A call to Act Justly

James 2:1-15

Have you ever been faced with a job that, in your mind has become so big, you just don’t know where to start. And as a result you never do anything about it.

A job that I’ve been putting off for 15 years is sorting our loft.

There was a time that I had one of the most organised lofts in Coventry. Everything was packed into a box with a number on it, and we had notebook that recorded what was in each box.

But it all changed the day we moved to Theological College at Nottingham. For reasons that are too complicated to explain now, we ended up moving to Nottingham at very short notice. My whole family had unexpectedly spent 3 weeks in America, where I was working, …we flew back to Coventry on the Friday, had a farewell party on the Sunday, and moved house on the Monday.

When we got to Nottingham we moved into quite a small house. We unpacked the essentials, and put the rest in the loft with the good intention of sorting it out during the next few weeks.

Unfortunately I was soon swamped with college work, and I never found the time.

Twenty months later we were moving again to Binley. Most of the boxes in the loft had never been opened. The removal company took them from one loft straight into our new loft. And there we added to the clutter by adding a lot of baby equipment that we had grown out of, but were reluctant to throw away.

Once again I had every intention of sorting it all out, but never found the time. And so 5 years later it all moved to the loft in the Vicarage next door. This time we added lots of toys, and other things that the children had grown out of.

The loft at the Vicarage is a huge space, and over the past 8 years, many other things have found their way up there. And each time I go into the loft my heart sinks, …the task now looks so enormous, …so I say to myself, “One day I’ll have to sort this all out”, …and then I get out of there as quickly as possible.

_________________________

Are you familiar with that sort of feeling? Knowing in your head that you ought to do something, …but being so overwhelmed by the size of the job that you end up doing hardly anything.

In some ways, that’s how I feel about the issues we’ll be looking at during the next few weeks.

Some of the facts about our world are very disturbing:

• 1.6 billon people earn less than 70p a day

• Every 8 seconds a child dies from diarrhoea, (an illness which is easily cured in the UK with a medicine that is basically sugar and salt).

Part of me recognises that this is wrong, and I want to do something about it. But part of me is overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, and its tempting not to face it. To say, “I’ll do something later”.

_________________________

The mission statement of our church is “Sharing God’s Love”, and if you look at the projects in our 5-year plan you’ll notice that most of them focus on sharing God’s love with those who live in our area.

And that’s how I believe it should be. I think we have a special responsibility to share God’s love with the 7,000 people who live in Allesley Park and Whoberley.

However, as Jesus taught us in ‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’, when we are called to love our neighbour, this does not just mean the person living nearby. But rather, anyone in our worlds who is in need.

But when I start to think about our ‘neighbours’ who live in other parts of the world, …that’s when I’m tempted to feel overwhelmed:

• I feel daunted by the sheer number of neighbours we have, …not just 7,000 but six billion.

• I feel daunted by the magnitude of their of their problems, …many of whom live in deprivation that is simply unheard of in our parish.

And so it is tempting not to do anything. Not because I don’t care, but because I don’t know where to start.

But there is one other barrier that I also need to mention.

When we work on projects in our parish, we can see the results of labours. For example, a lot of hard work is being invested in The Hub Café, …but we can see the benefits that it is providing, …and the pleasure it is giving lots of people. And that feedback encourages us to keep going, and to overcome any problems that arise.

But when we try to share God’s love with our neighbours in other parts of the world, we don’t get this level of feedback. We don’t see the results of our labours, …and it can be tempting to think that we’ve not made any difference. Of course that’s not true. We have made a difference, …it’s just that we can’t see it.

Nevertheless, God still calls us to love our neighbours who we can’t see, people we have never met. And for this reason, four of the projects focus on our neighbours who live in other parts of the country, or other parts of the world.

The first of these is Our FairTrade Experience.

The beauty of this project is that it is happening in our parish, …but we hope that it will help many people in the poorer parts of the world. And by encouraging people in our community to buy FairTrade, we can achieve much more than we have done so far.

Lots of work has been going on behind the scenes:

• Supermarkets are on board.

• All four of our local schools are on board.

• Other community groups are getting involved.

• The press are interested.

• Publicity is being printed.

But there is one thing that we can’t do. (Pause)

And this one thing is what will make the difference between this Experience being a success or a failure. (Pause)

This one thing is something that only you can do.

(Pause)

We need you to bring your family and friends.

We need you to pick up the phone, and call your brother, or sister, or son or daughter and say: “Have you heard about the FairTrade Experience at St Christopher’s Church Hall. It sounds really interesting, and it’s completely free. They’re even giving away free raffle tickets. I’m going to go, do you want to come with me.”

We need you to say to your neighbours: “Have you heard about the FairTrade Experience at St Christopher’s Church Hall. I’m sure that your kids would enjoy it, they’re going to have a chocolate fountain. I’m going to go, do you want to come with me.”

We want there to be a real buzz. We’ve told the supermarkets that there’ll be lots of people. But that all depends on you.

Please bring your family and friends.

_________________________

I want to finish this morning by setting the FairTrade Experience in the wider experience of The Kingdom of God.

I started this sermon by talking about the clutter in my loft. And in the forward to this booklet, Act Justly’, (which the Lent Groups will be studying), Tom Wright tells the story of a cluttered garden:

When Helen and James bought the house, the large garden was a wilderness. Nothing had been done to it for years. Roses had run wild, with sharp thorns everywhere. There were foxes living in the far end. A large branch had blown down across the garden, but it was now so overgrown with grass, moss and nettles that all you could see was an ugly bulge.

The local contractor came to look. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘we can give you a lovely garden. But it’ll take a week, with four of us on the job. We won’t be able to do that for some while.’

They looked disappointed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do have one man free right now. He won’t finish the job, but he could start it. He can tidy up and get rid of some of the debris. Then when the others arrive they’ll have a flying start.’

Tom Wright makes the point that is the situation we face with the world today. God has given us a beautiful world to live in, but it’s massively overgrown with the thorns and thistles of human injustice.

The problems are too big for us to tackle. But God has promised that one day he will remake the world. In Romans chapter 8, Paul states that God will heal the world and fill it with his love and beauty. The final scene in the Bible is not of Christians escaping from this world and going to ‘heaven’, but of heaven and earth being joined together in a great act of healing. One day God will put the whole garden to rights.

But we don’t have to wait passively until that day. God has already begun the project. When Jesus died on the cross he defeated the powers of evil that keep the world enslaved to injustice and oppression. His resurrection launched the new creation. We live in the time between the beginning of that work of putting the world to rights and its glorious completion. God wants us to share in the task here and now.

When we take a stand on behalf of the poor and against oppressive systems, locally, nationally and globally, we are not simply doing random acts. We are putting the victory of Jesus into operation, and anticipating the day when God will put the whole world to rights once and for all.

_________________________

In the letter of James that ________ read for us, we heard these words:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and well fed’, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:14-17)

Well, during the next two weeks we all have the opportunity to put our faith into action.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the needs of the world.

Inviting your family and friends to the FairTrade Experience is a little thing that you can do.

…and I can assure you, it will be much easier than sorting out my loft!