Psalm 145, 8-9
Something to read
The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.
To read the King James Version, click here
Something to think about
Today is Market Day! Today is the day the World Council of Churches International Ecumenical Peace Convocation gathers to call for peace to be brought to the markets and economic structures that dominate world trade patterns. There can be no peace without justice, without graciousness and compassion, without careful, thoughtful, creative alternatives being worked out, tried out and lived out between peoples as we demonstrate, the words of the economist of compassion Margaret Legum that ‘it doesn’t have to be this way.’
This is work which is slow to anger and rich in love, generous in alternatives and prepared to make lived economic sacrifices to show another way. This is the way Jesus spoke of in the Gospels which so many proverbial words which test us and taunt us to ‘consider the lilies’, ‘the widow’s mite’, the instruction to the rich, sad young man who was told to sell all his possessions and give his money to the poor.
This is the day when the IEPC will call for economic justice, fair trade, jubilee, Sabbath rest that takes us outside of the logic of the mean markets and their tally of goods, products and hours as a measure of our worth. The Lord is good to all. There is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed and this means action to change the present economic structures at a political level but it also means a dedication by the churches and people of faith to live out alternatives and find more just ways of distributing wealth and dealing with the fear and myth of scarcity.
Something to do
Consider the place money has in your life, how it controls your decisions, delays your work for justice, piles up excuses, and consider how you might break the power by joining with others to share your concerns about its power.
If you are living in poverty think of joining with those who have formed credit unions or take the offer of the Grameen Bank, for through solidarity and sharing comes the strength for change.
If you are living in wealth consider what it would take not so much to make poverty history as to make wealth history and what action you may take to reduce the experience gap between your life and that of the poorest among us. Could you, for example, live on £35 a week in solidarity with asylum seekers:? http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/livingghosts
Something to pray
Grant us the courage, of God of the upturned tables, to live a life where faith and politics mix and through compassion and solidarity with the poorest among us we may indeed learn to be rich in love.
Today's contributor is Alison Swinfen, a member of the Iona Community