The Transaction Trap

On a recent family vacation, I found myself aimlessly wandering through yet another touristy souvenir store. T-shirts, ash trays, magnets, bottle openers, bracelets, hats (I bought one), vacuum-sealed local foodstuffs, shot glasses, and more.

I think we were in Greece. Or Rome. Or Budapest, maybe. Could it have been Luxembourg?

The gift shops are all the same. Cheap, predictable, something that offers a waft of local cultural cues, but lacks much authenticity if you look too close.

Is this why we had traveled all this way? Is this why I had weighed the luggage three times, sweated on a packed bus, grumpily obeyed airport security, and flown in coach for 15 hours?

To buy this dumb hat?

No. Of course not. There is far more to our family’s travels than these cheesy gift shops. We have epic stories to tell and lifetime memories to treasure, to be sure. But that moment browsing ashtrays somewhere in Europe had me in a contemplative mood.

Were we caught in the invisible matrix of a transactional world?

Had our whole lives been one shallow exchange?

Work x hours for y dollars so you can spend them on z souvenirs. Repeat.

How much of the world we’re swimming in had just been a big game of trade?

Be a good child, get a cookie.

Follow the rules, get a good grade.

Finish your dinner, get dessert.

Pass the test, get into college.

Go to college, get a good job.

Get a good job, pay off college debt.

If you want a doctor, please pay up.

If you want salvation, tithe 10%.

Our neighbors are starving because they can’t transact for food. Our elders are dying because they can’t transact for medicine. Our politics are stained because we can’t out-transact the corporations. Our neighborhoods are full of empty houses and unhoused neighbors because the transaction matrix demands it.

Makes you want to flip a table, doesn’t it?

Didn’t Jesus show up in the Temple courtyard to liberate us from this transactional trap? Wasn’t the message of the Temple Courtyard — that moment remembered in all four gospels — about more than the micro-corruption of that particular time and that particular den of robbers? Wasn’t it about more than the cheap trick of trading shekels for livestock so you could trade the livestock for eternal forgiveness? Wasn’t it about an understanding of God that would free us from the cheap machinery of our world?

Didn’t Jesus flip the tables to show us the possibility of a Kingdom of God hiding just underneath our need to trade and barter and measure and transact?

I’m not sure, of course. But I think so.

I think Jesus might have been inviting us out of the transactional matrix. Jesus might have been teaching us to see each other not as merchants, customers, owners and buyers. But as brothers and sisters and siblings with plenty. As givers and lovers. As co-creators and partners.

Of course, if we saw each other that way, even our ordinary conversations would be transformed.

We would never have these questions in the back of our minds:

Are they selling to me?

Can I trust them?

Are they a potential customer?

Can they help me get ahead?

Are they manipulating me?

Can they advance my career?

Are they my superior?

Can they be useful to me?

Are they approving of me?

Am I impressive enough?

Do they outrank me?

Do I outrank them?

What do they want from me?

What can I get from them?

How do I protect myself?

How do I position myself?

Am I winning this interaction?

Am I losing?

Is this fair?

Do I owe them now?

Will they owe me later?

How do I make sure this comes out even?

Of course we don’t say these things out loud. Most of the time, we may not even know we are thinking them. This is how deeply we’re lost inside this transactional illusion.

Me too. I’m lost so deep.

As I recall a different time shopping for souvenirs with my family at the grand bazaar in Istanbul on another recent trip. I left that vibrant, colorful market feeling like I had just gotten absolutely fleeced at the Turkish delight stand.

All I wanted was an authentic cultural interaction and a memory with a local. But I left with $65 worth of candy I barely like, and a slightly higher distrust of humans.

How do I escape this ubiquitous transaction trap?

Jesus may have memorably flipped a table in the temple courtyard, but most of his ministry was spent sitting around tables communing with anyone with whom he found himself.

Communion, it turns out, is the escape hatch from the trap of transaction.

The table. Picked up off the dirty floor of the Temple courtyard. Placed gently back down. Cleared of coins and receipts.

Filled with bread and wine. Loaves and fishes. Plenty.

Open to all. Welcoming. Free.

Communion.

A shared meal for all set upon the very same table empire tried to use to convince us that the transaction trap was holy.

Communion.

All invited freely and warmly. Come hungry. Come needy. Come with nothing but the inevitable pain of existence. You will be fed here. You will know comfort here. You do not need to earn the grace and forgiveness that is freely dished out here in heaping helpings.

Communion.

There is no cover charge for this meal of sacred togetherness. There are no prices on the menu. There will be no bill at the end.

Communion.

Everything changes in communion. This is the table Christ sets. This is the meal prepared for us all.

My mind snaps back to reality. Do I need this potholder with a picture of the Acropolis printed on it? Did I need that scarf covered with pictures of bowls of steaming goulash? Did I even want it?

Probably not.

But even though I might be snared in the transaction trap. Even though I might be browsing the goods laid out enticingly on tables Jesus would have flipped. I always have the option to set a table and invite a neighbor. I am always invited to commune.

1. Where do you notice yourself viewing relationships transactionally?
2. When have you experienced true communion—an interaction that expected nothing in return?
3. Why do you think Jesus shared so many meals throughout his ministry?
4. What table could you set this week? Who might need an invitation?