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.
BY AND LARGE, the church has gone along with that explanation. But the Bible tells us that environmental degradation happens when humankind’s relationship with God is broken. Joel is by no means the only place in the Bible which says that. [See Isaiah 24:4-5 for another example.]
Maybe you too believe that all the CO2 in the atmosphere is what is causing climate change. At one level, it is the cause. I’m not disputing that. But I’m saying that there is a deeper cause. The deeper cause is that humankind’s relationship with God is broken.
How can there be two causes for something? Let me give an example. As a young man, Joseph ended up a slave in Egypt. How did that happen? What was the cause?
At one level, the cause was the fact that his brothers had sold him to some Midianite traders. They took him down to Egypt and sold him as a slave.
But there was another cause. Later in the book of Genesis, Joseph meets his brothers again. He tells them, ‘You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.’ The deeper cause was that God wanted him to go down to Egypt and be a means of saving lives.
This is what the passage in Joel tells us. The environment gets damaged when humankind’s relationship with God breaks down.
What do we feel about this? Many scientists working in the area of the environment have a very gloomy view of the future for Planet Earth.
But what if we think that the real cause of our environmental problem isn’t CO2 but humankind’s broken relationship with God? Do we expect that to improve any time soon? I don’t! Jesus said that as we approach the last days, ‘lawlessness will be increased’ [Matthew 24:12]. I think we ARE approaching the last days if we aren’t already in them. So, I believe that the world will fall deeper and deeper into sin until Jesus comes again. That means that the environmental crises will only get worse.
If you’re a scientist, the situation looks very gloomy. And if you’re a Christian, it looks even gloomier. If the root of the problem is humankind’s broken relationship with God, and that doesn't improve, then Christians can give, act and pray until they’re ready to drop, and it won’t do the slightest good. The situation looks hopeless. We might ask whether it’s worth helping.
ESTHER
Let’s now come onto the third thing. I believe it answers our question. It IS worth helping.
Christian Aid features a woman called Esther who lives in Malawi.
When we pick up Esther’s story, her situation was BAD. She wasn’t able to get a fair price for the crops she grew. Her husband died. And in 2021, there was a cyclone which destroyed her crops.
But now, Esther’s situation is GOOD. Esther now gets a fair price for her crops. She can pay for her daughter’s education. She has a herd of goats.
What changed the situation from BAD to GOOD? We can’t prove what caused the change. But we can see two things that look like the causes.
At one level, Esther got human help. Christian Aid saw that pigeon peas are a really good crop for Malawi. They’re drought resistant, they don’t need fertilizer and they grow well in poor soil. They’re ideal for a time of climate change. But farmers weren’t getting a good price for the peas. So, Christian Aid helped set up a farmers’ association to help with the marketing. Esther joined the association, and they helped her.
But at a deeper level, Esther got help from God. Esther’s friends gathered around her and prayed for her. And she kept looking to God.
No one can prove how much these things helped turn the situation around for Esther. But we expect that they did. We have a mighty, loving God and when we turn to him, he helps us.
So, what should we conclude? Is it worth making an effort? In the big picture, the situation for the world IS very gloomy. But God still helps people who turn to him. That is what we see in Esther’s story. God helped Esther as she turned to him. Christian Aid had a part to play. And we who support Christian Aid had a part to play. There IS hope. What we do can help change people’s lives. But ‘what we do’ isn’t limited to making gifts. Christian Aid calls on us to ‘Give, act and pray.’ They're asking for the right thing. We need to do all three.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 10.30 a.m. service, 14th May 2023
