Economy of Salvation—Covenant Not Contract

Are you envious because I am generous?
The last should be first and the first should be last. 

Our modern societies are all built on a system of transaction, 
an economy of transactions, if you would.
You do X and I will give you Y;
if you do X minus two, I will either give you Y
or I will give you Y minus two.
It is a very transactional mindset and it works for labor. 
You work for this many hours, 
I will pay you at this rate for this many hours. 
It also works for goods. 
We buy and we sell goods. 
This is $50 and I expect you get this. 
And if there is something wrong with this, I want my $50 back. 
It is a very transactional mindset
and most of our economies are like this.

In particular, the American economy is built 
on this very transactional mindset. 
If you do not deliver X and I have paid for X, 
then I am coming after you because you owe me X. 
That is the way transaction works, it is very straightforward. 
Now we have not always had societies like that. 
Society has not always been built on such a transactional mindset. 
Although it has been around for many thousand years 
and different varieties in different ways.

That is why we find this gospel so hard
because the transaction does not make sense, right? 
The equation of the economics of it just do not work for us, right? 
It violates our sense of fairness. 
What is the first thing that comes to your mind? Be honest. 
When you understand that the last one gets the full day's wages, 
we say that is not fair, right?
We are thinking that even if we may not say it. 
But we say that is not going to work 
because when the workers who go out the next day will say, 
“I will wait till five o'clock, right?”
That is what we all think, right? 
Because we think in transactions, we think “you do X I do Y.”

In one sense it is a contractual relationship. 
Even though we do not necessarily say it, 
but when I buy goods, there is sort of an implicit contract 
that that I am buying that it is what it is, what you claim it to be.
If I buy a vacuum cleaner 
and I bring home that vacuum cleaner and it does not work, 
you have broken the contract. 
So, I bring it back to you and say, 
“I want my money back because a contract has been broken, right?”
That is the way it is!
The same if you buy a box of oranges at Costco
and half of them are rotten, what do you do? 
Bring them back and say,
“Costco broke their contract. I want my money back.”
Because they did not deliver what they said they would. 

Now the struggle is that is this economy and transactional mindset 
tends to bleed over into our relationships, 
into our friendships, into our marriages. 
If you do not do X I will not give you Y.
We even have it to the point where 
marriage is very much a contract of marriage. 
If you do not step up, then I am done. 
I am out of here, out of my side of the contract. 

The reason I bring that up is because that is not the way God works. 
That is not the way economy of salvation works.
It may be the economy of our modern economies, 
but that is not the way economy of salvation works. 
The economy of salvation is a different logic,
or some might say no logic at all. 
But there is a logic. 
It just is not transactional logic. 
It is covenantal logic.
In a contract, if you do X I do Y;
if you do not do X, I will not do Y. 
That is a contract
In a covenant, if you do X, I will do Y. 
If you do not do X, I still do Y. 
Yeah, that is called a covenant. 
I commit to doing this and whether you do your part or not, 
I am going to do my part because that is the commitment I made. 
I made it to the covenant; I made it to God.
You are just one side. 
I am the other side. I am not breaking my side. 
Does that make sense? 
God says to us, 
“If you keep my commands, I will love you.”
But if we fail to keep God’s commands,
God still loves us no matter what.

God wants us to love him back, but he will still love us
if we go ahead and sin and leave God alone, 
God still love us back. 
God never breaks his side of the covenant. 
We continually break our side of the covenant. 
That is the logic of today's gospel. 

Even 2,000 years ago, they found this hard to hear.
We have been dealing with this transactional mindset for many years. 
It is not just a recent phenomenon, 
although it is taken to the extreme in America 
and indeed in most modern societies.
We have to move to the covenantal relationship. 

Now you say “That is great theology. Thank you for explaining it. 
But how am I going to do that?”
We have to examine our own lives. 
How can we be more covenantal
and less contractual in our relationships? 
We cannot change the economy and
we are not interested in changing the economy to our Christian mindset, 
but we can recalibrate our relationships 
according to a covenantal mindset.
That comes out as that if you do X and you fail to do X, 
that I forgive you and I still love you. Why? 
I still love you, even though you have hurt me.
I will love you even though you have damaged our relationship. 
I will hold up my side of the covenant, 
even though you may not have kept your side of the covenant. 
By the way, there are times when we do not hold up our side of the covenant 
and we pray and hope others will give us a break 
so that they can give us forgiveness 
and we are ready to forgive it. 
In all things, God is constantly holding up his side of the covenant.

What would that look like in our day-to-day life? 
The best example of a covenantal relationship 
is that of a grandparent to a grandchild. 
The contractual relationship as a parent to child 
might be still lingering there, 
but grandparents just shower them with love. 
They do not care about the rules, right? 
We know the grandparents who just go, 
“Oh, honey, I will give them some more candy. Who cares?”
And you say, “You never did that for me when I was a child.”
Yeah, well, so, right. 
It is a covenantal showering of god's grace, 
reckless we would call it. 
But it is the best example I think we have of God’s love. 
It is this reckless showering and 
showing up to the commitment of the covenant.

Not that we all want to be the same age as our grandparents, 
but if we act like our grandparents showering each other with love, 
unconditionally, carelessly, recklessly in the commitment to a covenant 
that we promised the Lord 
that we will love in the same way that he loves us, 
that we will forgive in the same way that he forgives us.

It is not a transaction, it is not a contract, it is a covenant. 
That is our discipleship. 
The commitment to love no matter what. 
It is really hard to hear when it is like this, 
but we are on the recipient end of that love. 
It is magical to hear. 
It is magical to experience. 

Today, as we come to receive, 
the continued promise of his presence 
is unconditional love in the body and the blood of Christ. 
When we receive that, we promise to become that 
and participate in the covenant of God's love in this world.
This world that so needs a different economy. 
Let us give him this economy of salvation, God's unconditional love.

Are you envious because I am generous?
The last should be first and the first should be last.