Is It Worth It?

This week is ‘Christian Aid Week.’ Once a year, Christian Aid especially encourages us as Christians to think about how we respond to a great sea of need in the world.

Since this is Christian Aid Week, I thought I should tell you what Christian Aid want to tell us. Christian Aid has prepared quite a few resources for the week. As I looked through them, there were three big things which I noticed.

First, Christian Aid has a short message which it repeats a lot. It’s its tag line. It’s its main message.

Second, Christian Aid want us to look at a passage in the Bible. They think it has something important to say to us.

Third, Christian Aid gives us an example, a woman called Esther who lives in Malawi. They think she has something to say to us too.

TAG LINE

Christian Aid’s tag line for this week is ‘Give, act and pray.’ I think Christian Aid has been using that tag line for 20 years. But they’ve been really emphasising it this year.

‘Give, act and pray’ is a very good message. I’d like it better still if it was ‘PRAY, act and give.’ We should go to God FIRST. But even as it is, it’s a good message. Christian Aid isn’t only asking us to give money. It’s calling us TO ACT and TO PRAY. Millions of people around the world are facing huge challenges. Helping them demands more of us than gifts of money. It requires our prayers and it requires us to act. What sort of action? We come on to that in the next section.

A PASSAGE IN THE BIBLE

For this week, Christian Aid has produced both a sermon outline and a complete sermon. In both, they go to the book of Joel in the Bible. The prophet Joel lived well over 2,000 years ago. What does he say that is relevant to our time?

The situation in Joel’s time was very much like the situation for the world today.

I’d like to present it to you as ‘BAD’, ‘GOOD’ and ‘ACTION.’

The situation starts off BAD. The first passage which Christian Aid draws our attention to is Joel 1:10-12. Joel writes:

‘The fields are destroyed,

the ground mourns,

because the grain is destroyed,

the wine dries up,

the oil languishes.’

The situation in Joel’s time was clearly BAD. Christian Aid comments that it’s like the situation today. They wite that Joel’s words ‘COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN TODAY. Its words echo across dry, crippled lands where climate chaos has taken everything – food, water, health and hope.’

So, the situation in Joel’s time was BAD.

The second passage which Christian Aid draws our attention to is Joel 2:20-23. We didn’t have this in our reading earlier, but I’ll read just one verse from it. Here is verse 21:

‘Fear not, you beasts of the field,

for the pastures of the wilderness ARE GREEN;

the tree BEARS ITS FRUIT;

the fig tree and vine GIVE THEIR FULL YIELD.’

Now, the situation is GOOD! There’s been a huge turnaround! The pastures are green, the tree bears its fruit and so on. That’s great! God has taken pity.

But what happened to change the situation from BAD to GOOD? What ACTION changed the situation? What do you suppose it was?

In its suggested sermon, Christian Aid go to some verses that are between Joel 1:10-12 – the bad part – and Joel 2:20-23 – the good part. They go to Joel 2:12-13. This is what God says:

‘“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,

“RETURN TO ME with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

and REND YOUR HEARTS and not your garments.”

Christian Aid writes, ‘When we “REND OUR HEARTS” with fasting and weeping, when we REDEDICATE OUR LIVES to heaven’s purpose, the Lord will do great things.’

Are you surprised? Did you think that was what would change the situation from BAD to GOOD? Perhaps you thought the solution was to send some gifts of money or not put so much CO2 into the atmosphere? But those things aren't the solution. Christian Aid tells us, ‘When we “rend our hearts” … when we rededicate our lives to heaven’s purpose, THEN the Lord will do great things.’

But who is ‘WE’? WHO needs to rend their hearts? Who needs to rededicate themselves to God? The whole world does.

Christian Aid is saying that the environmental degradation we see in the world today isn’t ultimately because of climate change. It’s because humankind’s relationship to God is broken. To fix it, humankind has to repent and turn back to God.

This may seem very surprising. By and large the world believes that the biggest cause of damage to the environment is climate change. And it believes that the biggest cause of climate change is the trillion tonnes or so of CO2 that humankind has put into the atmosphere.