Justice and Mercy: Proverbs 19-17 (Oct.15, 2006)
Craig Erickson… leads off with a drama (bring newspaper article)
Big idea: "Justice and Mercy": Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
Have you ever heard that faith is a private thing? And that faith shouldn’t be brought into your work life, particularly if you work in education or government...
True Christian faith is personal, but it’s not private in the sense it affects the way we live our “public life,” i.e. our life in our larger world of our relationships, our work and our engagement with the social issues of the day.
God is deeply concerned about how we live our public life, especially as it concerns the poor.
If you have your Bible’s please turn to Proverbs 19:17
Those who are kind to the poor lend to the LORD,
and he will reward them for what they have done.
Proverbs 14:31 31 Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
Proverbs 29:7 7 The righteous (the morally upright) care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
The Bible shows us that God identifies very closely with the poor.
The Catholic scholars have coined the term God’s preferential option for the poor.
Our own pastor Julie Linden, who leads our ministry for the homeless Out of the Cold and our drop in ministry Oasis ministries talks about God’s bias for the poor…
Why do the poor deserve this special attention?
Monika Hellwig says the poor are more aware of the dependence on God, they have no exaggerated sense of their own importance or exaggerated sense of their need for privacy, when they hear the Gospel it sounds like good news and not a like a threat, they poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandon because they have little to lose.
Why do the poor deserve this special attention?
Maybe those who are parents with more than one child can relate. If one of your children is in trouble… maybe they’re being bullied, maybe they have an illness, or maybe they’re in financial trouble, or perhaps they’ve made a choice that really hurting them…
There’s a sense in which you love all your children equally, but there is also a sense in which your heart and prayers go out especially to your vulnerable one…
God’s heart goes out in a special way to his children who are poor and oppressed and vulnerable… they need God’s love in very particular way…
In the Holy Scriptures, God calls his people to leave behind sheaves of wheat or grapes for the poor, there’s a constant call to exercise fairness and justice for the poor in court (then as now, if you were poor you’re always in place of disadvantage in court), to care for the vulnerable: for the orphan, the widow, the immigrant, the single mother.
God so identifies with the poor and disadvantaged that he says when you love the poor you deepen your love relationship with me and when you hurt the poor, your hurt your relationship with me.
In Proverbs 21:3 God says those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor will cry out and not be answered… In Isaiah 58:9 God says when we loosen the chains of injustice and care for the poor the Lord will hear us…
As read in Proverbs 19:7 Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
In Micah 6:8 we read, God hath showed thee, O man, or woman what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God…
So how do we live out the call to do justly, love mercy, love the poor and lend to the Lord?
There are many different levels on which this can be lived out.
It can be lived out on a city or national level.
During Britain in the 1700s… there was a great spiritual awakening. People John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield were key players in this spiritual revival where hundred of thousands of people became followers of Christ and a number of them asked how do we take the Gospel and work it out in public life.
They began to look at the African slave trade. For more than 30 years Christians in Great Britain mobilized by people like William Wilberforce did everything they could to work the abolition of slavery and the slave trade not just in England, but in the whole British Empire.
At one point Christians organized petition drive and got ½ of all the voting population of England to sign a petition for the abolition of the slave trade.
But wealthy classes were against this. It was going to be a huge economic loss for them, if they did not want slavery to end.
The planters in colonies were warned freeing the slaves would cost investors in Britain huge financial losses, which in turn would hurt everyone in England because the price of sugar and other foodstuff would shoot up if had to be produced by laborer you have to pay. These arguments swayed wealthy government leaders who stood to lose more than anyone else and whose agreement was necessary for the legislation to pass.
To get the wealthy members of the government to “buy into” this legislation, the abolitionists in the House of Commons accepted a provision in the emancipation act that compensated the planters for their financial losses right out of the British treasury which equaled one half of the British annual budget. The abolition act passed in 1833, providing the way slavery to cease within all British colonies. The direct cost to individual British citizens was huge--lost taxes from planters, new taxes for naval operations against slave ships and much higher cost of living as the cost of sugar and other food stuff did rose sharply.
The costs of emancipation were so high that historians Seymour Dresher called the British abolition of slavery voluntary “econocide.” because the British people were willing to let their economy tank for a generation or two to rid themselves of the slave trade.
Those Scholars who believe that all political activity is motivated by self-interest, have been scratching their head trying figure out why the British people were willing to sacrifice their financial well being to end slavery… because from all appearances people who stood against slavery--didn’t appear to stand to gain anything for themselves…
According to Proverbs and the Scripture part of what it means to be a follower of God, wise and upright is a willingness to sacrifice our personal interests to serve the poor and oppressed. The wicked on the other will sacrifice the interests of the poor to advance their self-interest.
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
What might it look like in a church to love the poor and lend to the Lord?
When I first came to Tenth Avenue Church, I had been told that’s “hey-dey” had been back in the 1950 and 60s and that in the not so distant past the church had cycled through 20 pastors (including associates) in 20 years.
As a new minister here, I read through all the board minutes from all the board meetings where minutes had been taken as far back as I could go (dug up from the church archives by Ruth Gilewich) and any church document that could give a sense of where we had come from.
I quickly came to the conclusion that my predecessors had been more experienced, more talented, and were far more than accomplished than me. One had been a VP for our denomination another a president of one of our colleges...
I thought if we were going to go forward—given my own limitations as a person—it we would simply need the blessing of God…
One of the ways I thought that we could invoke the blessing of God is if we blessed the poor. If we could bless those who could not repay us—then God would bless us…
Now when people ask how was that Tenth has “come back,” I find myself saying it’s simply the grace of God… it’s also about prayers and investment of the many faithful people who preceded me and it’s a bout this community communities committment…to reaching to poor lead people my colleagues, Don, Linda, Julie… so many of you…
When City Hall said we’re doing too much ministry for the homeless, and said you’re now acting more like a social services agency and you need a permit, on the one hand it’s been a pain to go through a arduous an application process, on the other hand it’s been a kind of unintended compliment that we’re on the right track.
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
What does it look like do justice, to love the poor, lend to the Lord?
This past Friday, I was delighted to learn that a Bangladeshi economist and the bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pioneering the use of microcredit, the extension of small loans to benefit poor entrepreneurs.
Many banks as we know banks redline poor and community neighborhoods, refusing to make loans regardless of the actual level of risk they face.
Grameen Bank has been instrumental in helping millions of poor Bangladeshis, many of them women, improve their standard of living by letting them borrow tiny sums to start businesses.
Loans go toward buying items such as cows to start a dairy, chickens for an egg business, or cell phones to start businesses where villagers who have no access to phones.
A little closer to home, I recently came across Christian a man who owned a car dealership, through a self-study discovered that men were getting better deals than women, and Caucasian males, were getting the best deals on cars and minority women were the worst deals. They realized, minority women, many of whom were lower income, were in effect subsidizing the car purchase of the Caucasians males, because they were paying more than the market value of the cars and therefore males could less than the market value.
This Christian man appealing to consciences of the people management working at the dealership that we need to stop this and just the fix a fair market prices on our cars because it’s not fair to the minority women. The man said I am Christian, I believe we have to be willing to sacrifice some financial profit in order to fulfill justice. The workers, even those who were not Christians agreed.
They found when they implemented this practice of a fixed price for everyone their profits dropped by 10% as Caucasian males tended shopped elsewhere…
The employees talked about this profit loss and the issue came up as to whether to stop this new practice of fixing pricing and go to the old system since the new system was hurting their bottom line… The employees agreed that what they were doing was right.
They began to use implement “best practices” in terms of business, seeking to become more effective and efficient and after some months of best practices they were able to reduce their profit loss to 5% relative to before they had the policy, but as far I know they didn’t completely close the gap. But employees are proud to be part of the company and they realize are pressing value back into the community as people save money.
Just because we follow God’s way doesn’t always mean we become richer. Sometimes, we ending actually losing money following God.
The person wise, righteous person is willing to sacrifice personal profit for the sake of the common good, the wicked fool is willing to sacrifice the common good for the sake of personal gain.
If you own an apartment building that houses lower income people and you have an opportunity to renovate the apartment so you can re-rent it at higher or rent or sell the property for a huge profit to developer who will build luxury condos, but the people who were renting the apartment can no longer afford to live there… if you’re a Christian you remind yourself that a true follower of Jesus is willing to sacrifice personal profit, if it means you an opportunity to serve the common good…
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord.
We’ve seen how justice can be played out in nation or business, now let me apply this to our personal lives.
What does it mean to love the poor and lend to the Lord in our consumer life?
Part of what it means is that we allow our conscience to inform what we buy.
Then this week, as I prepared for this message, I came across information on abuses that have occurred in Nike factories in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam, including reports of torture and rape…The New York Times has run a front page article Nike’s corporate abuses.
These reports of abuses is why film maker, Michael Moore in the documentary film The Big One approaches the founder and then ceo of Nike Phil Knight and bashfully presents him with first-class two airplane tickets to Indonesia.
"Let's go," said Moore, smiling.
Knight starts laughing and no, not a chance. Have you ever been to see your factories in Indonesia? Knight says, “No and I am not going to.”
Moore asks does bother you if 12-year-olds girls are working in your factories? Knight says, They're not 12... Knight says… there 14. Moore says, well, how about 14 then, doesn't that bother you? Knight says, No.
According to author Shane Clairborne, workers make $1.50 for making Nike shoes that cost over $100—and according to Clairborne the workers make ½ of what it costs to live. And people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods earn more money earn more money wearing shoes for ads than all the workers combined earn for making the shoes.
I love sports and I have bought my fair share of Nike… even when I’ve heard rumors about their corporate practices… I’ve bought Nike I’m guilty here… I need to change…
I know things are always black and white, most of life is grey, but corporate should inform our consumer choices.
This past week I read an article in the Washington Post, about Coca Cola (and some of you, are like I should have gone to the Baptist church today) and allegations of abuses at the bottling plant in Columbia, South America. Coca-Cola apparently allowed notoriously violent paramilitary groups to use violent intimidation and even murder, of Coca-Cola's bottling workers who were interested in unionizing.
Yes, it’s true, I know if we looked hard enough we could probably find dirt on all most if not all Fortune 500 companies, and to have in the world and buythings.
But we hear about corporations that are guilty of serious, repeat abuses (and I’ve listed some corporate watch dog sites in the recommended resource list) and if we want to be people, who do justly and love mercy, people who love the poor and lend to the Lord it ought o inform our choices.
More positively, if want to love the poor and lend to the Lord when a company engages in fair-trade or support movements to make poverty history that should inform our consumer choices…
In our personal life we can also reach out to disadvantaged people. . Sociologists tell us people, often subconsciously, we tend to try to form friendship with people at our social class or above us that should not be true of true Christians… love of all grounds… whether above, parallel, or below us socio-economically, whether they advantage us or not…
And something some small as a conversation can make a big difference the life of a person:
I’m going into invite Lutz from our oasis ministry… to speak now..
(Testimonies from
Lutz…
I’m going to invite Keven Stephens…
Keven Stephens)
Those who love the poor, lend to the LORD.
Shane Claiborne, a young man who is part of the Simple Way community… describes heading for a loaf of bread with Michelle a colleague and one of the founders of the Simple Way Community…
He walked past an alley known for sex trade and drug dealing… and they saw a woman tattered and cold and on crutches. She approached Shane asking if he wanted her services. Shane and Michelle scurried to get their bread and when they got home they noticed the bag had a large gash in the side and the bread had gone bad. They would have to go back…. They walked passed the alley again…. They saw the woman crying and shrivering…. They got their bread and this time they couldn’t just pass her by.
Shane and Michelled stopped and we have home a kind of safe place and you can get warm and have a cup of coffee and a snack… so she stumbled onto her crutches and came home with them…
As soon as they entered the house, the woman started to weep hysterically. Michelle held her as she wept. When had gained her composure she said “You are all Christians, aren’t you?” Michelle and Shane looked at each other startled. They had said nothing of God or Jesus… there house had no cross, not sign of the fish, no plaque that said Jesus saves.
She said I know you are Christians because you shine. I used to be in love with Jesus like that, and when I was I shined like diamonds in the sky, like the stars. But, it’s a cold, dark world and I lost my shine a while back on those streets… and she us them to pray with her that she might shine again.
Weeks went by and they didn’t see her…. Then one day there was this lovely lady at the door with a contagious ear to ear smile…. Shane I meet a lot of people, so he trying to fake recognize her… she said, “Don’t try to fake that you remember me.” She went to explain that she had fallen in love with Jesus again…and she said, she lost everything on the streets but wanted to give something back to the community and all was this Marlboro miles points you could redeem for things in the Marlboro catalogue and she gave Shane a box stuffed with them…
Francis Schaeffer said the mark of Christian is not a cross or a fish, but love.
Jesus said by this all people will know that you are my followers if love each other.
We are not called to be known for being a “conservative” or “liberal” we called to be known by love… We called to known as people who love and add value to our people, our company, our city, our world.
Jesus gave us a sneak preview of the final exam in Matthew 25and he said in effect this how you’ll know that you really knew me come judgment day: if you have fed the poor, clothed the naked, reached out the stranger, visited the sick and those in prison…. When you did for the least of my brothers and sister you did for me…
Some will say, but Jesus when did we ever see you ever poor, hungry, thirsty…? He’ll say when you did for the least of these my brothers and sisters you did it for me.
We know from Mary’s offering of two pigeons at the temple shortly after Jesus’ birth that she and Joseph couldn’t afford to offer a lamb and that they came from a family at the bottom of economic rung, we know that for some of his life Jesus was what we call would call homeless, we know that he spent his last meal in rented room, and that he was in buried in borrowed grave…
But when was Jesus naked, hungry, and thirsty, as my teacher Tim Keller points out, on the cross… Jesus was naked, hungry and thirsty and he therefore identifies with naked, hungry, and thirsty…and oppressed and when we serve these people it’s as though we are serving God.
Mother Teresa says Jesus comes to us the distressing disguise of the poor.
When we love the poor, we love the Lord.
How do we become that way?
By centering our life on Jesus, the one who gave himself for on the cross to die for our sins when we spiritually bankrupt and had nothing to offer him so that through his death we must be made be reconciled to God…
Elaine Scarry who teaches at English at Harvard in her book Beauty and Being Just says that beauty has the power to bring us out of ourselves. If we look at a beautiful piece of art, some in literature, or in nature, it has the power to bring us out of ourselves in a way helps move toward others and work toward justice.
When we make Jesus Christ the center of our lives, we a free from our self-absorption, and come out of ourselves and become the kind of people who loved Jesus he loved… . we become people who love poor, in so doing, and love the Lord.
Prayer of Saint Francis…
Announcement re:
Mission course…
Jamie MacIntosh… International Justice Ministry.
Benediction: Live by faith, be known by love, be a voice of hope
(The sermon can be heard on line at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
Big idea: "Justice and Mercy": Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
Have you ever heard that faith is a private thing? And that faith shouldn’t be brought into your work life, particularly if you work in education or government...
True Christian faith is personal, but it’s not private in the sense it affects the way we live our “public life,” i.e. our life in our larger world of our relationships, our work and our engagement with the social issues of the day.
God is deeply concerned about how we live our public life, especially as it concerns the poor.
If you have your Bible’s please turn to Proverbs 19:17
Those who are kind to the poor lend to the LORD,
and he will reward them for what they have done.
Proverbs 14:31 31 Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
Proverbs 29:7 7 The righteous (the morally upright) care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
The Bible shows us that God identifies very closely with the poor.
The Catholic scholars have coined the term God’s preferential option for the poor.
Our own pastor Julie Linden, who leads our ministry for the homeless Out of the Cold and our drop in ministry Oasis ministries talks about God’s bias for the poor…
Why do the poor deserve this special attention?
Monika Hellwig says the poor are more aware of the dependence on God, they have no exaggerated sense of their own importance or exaggerated sense of their need for privacy, when they hear the Gospel it sounds like good news and not a like a threat, they poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandon because they have little to lose.
Why do the poor deserve this special attention?
Maybe those who are parents with more than one child can relate. If one of your children is in trouble… maybe they’re being bullied, maybe they have an illness, or maybe they’re in financial trouble, or perhaps they’ve made a choice that really hurting them…
There’s a sense in which you love all your children equally, but there is also a sense in which your heart and prayers go out especially to your vulnerable one…
God’s heart goes out in a special way to his children who are poor and oppressed and vulnerable… they need God’s love in very particular way…
In the Holy Scriptures, God calls his people to leave behind sheaves of wheat or grapes for the poor, there’s a constant call to exercise fairness and justice for the poor in court (then as now, if you were poor you’re always in place of disadvantage in court), to care for the vulnerable: for the orphan, the widow, the immigrant, the single mother.
God so identifies with the poor and disadvantaged that he says when you love the poor you deepen your love relationship with me and when you hurt the poor, your hurt your relationship with me.
In Proverbs 21:3 God says those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor will cry out and not be answered… In Isaiah 58:9 God says when we loosen the chains of injustice and care for the poor the Lord will hear us…
As read in Proverbs 19:7 Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
In Micah 6:8 we read, God hath showed thee, O man, or woman what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God…
So how do we live out the call to do justly, love mercy, love the poor and lend to the Lord?
There are many different levels on which this can be lived out.
It can be lived out on a city or national level.
During Britain in the 1700s… there was a great spiritual awakening. People John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield were key players in this spiritual revival where hundred of thousands of people became followers of Christ and a number of them asked how do we take the Gospel and work it out in public life.
They began to look at the African slave trade. For more than 30 years Christians in Great Britain mobilized by people like William Wilberforce did everything they could to work the abolition of slavery and the slave trade not just in England, but in the whole British Empire.
At one point Christians organized petition drive and got ½ of all the voting population of England to sign a petition for the abolition of the slave trade.
But wealthy classes were against this. It was going to be a huge economic loss for them, if they did not want slavery to end.
The planters in colonies were warned freeing the slaves would cost investors in Britain huge financial losses, which in turn would hurt everyone in England because the price of sugar and other foodstuff would shoot up if had to be produced by laborer you have to pay. These arguments swayed wealthy government leaders who stood to lose more than anyone else and whose agreement was necessary for the legislation to pass.
To get the wealthy members of the government to “buy into” this legislation, the abolitionists in the House of Commons accepted a provision in the emancipation act that compensated the planters for their financial losses right out of the British treasury which equaled one half of the British annual budget. The abolition act passed in 1833, providing the way slavery to cease within all British colonies. The direct cost to individual British citizens was huge--lost taxes from planters, new taxes for naval operations against slave ships and much higher cost of living as the cost of sugar and other food stuff did rose sharply.
The costs of emancipation were so high that historians Seymour Dresher called the British abolition of slavery voluntary “econocide.” because the British people were willing to let their economy tank for a generation or two to rid themselves of the slave trade.
Those Scholars who believe that all political activity is motivated by self-interest, have been scratching their head trying figure out why the British people were willing to sacrifice their financial well being to end slavery… because from all appearances people who stood against slavery--didn’t appear to stand to gain anything for themselves…
According to Proverbs and the Scripture part of what it means to be a follower of God, wise and upright is a willingness to sacrifice our personal interests to serve the poor and oppressed. The wicked on the other will sacrifice the interests of the poor to advance their self-interest.
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
What might it look like in a church to love the poor and lend to the Lord?
When I first came to Tenth Avenue Church, I had been told that’s “hey-dey” had been back in the 1950 and 60s and that in the not so distant past the church had cycled through 20 pastors (including associates) in 20 years.
As a new minister here, I read through all the board minutes from all the board meetings where minutes had been taken as far back as I could go (dug up from the church archives by Ruth Gilewich) and any church document that could give a sense of where we had come from.
I quickly came to the conclusion that my predecessors had been more experienced, more talented, and were far more than accomplished than me. One had been a VP for our denomination another a president of one of our colleges...
I thought if we were going to go forward—given my own limitations as a person—it we would simply need the blessing of God…
One of the ways I thought that we could invoke the blessing of God is if we blessed the poor. If we could bless those who could not repay us—then God would bless us…
Now when people ask how was that Tenth has “come back,” I find myself saying it’s simply the grace of God… it’s also about prayers and investment of the many faithful people who preceded me and it’s a bout this community communities committment…to reaching to poor lead people my colleagues, Don, Linda, Julie… so many of you…
When City Hall said we’re doing too much ministry for the homeless, and said you’re now acting more like a social services agency and you need a permit, on the one hand it’s been a pain to go through a arduous an application process, on the other hand it’s been a kind of unintended compliment that we’re on the right track.
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord…
What does it look like do justice, to love the poor, lend to the Lord?
This past Friday, I was delighted to learn that a Bangladeshi economist and the bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pioneering the use of microcredit, the extension of small loans to benefit poor entrepreneurs.
Many banks as we know banks redline poor and community neighborhoods, refusing to make loans regardless of the actual level of risk they face.
Grameen Bank has been instrumental in helping millions of poor Bangladeshis, many of them women, improve their standard of living by letting them borrow tiny sums to start businesses.
Loans go toward buying items such as cows to start a dairy, chickens for an egg business, or cell phones to start businesses where villagers who have no access to phones.
A little closer to home, I recently came across Christian a man who owned a car dealership, through a self-study discovered that men were getting better deals than women, and Caucasian males, were getting the best deals on cars and minority women were the worst deals. They realized, minority women, many of whom were lower income, were in effect subsidizing the car purchase of the Caucasians males, because they were paying more than the market value of the cars and therefore males could less than the market value.
This Christian man appealing to consciences of the people management working at the dealership that we need to stop this and just the fix a fair market prices on our cars because it’s not fair to the minority women. The man said I am Christian, I believe we have to be willing to sacrifice some financial profit in order to fulfill justice. The workers, even those who were not Christians agreed.
They found when they implemented this practice of a fixed price for everyone their profits dropped by 10% as Caucasian males tended shopped elsewhere…
The employees talked about this profit loss and the issue came up as to whether to stop this new practice of fixing pricing and go to the old system since the new system was hurting their bottom line… The employees agreed that what they were doing was right.
They began to use implement “best practices” in terms of business, seeking to become more effective and efficient and after some months of best practices they were able to reduce their profit loss to 5% relative to before they had the policy, but as far I know they didn’t completely close the gap. But employees are proud to be part of the company and they realize are pressing value back into the community as people save money.
Just because we follow God’s way doesn’t always mean we become richer. Sometimes, we ending actually losing money following God.
The person wise, righteous person is willing to sacrifice personal profit for the sake of the common good, the wicked fool is willing to sacrifice the common good for the sake of personal gain.
If you own an apartment building that houses lower income people and you have an opportunity to renovate the apartment so you can re-rent it at higher or rent or sell the property for a huge profit to developer who will build luxury condos, but the people who were renting the apartment can no longer afford to live there… if you’re a Christian you remind yourself that a true follower of Jesus is willing to sacrifice personal profit, if it means you an opportunity to serve the common good…
Those who love the poor, lend to the Lord.
We’ve seen how justice can be played out in nation or business, now let me apply this to our personal lives.
What does it mean to love the poor and lend to the Lord in our consumer life?
Part of what it means is that we allow our conscience to inform what we buy.
Then this week, as I prepared for this message, I came across information on abuses that have occurred in Nike factories in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam, including reports of torture and rape…The New York Times has run a front page article Nike’s corporate abuses.
These reports of abuses is why film maker, Michael Moore in the documentary film The Big One approaches the founder and then ceo of Nike Phil Knight and bashfully presents him with first-class two airplane tickets to Indonesia.
"Let's go," said Moore, smiling.
Knight starts laughing and no, not a chance. Have you ever been to see your factories in Indonesia? Knight says, “No and I am not going to.”
Moore asks does bother you if 12-year-olds girls are working in your factories? Knight says, They're not 12... Knight says… there 14. Moore says, well, how about 14 then, doesn't that bother you? Knight says, No.
According to author Shane Clairborne, workers make $1.50 for making Nike shoes that cost over $100—and according to Clairborne the workers make ½ of what it costs to live. And people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods earn more money earn more money wearing shoes for ads than all the workers combined earn for making the shoes.
I love sports and I have bought my fair share of Nike… even when I’ve heard rumors about their corporate practices… I’ve bought Nike I’m guilty here… I need to change…
I know things are always black and white, most of life is grey, but corporate should inform our consumer choices.
This past week I read an article in the Washington Post, about Coca Cola (and some of you, are like I should have gone to the Baptist church today) and allegations of abuses at the bottling plant in Columbia, South America. Coca-Cola apparently allowed notoriously violent paramilitary groups to use violent intimidation and even murder, of Coca-Cola's bottling workers who were interested in unionizing.
Yes, it’s true, I know if we looked hard enough we could probably find dirt on all most if not all Fortune 500 companies, and to have in the world and buythings.
But we hear about corporations that are guilty of serious, repeat abuses (and I’ve listed some corporate watch dog sites in the recommended resource list) and if we want to be people, who do justly and love mercy, people who love the poor and lend to the Lord it ought o inform our choices.
More positively, if want to love the poor and lend to the Lord when a company engages in fair-trade or support movements to make poverty history that should inform our consumer choices…
In our personal life we can also reach out to disadvantaged people. . Sociologists tell us people, often subconsciously, we tend to try to form friendship with people at our social class or above us that should not be true of true Christians… love of all grounds… whether above, parallel, or below us socio-economically, whether they advantage us or not…
And something some small as a conversation can make a big difference the life of a person:
I’m going into invite Lutz from our oasis ministry… to speak now..
(Testimonies from
Lutz…
I’m going to invite Keven Stephens…
Keven Stephens)
Those who love the poor, lend to the LORD.
Shane Claiborne, a young man who is part of the Simple Way community… describes heading for a loaf of bread with Michelle a colleague and one of the founders of the Simple Way Community…
He walked past an alley known for sex trade and drug dealing… and they saw a woman tattered and cold and on crutches. She approached Shane asking if he wanted her services. Shane and Michelle scurried to get their bread and when they got home they noticed the bag had a large gash in the side and the bread had gone bad. They would have to go back…. They walked passed the alley again…. They saw the woman crying and shrivering…. They got their bread and this time they couldn’t just pass her by.
Shane and Michelled stopped and we have home a kind of safe place and you can get warm and have a cup of coffee and a snack… so she stumbled onto her crutches and came home with them…
As soon as they entered the house, the woman started to weep hysterically. Michelle held her as she wept. When had gained her composure she said “You are all Christians, aren’t you?” Michelle and Shane looked at each other startled. They had said nothing of God or Jesus… there house had no cross, not sign of the fish, no plaque that said Jesus saves.
She said I know you are Christians because you shine. I used to be in love with Jesus like that, and when I was I shined like diamonds in the sky, like the stars. But, it’s a cold, dark world and I lost my shine a while back on those streets… and she us them to pray with her that she might shine again.
Weeks went by and they didn’t see her…. Then one day there was this lovely lady at the door with a contagious ear to ear smile…. Shane I meet a lot of people, so he trying to fake recognize her… she said, “Don’t try to fake that you remember me.” She went to explain that she had fallen in love with Jesus again…and she said, she lost everything on the streets but wanted to give something back to the community and all was this Marlboro miles points you could redeem for things in the Marlboro catalogue and she gave Shane a box stuffed with them…
Francis Schaeffer said the mark of Christian is not a cross or a fish, but love.
Jesus said by this all people will know that you are my followers if love each other.
We are not called to be known for being a “conservative” or “liberal” we called to be known by love… We called to known as people who love and add value to our people, our company, our city, our world.
Jesus gave us a sneak preview of the final exam in Matthew 25and he said in effect this how you’ll know that you really knew me come judgment day: if you have fed the poor, clothed the naked, reached out the stranger, visited the sick and those in prison…. When you did for the least of my brothers and sister you did for me…
Some will say, but Jesus when did we ever see you ever poor, hungry, thirsty…? He’ll say when you did for the least of these my brothers and sisters you did it for me.
We know from Mary’s offering of two pigeons at the temple shortly after Jesus’ birth that she and Joseph couldn’t afford to offer a lamb and that they came from a family at the bottom of economic rung, we know that for some of his life Jesus was what we call would call homeless, we know that he spent his last meal in rented room, and that he was in buried in borrowed grave…
But when was Jesus naked, hungry, and thirsty, as my teacher Tim Keller points out, on the cross… Jesus was naked, hungry and thirsty and he therefore identifies with naked, hungry, and thirsty…and oppressed and when we serve these people it’s as though we are serving God.
Mother Teresa says Jesus comes to us the distressing disguise of the poor.
When we love the poor, we love the Lord.
How do we become that way?
By centering our life on Jesus, the one who gave himself for on the cross to die for our sins when we spiritually bankrupt and had nothing to offer him so that through his death we must be made be reconciled to God…
Elaine Scarry who teaches at English at Harvard in her book Beauty and Being Just says that beauty has the power to bring us out of ourselves. If we look at a beautiful piece of art, some in literature, or in nature, it has the power to bring us out of ourselves in a way helps move toward others and work toward justice.
When we make Jesus Christ the center of our lives, we a free from our self-absorption, and come out of ourselves and become the kind of people who loved Jesus he loved… . we become people who love poor, in so doing, and love the Lord.
Prayer of Saint Francis…
Announcement re:
Mission course…
Jamie MacIntosh… International Justice Ministry.
Benediction: Live by faith, be known by love, be a voice of hope
(The sermon can be heard on line at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
posted by Shigematsu at 2:49 PM
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