God in the credit crunch

I heard a brilliant sermon at my local church yesterday. “Where is God when my credit is crunched?” was a part of a 'Where is God?' series in our local church...

I know what I was thinking when Peter got up to speak:  He is going to tell us that God understands all about our pain and will help us to be mean and lean!  But that wasn’t his sermon.

He started with a UK view of the financial crunch and then hurried on to a wide-lens view of how real poverty in other parts of the world make people in the global North look like fat cats by comparison.  He told us that the World Institute for Development and Economic Research (WIDER) estimates that the richest 2% in the world owns over half of all household wealth.

The main point of the sermon was a two-fold challenge: God isn’t big on credit!  And those of us who belong to the world’s financial elite need to reach out in order to lift others out of poverty – through our attitudes and actions.

Peter’s message was timely for me.  For in the past 3 months I have attended at least 4 global events where politicians and Christian leaders met to talk about poverty reduction in the face of the financial crunch.   And the basic question is: why should we (rich nations) give 0.7% of our gross national income in oversees aid when we are experiencing a financial slump?

It’s a good question.  And the answer is simple. Aid with vigilant accountability is not a luxury because our world really is joined at the hip. Poverty somewhere else eventually comes home to roost. We really are all living in a village and we have a responsibility for our neighbour.  And even more importantly a God of justice who thinks beyond national boundaries defines our neighbour as the billion people without adequate food who we will never meet.