One of the things which has given me most pleasure in recent years has been the fact that the Islamic community in Kilmarnock hold their Friday Prayer here in our hall. And so, when they invited me one evening last month to join them for a meal in the Gateway Centre during Ramadan, I was delighted to accept their invitation which, as well as a meal, involved prayer and speeches, including a short one from myself. But what struck me most, and this is the reason I mention it today, was the difference between the Koran as it was explained that night and the New Testament as we encounter it in today’s Gospel. One of the speeches was by a young man currently studying in Saudi Arabia. He spoke, mainly to the young folk present, about daily prayer. They had, like all Moslems, to pray five times-a-day but what surprised me was how adamant he was about the fact that, if they went further than this and prayed six times, they were doing something wrong, the reason being that the Koran specified five and there could be no deviation from this. But you will search the New Testament in vain for such specific instructions. They’re just not there. And it’s this lack of specific detail which makes Christianity more flexible and adaptable than Islam, for all its strengths and insights. ‘Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’ says Jesus today, ‘and to God what belongs to God,’ but what that means in the fifth tenth or twenty first century is something we all have to work out for ourselves from general principles, like the one we have just heard. And so, since we have heard it, what does it mean for us today, especially in the light of all that is happening in the world of economics and finance? What does belong to God and what does belong to Caesar in the complex world of the early21st century.
Well, the first thing we have to say about this complex financial world is that we have to live in it. But we don’t have to live by its values. Driven by market-forces and consumerism, we have been told by politicians since the 1980s that there is no alternative. These laws, the laws of one particular economic theory, have become commandments written on tablets of stone which,as we have worshipped each day at the altar of the goddess money, no one has been allowed to question. And not only have we worshipped at this altar. Like our primitive pagan ancestors we have practised human sacrifice on it, offering as tribute to the goddess the lives of so many people whose health and family relationships have been destroyed in the service of efficiency, productivity, ever increasing profits, the company, the business - she who must be obeyed. And since this deified economic system needs winners and losers, some who will grow rich while others grow poor, we have also sacrificed – literally in the case of millions throughout the world – the lives of the poor. And now, as the ugly under-belly of the system is exposed for all to see: the greed, the irresponsibility, the self-interest - the sheer madness of it all, it’s time to reflect, to ponder what has happened, to think about what we have done and, with God’s help learn from it. As many have already said, this is a potential turning point, an opportunity to learn from our mistakes, a chance to read the signs of the times and one of the functions of the Sunday liturgy is to help us do this: to work out together what it means to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and the God what is God’s. So where do we start?
Well, at its root, the current crisis facing the developed world is a spiritual one, part of the journey from religion to faith we speak about so often. For very understandable reasons millions today have rejected traditional religion without yet discovering the faith that lies beyond it and the result has been a huge void deep within our western psyche. And into that void have come the sellers and the advertisers. Tapping into this spiritual emptiness, with the fears and insecurities that go with it, they have very skillfully sold us the notion that, if we can only acquire more and more material things, we will be happy. They have to do it, of course, because the whole system depends on us consuming more and more things, and it has been in pursuit of this illusion that, as a country, we have spent money we don’t have and built up the highest level of personal debt of any country in the developed world. And, as the last few weeks have shown, it cannot go on. Something has to change. We have to change. This time there really is no alternative. The question is how. Now I hope it does not come as a disappointment to you, but I don’t have the answer to that question except to repeat what Jesus himself says. ‘Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.’ But I can say some general things.
The first is to re-state the obvious point I made at the beginning. We need to live in this financial world. We all need money. People need mortgages. There will be times when we may need to take on debt. It’s important to plan for the future and sort out things like pensions. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with investments so long as they are ethical. Credit cards can be very useful. But what is really important is that we remain free in the midst of all this, understanding the forces we are subjected to and not being controlled by them. This means resisting the pressure to keep buying things we don’t need. It means knowing the difference between need and want. It means standing up to one of the most powerful tools used by the advertisers, the pressure to keep up with the Jones’ and do what everybody else is doing. It means sorting out our priorities and not, for example, allowing pressure of work to destroy our health or our family relationships. It means learning to do without sometimes and learning to share more, not just from what we have extra, but, like the woman in the Gospel, from what we have to live on. But, in the end, we all have to work out the details for ourselves.
But perhaps we could leave the last word today to Pope John Paul II who, in his encyclical on work, tells us that economic systems must exist to serve people, not the other way round. Now there’s a principle, the implications of which need worked out, if ever I heard one.
BIDDING PRAYERS
In the first reading this week, the anonymous author of the second part of the book of Isaiah, written during the Exile in Babylon, sees God as the Lord of history, guiding by his infinite and unfathomable providence the events which shape the lives of his people. And so we pray that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God will guide the world at this time of serious economic crisis, and show us how what is happening can lead us to more just and sustainable ways of living........................Lord hear us
And we hold up before God in a special way all those who are suffering in especially severe ways from what is happening in the world’s markets. We pray in particular for those in the world’s poorest countries who, unlike us, have no protection from the worst aspects of the crisis. We pray, too, for those in our own country who are caught up in unmanageable debt, who are in danger of losing their homes, whose jobs are under threat or whose security in retirement has been affected..................Lord hear us
We also pray this week for those who govern our country at this time and for those who have power to influence the present situation for good or ill in other parts of the world. We pray that God will guide them in their decision-making, keep them free from narrow self-interest and enable them to work for the common good. And we pray in a particular way for the people of America as they prepare to elect a new president, a choice which will affect us all in some way................Lord hear us
If the current crisis facing the developed countries of the West is, at its roots, a spiritual one, then the ultimate solution will also have to be spiritual. Millions today have lost sight of God, while millions of others believe in a god who does not exist, the god of religious fundamentalism, no more than a projection of what is worst in ourselves. And so we ask the real God to lead us beyond religion so that we can come to know him again through faith and in a way fit for our time...................Lord hear us
Today is Mission Sunday throughout Scotland, reminding us that, at the very heart of what it is to be a follower of Jesus, is the command to go out and teach all nations. And so we pray for the wisdom and courage we need to do that at this time in history, offering to people everywhere an alternative way of living to what we have now, a way of living based on the teaching of Jesus and which, because it comes from God, alone has the power to fulfil humanity’s deepest longings and desires......Lord hear us
The 20th Annual Week of Directed Prayer takes place in the parish this week. And so we pray for all those who will take part, either as participants or as Prayer Guides. We pray that the whole experience, one rooted in the Scriptures as they touch the personal experience of each individual, will bear rich fruit, not only in the lives of those directly involved, but in the life of the whole parish.........................Lord hear us
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