I woke up this morning and heard about the “flash crash” and more news on the ongoing financial troubles in Europe (specifically Greece), and couldn’t help but think of the Bible and Shane Claiborne’s commentary on one particular part of Revelation.

…read about the fall of Babylon. “Oh, here’s Babylon, she’s fallen, and the merchants stand back and they weep and they wail and they said, ‘Oh, fallen is this great Babylon.’” And there’s another response, though, which is that the angels rejoice and the big question is, “Will we be weeping with the merchants or rejoicing with the angels?”

-Shane Claiborne

Some more quotes from a 2009 interview with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Shane Claiborne done by Relevant magazine.

Well I think God’s economy is always real, no matter how the world’s economy is doing. But sometimes we can see our need for it even more clearly when the world’s economy ain’t doing so well. It was during what America calls its Great Depression that the Catholic Worker Movement was born and Dorothy Day and a number of other folks really led the Church in thinking about its works of mercy and how it is that we take care of each other in what we used to call economic hard times.

It’s interesting that poor people seem to get the tactics of Jesus a little better than people who have resources because they know that you have to take care of each other if you’re gonna make it in this world. So when Jesus says things like “Give to whoever asks,” that makes sense to people who’ve learned how to survive on the margins and in the cracks. In some ways, I think in the midst of an economic crisis, especially in the Church, we might look to learn from our brothers and sisters who’ve lived in poverty what it means to really be God’s economy and receive that as good news here in the midst of an economy that might be going down. I mean, after all, if you’ve invested everything in your 401k, things aren’t looking so good. But if you’ve invested in friendships, you’ve still got those friends

-Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Art by Marco Fusinato, Mass Black Implosion (Enantiodromia, Jani Christou), 2007 ink on archival facsimile of score 1 of 10 parts, 42 x 56.5 cm each

Tags:babyloneconimicsjonathan wilson-hartgroverevelationShane Claiborne