Repairing The Breach

While I kept silence The western church does not like to talk about the fact that we are among the richest, most privileged people in the world. We don’t like it because we know that God might expect us to do something about injustice, if we acknowledge that we currently benefit from it. So, we keep silence. We’ll talk about personal morality, holiness and purity, right thinking and right beliefs, until the cows come home (and are incidentally the only ones still listening). But on the issue of our own wealth and comfort, in the face of the world’s poverty and suffering, we mostly keep silent. Psalm 32:3While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that, through our reconciliation with God, we become his ambassadors. He has reconciled us to him and given us the ministry of reconciliation. This suggests a counterpoint of course: if we have no reconciliation, how can we represent God? If our reconciliation is compromised, might that not compromise our witness? The truth is, as long as we pretend that the gross injustices of the world are not a problem, and that we do not benefit unjustly from them, our witness to the love of God is inherently compromised. So is it just about money? Just as it is a mistake to pretend that the physical and material things do not matter to God, it is also not right to say that this is only an issue of wealth and resources. The issue is clearly one of comfort and discomfort. When God calls us to contribute, he’s asking us to be uncomfortable. That might be a physical discomfort, or an emotional one, or a spiritual one. Money is a complex issue for us in the west because we have so much of it, and we suspect that perhaps there’s injustice in this. But the specifics will vary from place to place. Candlelight - Carol Aust 71