Possessing or disposing of these things, Johnson argues, is theologically significant for what it conveys about our response to God. “Possessions are not good or evil themselves; they derive significance from the way they extend our bodies in the world and thereby symbolize and affect our responses to reality.” Grounded deeply in Luke-Acts, but calling on an impressive array of scriptural witnesses, Johnson adeptly illustrates that this human drama takes place in the dynamic between idolatry and faith. The Word mandates that possessions be acknowledged as gifts from God and shared with others. This mandate cannot be reduced to structures, programs or ideologies, but must flower in “creative responses to the real needs of others.” Discerning these creative responses is the task of the church. Johnson is strong on this gift and burden of discernment, especially in relationship to Jesus’ humanity. “God’s will for Jesus did not unfurl all at once like a blueprint but only revealed itself to him piecemeal, as it does to us, in the moment-by-moment structures of his life.” Jesus had to be “attentive” to the Father’s Word at every moment. Johnson develops this “obediential hearing” as the difficult but correct mode of faith for the church as we struggle with how to use possessions. Arguing for an alternative to western monasticism, Johnson draws on early rabbinic literature to make a solid case that the “community of almsgiving” deserves greater attention because it avoids ideological flattening and preserves communal discernment that faith demands. His appeal to early rabbinic sources is not to be faulted as some critics have argued, but rather his romanticizing of current Jewish practice as accomplishing justice wherever it is practiced. For Johnson, organized power that places demands on anyone outside the church leads inevitably to social control. Concerns over the vast chasm between rich and poor can be addressed only through changes of the human heart. The church’s work of sharing is accomplished locally and communally. This, for Johnson, is justice, or at least the best we can do to enact it. Thankfully, the Bible’s imagination is richer than Johnson’s when it comes to prophetic visions of shared possessions. In fact, Johnson’s view that “there are always more needs in the world than there are resources to meet those needs” reveals the very kind of ideological commitment that Johnson critiques — here based on the Pharonic ideology of scarcity rather than the good news of Scripture. One wonders if he has strayed too far from his otherwise close attention to the loaves and fish of the biblical witness.
ANDREW FOSTER CONNORS is the pastor of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian church in Baltimore.
