A theme has appeared in conversations of late – the availability of resources worldwide and the kind of living (individually and socially) that maximizes the well-being of all. A few days ago Caleb asked me, “what would happen to Africa if no one did anything to help them?” We discussed basic economic theory, globalization and the distribution of goods. On Sunday, I preached from 2 Samuel 9 and noted how one of the marks of kingship (and our kingly work) is generosity to the stranger and outcast, a willingness to “enlarge our embrace” (Peterson). This morning, the news reported Barak Obama as saying:
To begin with, let me be clear: America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia….In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over… The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game – progress must be shared.
And then, last night, I finished reading Walter Brueggemann’s new book, The 
Unsettled God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible (Fortress Press, 2009). Brueggemann sketches out the contours of Israel’s worldview (as depicted in the Old Testament) and says:
At the root of reality is a limitless generosity that intends an extravagant abundance. This claim is exposited in Israel’s creation texts, sapiential traditions, and hymnic exuberances. This insistence flies in the face of the theory of scarcity on which the modern world is built. An ideology of scarcity produces a competitiveness that issues in brutality, justifies policies of war and aggression, authorizes an acute individualism, and provides endless anxiety about money, sexuality, physical fitness, beauty, work achievements, and finally mortality. It seems to me that, in the end, all of these anxieties are rooted in an ideology that resists a notion of limitless generosity and extravagant abundance.
