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"I will do whatever you ask
in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it." John 14:13&14 OK. Here we go. You just heard it. "If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it." One of the burning, global issues of our time is world poverty. So: why not ask Jesus to end it! If that seems to you to be an irreverent question – why do you think that? If you pray earnestly, effectually, fervently, and ask God to end poverty, ask in the name of Jesus Christ, do you not think it could happen? Well, it could, but perhaps not in the way you think. Today, the main political parties have agreed to pause in their electioneering, forget their party differences, and make this Sunday 'World Poverty Day'. Well and good. But this morning, I want us to think about how, as Christians, we respond to the slogan 'Make Poverty History'. Many of us signed the petition. What did you think you were doing? And was it enough? Something I mentioned last week was another slogan 'Live more simply, so that others may simply live'. That hails from the 1970s, and an American evangelical scholar named Ronald Sider used the sentiment as the title for a book he edited just 25 years ago. He called it 'Living More Simply'. Even 25 years on, that book is still worth a look, so if you have a copy somewhere, seek it out, dust it down, and give it another read. Or I can lend you a copy. It is quite amazing to me how very often ideas come together, and subjects overlap. You will know that a couple of weeks ago I gave a talk in the Christian Education Group about 'Faith and Fundamentalism'. When I started to look once again at Ronald Sider as I was preparing this sermon, I was interested to find, but not really surprised, that he had been attacked by the fundamentalists in the States, and is seen by them as an archenemy of the truth. What really amused me was to read, in an article I looked up on Sider, that Canon John Stott, a well-known Anglican evangelical who did some work with him, is described as 'a British socialist'! The article was entitled 'Ronald Sider Contra Deum' – Ronald Sider Against God! My main point today, if I have to sum it up in a sentence, is this: We can't make poverty history unless we change the way we live. Now that is a hard message, and, you perhaps think, much too demanding, even for Christians. What I want to say is that signing a petition, even letting the politicians get on with it, or even giving to Christian Aid or Oxfam, is not enough. What really needs to happen - in the church, in the UK, in the affluent world of the western hemisphere – is a change of heart. It means a change of mind-set. It means rethinking the way we live. It means that good old New Testament word – repentance. It means not wasting one-third of the food we grow, as I mentioned last week. It means looking at our own life-styles, and asking: How does the way I live affect the way poor people live? How aware, really, am I of the issues? Well, the notion of living more simply ourselves is, as I say a hard one, and I am not going to pretend to you that I have anything like the answer. I struggle with this, and am only too aware of life-style choices I make which work against the best efforts of those who would seek to make poverty history. If you want an easy way out, try this: pooh-pooh the whole idea, and say 'of course, it is impractical'. Or another way is to trot out the old nostrum: 'the poor will be always with us' – as if that absolves us and allows us to get on with our lives as we please. For us as Christians, I don't believe that is good enough. Why? Because there is not even a whiff of any change of heart or mind in it. There is not even in such a response a willingness to look at the issues, and see how we are all implicated. In short: there is no spirit of repentance. When Nelson Mandela addressed the 20,000 people who gathered in Trafalgar Square in February at the 'Make Poverty History' rally, he said: 'Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural'. For centuries, slavery was seen as the natural order of things. Those who campaigned against it were derided, regarded as foolish. And as for apartheid, we knew it was wrong, but we wondered sometimes if it would ever end. Yet people bravely stood against it, and suffered severely to get it ended. Slavery and discrimination, we all know, have not yet gone completely, because evil always seems able to rear its ugly head, and there seem to be plenty of people around, still, who are willing to exploit any weakness in society. So what about poverty? I believe that as Christians, we have to just as brave, just as bold, as those who stood against slavery and apartheid. But we need a plan, a pattern, which we can utilize, something that will enable us to hold up our heads and say 'we know poverty is not right, and this is what we can do to stamp it out'. And this is how I believe we can then, in our prayers, ask of Jesus that by his spirit, our politicians, our economists, our aid organizations, and, best of all, ourselves, can make poverty history. If we pray in his name, we must accord with his will. In Sider's book of 25 years ago, a woman named Elaine Amerson contributed a section on 'Christian Family Lifestyle Guidelines.' She mentions her 'Wesleyan heritage', so I guess she was a Methodist. (Simple living was regarded as a virtue in Methodism!) There isn't time to detail what she said, but she talks of something called 'The Shakertown Pledge' (You may know that the Shakers were a religious community in the 19thcentury who were committed to living in 'creative simplicity'. They didn't actually sell kitchens!) I have printed copies of that pledge for you to take home and think about it. It gives some very practical guidance on how to live with integrity and simplicity in a world where resources are so unequally divided. If you don't like it, you can bin it. Let me finish with the testimony of the mother of another young family, who have tried the simpler lifestyle. (I ought to say that she confessed to having an occasional 'conscience lapse' by taking the children to Macdonalds!) I quote. 'For us, it is often a struggle. Decisions are constantly facing us that I often wish would go away. I don't mean to sound grim – just realistic. We have gained as a family, if not exhilaration, then a deep sense of joy in sharing with our whole lives in God's Kingdom work. We have known a greater communion with those who live simply – not because they choose to, but because they must.' When it comes to making poverty history, that sounds to me like a good place to start. Remember: We can't make poverty history unless we change the way we live. Recognizing that the earth and the fulness thereof is a gift from our gracious God, and that we are called to cherish, nurture, and provide loving stewardship for the earth's resources; And recognizing that life itself is a gift, and a call to responsibility, joy, and celebration, I make the following declarations: 1. I declare myself to be a world citizen. 2. I commit myself to lead an ecologically sound life. 3. I commit myself to lead a life of creative simplicity and to share my personal wealth with the world's poor. 4. I commit myself to join with others in reshaping institutions in order to bring about a more just global society in which each person has full access to the needed resources for their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. 5. I commit myself to occupational accountability, and in so doing I will seek to avoid the creation of products which cause harm to others. 6. I affirm the gift of my body, and commit myself to its proper nourishment and physical well-being. 7. I commit myself to examine continually my relations with others, and to attempt to relate honestly, morally, and lovingly to those around me. 8. I commit myself to personal renewal through prayer, meditation, and study. 9. I commit myself to responsible participation in a community of faith. From 'Living More Simply'. Edited by Ronald Sider, published by IVF, 1980 edition |