watching. In fact, to be a witness entails an alternate way, for “witness constitutes communities of praise, eucharistic communities, groups opposed to imperial accounts of what it means to be human.”2 I would also argue that if the church is to “order our house” differently then, fundamentally, this means practicing an economic life together that finds its roots in the cross and resurrection rather than Bay St. Namely, it is in the celebration and remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection in the Eucharist that Christians are taught how to consume rightly, by being consumed into the Body in order that we may become food for others. This proves to be a difficult endeavor for many Christians, however, since the narrative of the Eucharist finds itself in the midst of a plethora of other narratives about the world and our stuff. Perhaps the most powerful of these competing narratives is that of consumerism. Consumerism is a narrative of our relation to production, producers and products that is counter to the Judeo-Christian narrative of creation. It becomes problematic then when as North American Christians we allow our consumptive habits to be shaped and formed more by consumerism than by Christian practices such as the Eucharist.
Faith is not merely a private endeavor, what we do with our money and our stuff matters and should be directly informed by our relation to God. Dutch political-economist Bob Goudzwaard does a fantastic job of demonstrating much of what is wrong within the over-developed world and tries to point us in a new direction, towards an economy that flourishes for all. In addition, William Cavanaugh has much insight to offer in terms of economics and desire and how the Eucharist serves to shape both of these. In short then, Christians can no longer take current economic realities as givens and then seek out what a “Christian” stance might look like. Rather, we must recognize that “Christians themselves are called to create concrete alternative practices that open up a different kind of economic space – the space marked by the body of Christ,”3 and that the church is called to foster such spaces in the world. In other words, the church is called to practice an economics of the Eucharist in which the narrative of consumerism is challenged and made a spectacle of on the cross. This will be nothing less than a challenge to the imperial economic and political practice of the Empire. Perhaps then we can begin to live the sort of holiness that imprisoned Paul.

2. The Narrative Of Consumerism And It’s (Idolatrous) Formational Power To Shape Our Economic Life Together.
Bob Goudzwaard suggests that our current economic system is built on an idolatrous notion of progress. Economic progress and growth, we are told, is a good thing. In a consumer driven free-market economy the way to solve problems is to increase production but this requires us to increase consumption. The way to solve our problems is to shop. This is a story that we hear preached all the time. So, when the economic stability of our country is at risk our leaders tell us that “it is the duty of every American to consume.”4 This is why shortly after 9/11 US President George W. Bush told Americans that if we wanted to beat the terrorists we could not allow them to interrupt our way of life. What then should we do? Go shopping of course! It would seem then that consumerism is what keeps our society going and our economy growing. Yet, in the medical world, growth for growth’s sake is called cancer.5 Rarely do we stop and ask whether continued economic growth is good. Did you know that one of the primary ways we identify ourselves in the (over)developed world is as consumers? Not as artists, farmers, mothers or friends but as shoppers. In fact, the way we measure and experience value in our society is directly linked to how much we contribute to the economy via consumerism.6 The newer our stuff is the more we have obviously contributed to our consumer-driven economy and, therefore, the more valuable we are as people. Think about that. Who is more valuable in our society, the young trendy marketing executive who spends lots of money to maintain a particular image or the single mother who lives in government housing and needs food stamps in order to feed her family? And so we shop. Why? Because we want to be valuable, important members of society. Yet our habits of consumption are unsustainable. Only about 1% of the resources that flow through the chain of production and into our homes via consumption are still in use six months after purchase. In other words, about 99% of the stuff that is run through our economic system (i.e. through the processes of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal) ends up in the trash within six months.7 How can we possibly keep this up?
Our consumptive practices were not always like this however. In the town where I grew up there used to be farmers fields where there are now big box stores and gas stations. In fact, the average North American now consumes about twice as much as they did fifty years ago.8 When I think back to my Grandparents generation I see folks who were much more resourceful and better stewards than we are today. Heck, my wife’s Nonna still grows all her own vegetables and even makes her own pasta noodles! The reality is that the consumerism that is so rampant today was designed. After the second world war the United States government, along with major corporations, were thinking of ways to ramp up the economy. Retail analyst Victor LeBeau articulated a solution that helped shaped our current system: “Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life. That we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”9 The size and growth of our current economic structures necessitate consumption as a way of life. Through the help of marketing the purchasing of goods is turned into a “ritual” that spiritually satisfies us. The religiosity of consumerism is no accident. Consumerism is a confession of faith.
According to the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for US President Dwight Eisenhower the chief purpose of the American economy is to produce more consumer goods.10 Forget about healthcare, education, justice, employment and sustainability. The issue then became how to convince us that we need to go out and buy these goods. In order to convince the public that we are essentially nothing more than consumers and that we need to consume in order to keep our economy growing the government and corporations took a (essentially) two-pronged approach in the form of planned and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is the idea that some products are “designed for the dump.”11 This is most obvious with products like diapers and plastic bags but it is also true for everything from phones and mops to DVDs (hello Blu-ray!). Simply put, some products are designed with an expiration date at which point we need to go out and buy something new. However, stuff fails to wear out and break fast enough to keep our consumer-goods economy afloat so there is also perceived obsolescence. Perceived obsolescence is what you get when corporations pay marketing executives millions upon millions of dollars to convince you and I to throw away products that are perfectly useful and to replace these with shiny new products. How is this done? Simple, they just change the way things look. Fashion is a prime example of this. Every few months a new item is “in”. One year it’s leather jackets and the next it’s all about denim jackets. If you have older items it shows that you have not contributed to the economy of consumerism lately which means you’re not as valuable of a person which is, of course, embarrassing. Perhaps this is why Oscar Wilde famously remarked, “fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” To illustrate this further, since Apple first released the iPod in October 2001 there have been an additional fifty-one updated models released with different bells and whistles attached.12 I remember when I got my first iPod nano and within six months of having received it as a gift there was an even newer one available which made my (new!) iPod look old and out-dated.
Advertising plays a huge role in all of this as it serves to manufacture a sense of restlessness which in turn births false desires within us for things we have no need of. The average North American is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day on everything from bus-stops to the handles of pumps at the gas station. The extent of this is phenomenal as people now see more advertisements in one year than people fifty years ago saw in a lifetime.13 Interestingly, advertisements today tell us less and less about the actual product they are advertising. I recently saw an advertisement for Bacardi Rum that took place at some sort of roof-top pool in an urban setting. The ad was full of beautiful, young people that filled the empty pool with foam cubes and spent the night partying and jumping into said foam pool. Now what in the world this all had to do with rum I do not know. But that’s the thing. This ad was not designed to inform us about Bacardi Rum, rather, it was designed to associate Bacardi Rum with a particular image: namely, that of sexy young people with seemingly little worries having a fantastic night. That is not what my life looks like but apparently this is what it could look like if I drank Bacardi. Since advertisements exist almost solely to make us unhappy with what we have it is hardly a wonder that malls are the new temples for our consumerist culture. The studies are in, we have more stuff than ever before but are less happy and have less time for the things that make us truly happy because we are too busy working to try and sustain an insatiable, restless consumerism.
2.1 Economic Idolatry?
Ultimately this all comes back to what many critics, including Goudzwaard, suggest: our current global economy is predicated on infinite growth (which relies on consumerism) yet it is precisely this idolatrous faith in unimpeded progress that is unsustainable and damages our relationship with each other and with the rest of creation. ‘Idolatrous’ is a peculiar way to describe an economy yet this is precisely how Goudzwaard describes the economics of the (over)developed world. Idolatry, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, is ripe with imagery. Idols are carved out of stone or wood. They are images. Israel’s prophets often cried out for Israel to abandon her idolatry and return to YHWH on the basis that it was the Lord who has done great things for them. Who lead them out of slavery in Egypt? The Lord did. Who made them into a people? The Lord did. Who will redeem and restore them? The Lord will. In contrast, the prophets exposed the powerlessness of the idols. They cannot do anything for Israel. Sure, they have ears but they cannot hear, they have mouths but they cannot speak. Baal may have massive reproductive organs but according to the prophets he can’t get it up. Idol’s are not only impotent but sterile.
So, what then is idolatrous about our consumer driven economic system? Given the nature of this paper I do not have the space here to delve too deeply into this so a few comments will have to suffice for the time being. Goudzwaard highlights a number of paradoxes that exist within wealthy nations that our economy seems incapable of addressing. In fact, not only is our economy incapable of addressing these issues but as Goudzwaard argues in much of his work these paradoxes are actually the result of an ever-expanding economy. Therefore, any attempt to address these issues within our current economy of progress is in vain. The paradoxes relate to the issues of poverty, environmental degradation and unemployment. How is it that within the wealthiest countries in the world these sorts of things exist? Our economies are wealthier than ever and yet there are people living in my neighbourhood without a home or a job.The rate at which we are consuming the earths resources is unsustainable and unjust. The richest 20% of the world consumes as much as 80% of the worlds resources. How can we possibly continue to live lives like this? Our economy views the earths resources as something to be used for profit, as commodities to be bought and sold on the market. If a business community saw themselves as stewards of creation how would this change things? We are producing more than ever before and yet it seems that there are fewer jobs as a result of technological innovation and outsourcing. In fact, in an economy such as ours work is turned into a disutility, an expense, a speed bump on the road of progress and profit. This stands in stark contrast to the nature of work that we see in the scriptures. Work was created good as part of a good creation. In this sense work is far from a disutility. If economic life is a way of confession then we must acknowledge that our gods have failed us. Our economy, rooted as it is in the Industrial Revolution is nothing less than an expression of faith: “the faith that things would get better and better through the advance of modern technology within the framework of a growing free market production.”14 Things have not gotten “better and better” rather we could argue that they have gotten worse. Our economic way of life puts a strain on our relationship with each other and with creation in general and, in fact, harms these relationships.
Our Northern (Western) economy is built on a lie. The lie is this, that technological, scientific and economic progress will lead to our happiness. Unhindered progress becomes equivalent to unhindered happiness. And so in the name of progress we destroy one another and we destroy the earth. According to our idolatrous notion of progress any sort of restraint is a bad thing. Restraints are a hindrance to progress and therefore a hindrance to our happiness. Humans then become consumers. What does it mean to be human? It means to consume as much as you can because this will lead to your happiness. Yet, the scriptures tell us that we were created by God in his image. To be human is to be an image bearer. The question then becomes, whose image do we bear? If we give into the idolatrous notion of unimpeded or unlimited progress and growth, allowing ourselves to be shaped by consumerism, then we will inevitably bear an image other than God’s image and that is idolatry. How then are we to live? If our cultural narrative is that unimpeded progress will lead to our happiness then what is the scriptural narrative? It is that our happiness is bound up in Shalom. The point is not to consume and progress without boundaries. The point, rather, is to live in Shalom with creation and with each other. In order for this to happen we must talk about restraint.

2.2 Restraint and other economic options.

Restraint is not a popular notion in our Northern societies. We’re so used to doing more and wanting more and getting more that we rarely stop to ask ourselves if this is good. Let us consider for a moment that the earth has limited resources. If this is the case, then we cannot continue to live in a way that allows us to consume more than our fair share of the earths resources while other nations remain underdeveloped (in fact, our overdevelopment keeps other nations underdeveloped). We must also realize that the earth is not here to be plundered but rather to fall under the care of our stewardship. Consider also the current global economic situation. Economies all over the world are crumbling. Something is wrong here and it is not a surface issue. It is not a matter of changing a few things here and there so that all may be well. Rather, the issue is deep, spiritual and at the core of what we believe about ourselves and the world.

What are we to do then? Goudzwaard suggests that we need to start by understanding our economic life together in a different light, rooted in a different telling of the world. Simply put, economic life consists of more than producing and consuming; it also consists of sustaining and keeping. Rather than an economy that knows no bounds and is continually growing we ought to seek an economy that flourishes. An abundant, life-giving economy. An economy of enough. Recently I attended a talk given by Bob Goudzwaard and at one point he used the metaphor of a tree. Tree’s are beautiful and organic yet even the wisest oak tree knows that the point of the tree is not to grow up to heaven! There is something within the tree (creational) that tells it it’s purpose is not unlimited growth. Rather, the purpose of a tree is to flourish and bear fruit. At a certain point during the growth of a tree its energy and life is redirected towards bearing fruit. The same can be said for our economies. The purpose is not unlimited growth to the heavens, but rather, the purpose is for the flourishing of human life. A tree economy “seeks to provide sufficient opportunities for meaningful work, for meeting basic material needs both in Canada and around the world, for environmental sustainability for ourselves and for future generations, and for preservation of non-commercialized art and culture.”15 It is obvious, however, that our current culture knows little of this for we are only concerned with unlimited growth and progress. We know little of limitations or stewardship. We know not what it means to be content. Why? Because according to the narrative of our society humans are fundamentally consumers with insatiable desires living in a world of scarce resources. We are detached from the products that we buy, the methods of production and the actual people who make our goods.

3. The Narrative Of The Eucharist As Formative For Our Economic Life Together.
Yet as powerful and formative as the narrative of consumerism is it is not the only available narrative. There is another narrative that tells the story of us and our relation with others and creation. This narrative is found in the midst of a community that gather around the bread and the wine. This narrative is rooted in Christ’s broken body and shed blood.
3.1 Consumed.
Human beings are necessarily consumers. We consume everyday: food, clothing, air, relationships and sleep. There is no way around it, we must consume in order to survive. The problem is not so much with consuming as it is with consumerism. In a consumer culture, like ours, virtually everything becomes a commodity to be bought and sold. Generally when we think of consumerism we think of greed. We picture Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vault of money. We tend to equate consumerism with always wanting more, yet as William Cavanaugh points out, “consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else.”16 Consumerism then is best described as a restlessness, as being discontent with what we already have. The problem is not that we are attached to our things but that we are detached: “People do not hoard money; they spend it. People do not cling to things; they discard them and buy other things.”17 I remember a few years ago when this sort of restlessness had me in a choke-hold of sorts. I became obsessed with shoes. There was a point where I would buy a new pair of shoes almost weekly, in store, online, it didn’t matter. If I saw a pair of shoes that I liked I had to have them. At one point I probably had close to thirty pairs of shoes. My problem was not that I was so attached to a pair of shoes that I would not give them up but that I was so detached from the shoes that I already had that I could go out and purchase another pair without even thinking twice. This is the sort of attitude that describes our consumer culture, where humans are restless beings, detached from what they have and always wanting something else.
Christians are all too often shaped and formed by the narrative of consumer culture, which “is one of the most powerful systems of formation in the contemporary world.”18 Truly, consumerism is a powerful force that plays on human desire and marketers know this. In the words of one theologian, “Aristotle taught that the desires of the human heart are infinite, but the corporations do not want to leave it to chance, which is why they spend billions of dollars on advertising.”19 While Christians might spend an hour or two a week in church we are bombarded with advertisements everywhere we go, thousands of times a day. We can no longer go to the bathroom without being assaulted by some sort of advertising. While those of us who have grown up in this atmosphere might think that this is just the way things are it is important to realize that this sort of system is not morally neutral. This is not “just the way things are”, rather, we are being trained and formed to see the world a certain way. How we relate to the material world is a spiritual discipline.
So then, if we must consume in order to live, the real question we must wrestle with concerns what kinds of consumptive practices are conducive to an abundant life for all. As Christians we cannot simply be satisfied with consuming as the world does, rather, we must be concerned with consuming rightly. How then might the Eucharist shape our daily consumptive habits? In the Eucharist Jesus offers his own body to be consumed. John records Jesus as proclaiming, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life,” (6:54). It would be easy enough to turn the consumption of the Eucharist into some sort of consumerist spirituality, where Jesus becomes yet another commodity that benefits the individual user. However, the Eucharist is resistant to such a move because in the Eucharist our consumer culture is turned on its head. The ones who consume the Eucharist are in turn consumed by the Eucharist as each consumer is taken up into the larger body of Christ. As Cavanaugh puts it, “the individual consumer of the Eucharist does not simply take Christ into herself, but is taken up into Christ.”20 For, as Christ proclaims, “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” (Jn. 6:56). Consumerism is turned inside out as, through our consumption of the Eucharist, we are consumed by the body of Christ. Augustine echoes this thought when he hears God say, “I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.”21 We are no longer separate individuals who simply consume and discard, rather, “the small individual self is de-centered and put in the context of a much wider community of participation with others in the divine life.”22 Paul writes to the believers in Corinth, “the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread,” (1Cor.10:16-17). The individual consumer is consumed and absorbed into the body where they abide in Christ as he abides in them. In this way the Eucharist challenges the individual nature of consumption as necessitated by the market.
3.2 Kenotic Consumption: Or, consumed for the purposes of being consumed yet again.
However, if we simply stop at this point and admire the unity of our communities then we have failed to really grasp the nature of the Eucharist. We are consumed into the body for a reason. We are consumed in order that we may be consumed by others. In the Eucharist then we move from having to giving as we become food for others. True consumption from a Christian perspective involves a radical self-emptying. The apostle Paul writes to the believers in Philippi on this very matter. He exhorts them to be united and suggests that the way they go about this is to follow the example of Christ, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (kenoō), taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross,” (2:6-7). The point of the Eucharist is not simply that we are consumed into the body of Christ, although we most certainly are, rather, the point is that we are consumed into the body so that we may follow Christ Jesus in the way of radical self emptying for the sake of others. In other words, as we eat the bread we become bread for someone else. This is central to what it means to be a disciple of Christ and we can see it all throughout the writings of the second testament. To go the way of Christ is to go the way of suffering, the way of self-denial and self-emptying so that others can know the love and presence of Jesus. In baptism we participate with Christ in his death and resurrection. We go down into the waters to die only to come up and hear Christ’s call to “pick up our cross” and follow him. Paul could write these sorts of things to believers because he himself was on the way. “I die every day,” he writes to the Corinthians.
This self-emptying demands that we move beyond our own communities and comfort zones. It has been said that the church is the only community that exists for the purpose of its non-members. This lesson is made abundantly clear towards the end of Matthew 25 when Jesus sits enthroned as judge over “all the nations.” To those who will inherit the kingdom he will say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me,” (Mt. 25:34-36). But when did the blessed do such things (they do not seem to realize they fed Christ when he was hungry etc.)? Jesus’ reply is that whenever they did these sorts of things for the least of his brothers and sisters, “you did it to me,” (Mt. 25:40). As William Cavanaugh puts it, “all the downtrodden are Christ’s brothers and sisters.”23 Additionally Cavanaugh points out that what is truly radical about these passages is not simply that God rewards those who help the poor, rather, “what is truly radical is that Jesus identifies himself with the poor. The pain of the hungry person is the pain of Christ, and it is thus also the pain of anyone who is a member of the body of Christ.”24 The pain of the poor is the pain of those who follow Christ. If then we identify ourselves with Christ, who in turn took on the form of a slave and identifies himself with those who suffer, then we are obligated to much more than simply charity: “The very distinction between what is mine and yours breaks down in the body of Christ.”25
The gifts we have been given are not ends in and of themselves, rather, they have an end which is to serve the common good. Here, Goudzwaard uses the term “social mortgage” to suggest the same idea: “economic exchange and interaction should be the expression of the fact that God gave the riches and resources of his earth to the whole of mankind.”26 Our economic life together is entitled to development and growth but this must always be understood in light of “its purpose and destination to be an expression of genuine solidarity between men, [and] its obligation to serve God and neighbour.”27 To summarize Aquinas, all property is a gift from God, yet this gift is only valid if we use it for the benefit of others: “Man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need.”28 The purpose of material goods then is to deepen our attachment to others and to God. This is pictured beautifully in accounts of the early believers in the second and fourth chapter of Acts. Luke writes that the believers “were of one heart and soul” (4:32). This is the sort of unity that comes through the Eucharist (2:42, 46). Yet the consumption of the early believers into one body necessitated loving action and so we are told that they “had all things in common” and that they would “sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need,” (2:44-45; 4:32). Here then, we see that the economic praxis of the early believers is directly influenced and shaped by the Eucharist. Finally, in a beautiful reflection of God’s promise in Deuteronomy (“There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you,” 15:4) Luke tells us “there was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold…and it was distributed to each as any had need,” (4:34-35). This is where the Eucharist becomes a dangerous meal, for if we eat our fill while allowing our brothers and sisters to go hungry then we “eat and drink judgement against ourselves” (1Cor. 11:29). To be consumed into the body of Christ is to be turned into food for others.
3.3 From Scarcity to Abundance.
There is no hiding the fact that we live within two cultures. There is the predominant North American culture of which we are a part and yet we seek to live out another sort of culture shaped by Jesus. These two narratives of the world, the market and the Eucharist, tell overlapping and competing stories about things like hunger and consumption. We are told that economics “is the science that studies the allocation of resources under conditions of scarcity.”29 Economics assumes scarcity from the get-go. This is based on the understanding that while we live on an earth of limited resources peoples desires are insatiable. Scarcity does not just relate to those who are physically hungry and thirsty. We live in a world where the haves have become the have-nots. Our wealthy, (over)developed Northern countries feel the pinch of scarcity. I heard a statistic recently that while the US is one of the top producers of oil (approx. 8.5 million barrels/day) they still are not able to satisfy their consumption of oil (approx. 19.5 million b/day) and so they are also the worlds top importer of oil (approx. 13.47 million b/day).30 Here is arguably the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth and yet they are a country in need. They are rich and yet they have-not. The US feels the pressure of scarcity because consumerism has blinded them to what they already have. In North America we feel the pressure of scarcity not necessarily because we need more but because we want more.
It is easy to pick on a world super-power like the US but it comes right back to each and every one of us and our desire. As was shown above the narrative of consumerism forms within us a restlessness and so we become detached from the products we have as we chase after and shop for that which we do not have but want. Consumerism is not about wanting more but about wanting something else. The problem, to summarize St. Augustine, is that “our desires continue to light on objects that fail to satisfy, objects at the lower end of the scale of being that, if cut off from the Source of their being, quickly dissolve into nothing.”31 The solution to the restlessness of our desire is to develop a desire for God, the Eternal, or as Augustine put it, “our hearts find no peace until they rest in You.”32 The problem is not only that the market encourages an almost sexual desire for things, rather than people, but that the narrative of the market tells us a fundamentally individualistic story of the human person. One of the driving forces of the market is trade. In fact, this is also a basic assumption of scarcity: in order to get something you must give up something because there is not enough to go around for everyone. The reason this is fundamentally individualistic and, therefore, anti-Christian, is that “scarcity implies that goods are not held in common, that the consumption of goods is essentially a private experience.”33 In other words, private ownership is an underlying assumption of scarcity. In the Eucharist we see this turned inside out as all things are held in common and no one is in need.
Whereas the market begins the story with scarcity the Eucharist renders a different telling of the story: “It does not begin with scarcity, but with the one who came that we might have life, and have it abundantly (Jn. 10:10).”34 The Eucharist begins with abundance! “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (Jn. 6:35). Here, in the gift of Jesus’ body and blood the insatiability of human desire is absorbed by the abundance of God’s grace. There need be no anxiousness about scarcity when it comes to the body and blood of Christ for these are multiplied at thousands of eucharistic meals around the world each and every day. The good news continues, there is enough for everyone and no one will ever go needy: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (Jn. 6:37). Some will argue that despite all of these nice things the Eucharist implies the reality is that we still live in a world that has limited resources. Perhaps in a sense this is true. If we continue to put our faith in the progress of an ever-expanding economy then it seems we will most certainly “outgrow” (read: pillage and rape) the earth. Yet, as we have seen our current economic realities are not givens. These are systems and ways of looking at the world that were thought up by other humans like you and I. Therefore, these things can change if we are brave enough to begin to imagine and live out alternate ways of sharing life together. In fact, this is already beginning to happen in many communities, countries and business throughout the world. Also, if we begin to take seriously the Christian tradition that has come before us which reminds us that the resources of the earth have been given to us by God for the good of all people, not just a few rich ones, then we begin to see how the scarcity of the market is swallowed up and dissolved as we hold all things in common and begin to truly share life with one another.
3.4 From Competition to Sharing.
According to the market we are not only individual consumers but competing consumers. Given the conditions of scarcity there is not enough to go around and so we fight and compete with one another for the resources that are available. By this point anyone reading this essay can probably begin to see how the Eucharist may challenge this assumption. We are reminded countless times throughout scripture that we are one body. Paul writes, “because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1Cor. 10:17). As Cavanaugh puts it, “when we consume the Eucharist, we become one with others and share their fate.”35 When the foot hurts the rest of the body feels its pain. The same can be said for any part of the body. This is not a sentimental “feeling”, rather, the body actually shares the pain of each and every part. The same is true for the body of Christ, pain (and joy etc.) are communicated throughout the body via one nervous system. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it” (12:26). Because we are all one body Paul reminds the Corinthians to take special care of the weakest members of the body (12:22-25). No free-market competition here! As has been noted above, the pain of the hungry person is the pain of Christ and it is therefore the pain of those who are members of Christ’s body.
This sort of sharing, the dissolving of the line between what is mine and yours, is foolishness to a market that is based contractual exchanges and self-interested consumption and production. Benevolent giving in the market economy is still possible when we freely transfer property one to another, however, this sort of benevolence maintains and respects the boundaries between what is mine and what is yours. In the community shaped by the Eucharist this all changes as boundaries between you and I are confused and relativized: “We are no longer two individuals encountering each other either by way of contract or as active giver and passive recipient. Without losing our identities as unique persons…we cease to be merely ‘the other’ to each other by being incorporated into the body of Christ.”36 In Christ there is abundance for all. True abundance is never realized by the competition of insatiable desires for scarce goods. It is realized by emptying the small self into the larger reality of God’s superabundant life.

4. Conclusion.
The members of Christ’s body in the (over)developed world live at the intersection of at least two competing narratives of our relationship with the created order, the narrative of consumerism (i.e. the “free” market) and the narrative of the Eucharist. As the pilgrim people of God our economic life together is all too often shaped by consumerism and the market rather than by the Eucharist. Human desire is restless and seemingly insatiable and of course this becomes problematic in a world of scarcity. Our faith in progress and an ever-expanding economy is unhealthy and idolatrous as well as unsustainable. Our gods have failed us. As a community the church then is called to repent of our idolatry and to put our faith in God. Additionally, the church in the (over)developed world needs to become a community whose economic life together is shaped by the cross in which we learn to desire rightly. This happens as we begin to be shaped by the story of the Eucharist. This story begins with the abundance found in Christ, an abundance where our insatiable desire is overcome. The Eucharist is an anti-consumerist meal because in the Eucharist those who consume are consumed and become food for others. As we come to the eucharistic celebration we are taken up into the body of Christ and are joined together with all of Christ’s children, namely, those who suffer and are oppressed. Here then, while we retain our own unique identities, the line between you and I dissolves and this confuses the relationship between what is mine and what is yours. The early believers were known to have no one among them who was in need because they held all things in common. This is the sort of community the church needs to be, a community that is a foretaste of what is to come. To use biblical imagery, we are to be the firstfruits of what is to come, to enter and embody God’s future reign right here in the present for “the hungry cannot wait; the heavenly feast is now.”37
Ultimately the Christian ethic is one characterized by respect for life: “it is about nurturing, cherishing, celebrating.”38 The Eucharist forms us into a people with an economic praxis that is concerned with the abundant life and shalom of the entire created order. I leave you with a quote from a man who has shaped much of my imagination on this subject, Bob Goudzwaard:
“Certainly the church can’t point out the way to go by imitating the service of the gods of this age…the vocation of the church is to demonstrate in its own style of living that the redemption of Christ is also changing all our socioeconomic relations. In the Christian community something has to become visible of the holiness and the harmony of the economics of the Kingdom of God. A basic rule of that Kingdom is that happiness lies more in giving than in receiving, that a man can become rich in Christ by giving away his treasures.”39
May we be a people consumed by God so that we may be consumed by others. May we be a people whose ears are attuned to the voice of God and whose hearts are attuned to our brothers and sisters and the goodness of creation. For we are a people who, by participating in the eucharistic community, are implicated in the way of Jesus, in ushering in the reign of God.40 To the glory of God.