We Christians are in the hoping business, hope in the resurrection and all that.  And it’s a good thing we are because this last year has been a little bit frightening.  Those of us in the United States have come face front with a rather uncomfortable reality: that we are interdependent with the rest of the world and they with us.  Our interdependence with the rest of the world was dramatic this spring.  Economic tidal waves in the Asian and European markets were set off by/linked to our recession.  An oil geyser in the Atlantic was fueled by American hunger for fuel itself. 

For some it might be an odd thing to be so potently aware of our interdependence during a week when we usually celebrate independence.  But Christians who’ve come to know and love Paul’s cranky writings in 1 Corinthians 5-6, know that the idea of being linked to others is older than the idea of autonomy.  St. Paul describes the entire community as a single organism in which the health and behavior of one member impacts the whole.  So the concept of interdependence is nothing new, just how that interdependence gets played out.

Here’s where the hope comes in, and I’m not talking about some sort of high-fructose corn syrup platitude of things all working out or a rapture mongering fiery finish to escape our present reality.  I’m talking about hope that God is present in the midst of this world with all its crises and that recovery is possible.  In Christianity we have hope in our interdependence, not in spite of our interdependence.  God gives us to one another, and it is through our relationships with each other that we get glimpses of God.

For today’s dose of hope I direct your attention to the island of Barbados.  Up until the early 1970s Barbados and its twin Jamaica were in similar situations.  Both were of similar size, history, form of government, available industries, and both were facing economic meltdowns.  Today, though, Barbadians have an appreciably higher quality of life, rate of employment, and per person GDP than Jamaicans.  What happened between the early 70’s and today?

Broadly speaking the two countries opted into different macroeconomic strategies.¹  At a key juncture, in 1993, all working people in Barbados agreed to a one-time pay cut of 9%, and firms agreed to limit price increases in hopes of stabilizing the country’s economic stability and independence.  Without precedence or proof that it would work, the whole country agreed to go with less and to demand less.  The net effect was a more stable, thriving, and dare I say, hopeful community.

Now if the entire hope of the story were in community reliance, that would be merely ethical humanism (e.g. Barbadians took a risk on one another, and everyone agreed to the social contract, and it paid off).  But I think actually that something more interesting and holy was going on – Barbadians collectively risked not having enough for the sake of one another, which means that they bet on God’s providence.  They trusted in God to provide because they loved one another.  Their hope rose out of their interdependence.

Barbados is a small Caribbean island, and their choice in 1993 is no grand example of global recovery; nor can their behavior be easily mapped onto the US (especially since Barbados pegs its currency to the US dollar).  Still, little and quirky and unexpected is how God rolls.  God spoke to Noah with a dove after flooding and to Elijah in a sound of sheer silence.  God chose boy leaders in Samuel and David. 

God surprises us with how kind and abundant life can be when we prioritize our interdependence.

Happy 4th of July, Beat’s.

For a longer version of the Barbados story, check out the NPR This American Life piece.

¹Being a storyteller and not an economist I am taking the liberty to only tell you about the part of their economic strategy that I really understand to be fascinating and compelling.