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| Homeless man sleeping at a railways station |
The new
millennium started with such high hopes and promise. The economic rationalists were promising us
the end to all the world’s troubles. A
free-market economy, coupled with free trade and de-regulating the business-world
we were told would end poverty, provide solutions to the environmental problems
and possibly find cures for most diseases.
We would have universal peace, prosperity and happiness.
Many people
seemed to have got caught up in chasing success. Work, money in the bank, a share portfolio, property
investments. These were the things of
real value. Chasing these would ensure
happiness, security and privilege. Even
if it had a cost, like neglecting friends, family and community. After all we were told, those had no real
value anyway. Only things that could be
brought and sold or recorded on a balance sheet have any real value.
It reminds
me of the children’s story of the Emperor’s new clothes. It was like someone in the nineties went
around and changed all the price tags. So
the priceless things, friendship, permanent relationships, our children, our
family, our community, spirituality and even God were some how seen as
worthless. The world was sold a
lie.
Then in the
past year the world has been presented with a series of disasters. War in Iraq and Afghanistan that seems to be
never ending. The global economy in melt
down. People who were planning a safe
and well provided for retirement are now forced to re-adjust their plans as
they watch their life savings being swallowed up as a result of corporate greed
and excess.
Closer to
home we have witnessed the floods in North Queensland and the devastating bush
fires in Victoria. People have had tears
in their eyes as they have watched people they don’t know or never loose every
thing. Homes burnt, businesses
destroyed, but what was been worst was the mounting death toll. Loved ones gone for ever.
We have been
forced to re-evaluate what is truly
valuable. People have rallied to help. Millions of dollars given away to charities to
aid these victims of the fires and communities have mourned and turned to each
other for comfort.
It is at
these times that religion is again seen as valuable. Part of religion’s proper function is to help
make sense of life’s big issues and questions and to help draw people together. To offer the comfort that we are not alone in
these times, that God has not abandoned us.
That God is in our very midst that God is with us.
As the words
of the Pitcairn Anthem say …
“Then shall the King (Jesus) say unto them,
On His right hand –
Come ye blessed of my Father
Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you
From the foundation of the world.
I was enhunger’d and ye gave me meat,
I was thirsty and ye gave me drink,
I was a stranger and ye took me in,
Naked and ye clothed me,
I was sick and ye visited me,
I was in prison and ye came unto me;
In as much as ye have done it unto one
Of the least of these my brethren
Ye have done it unto me.
Ye have done it unto me.”
God is where
he is always found, with the powerless, with those who suffer …
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