Living in love involves ‘keeping his commandments’: as Jesus says elsewhere, ‘Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you?’ (Luke 6.46). Love is stronger than any power in the world (1 John 5.4 and 5), though its practice inevitably involves conflict and suffering; it comes ‘not with the water only, but with the water and the blood’ (1 John 5.6).

This week's news

Different newspapers have their own angles on the French and Greek elections: The Telegraph;The Guardian; The Mail; The Independent; The Mirror.

Two opposing views compete with one another. One is that governments must spend to avoid whole sections of their populations sliding into poverty. The other is that the priority is to reduce debt, even if that leads to an increase in inequality.

May 13 is the beginning of Christian Aid Week. This year they have chosen to focus on Sierra Leone: not for where the money goes, for the income will go to CA’s work throughout the world, but as an illustration of what it does.

Reflection

It is not always easy to work out how the teaching of Jesus applies to the major issues of politics in our day. Some say we shouldn’t even try: we should simply put practical love into action in face-to-face communities, including our local congregations, and leave world affairs to take care of themselves.

But if the lives of people in local communities are affected by what happens in national and international economies (which they are), we cannot avoid dealing with that also, unless we are convinced, as the Christians of New Testament times were, that the world’s economy was heading for disaster so the only possible recourse was to set up alternatives that would exemplify justice in the face of a corrupt world. Do we think we have reached that point yet?

Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest, most helpless, destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, “Is what I am about to do going to help him?”’

One of the lessons of Christian Aid’s work throughout the world is that neither austerity nor government spending provides an adequate answer. The solution is to work directly with people, especially with poor communities, to enable them to gain control of the resources they need and then to use them effectively. Is that a lesson that Europe’s governments need to learn? If so, how can we communicate it to them?

Acts 10.45 reminds us that people once thought incapable of doing any good are often precisely those who are found to possess the gifts that are needed. We need to challenge the ideologies that write off whole groups of people as ‘useless, incapable, of no value’.

Prayer

You said we are your friends, Jesus, not servants,
because you have told us everything you know,
shared all things with us, chosen us to be your companions.
Sometimes we would rather you had not told us so much.                        
It takes our breath away, gives us vertigo,                            
because with this vision we see the world as you see it;                    
we see the possibilities that you see, and the risks also.                        
Fill us with joy in trusting your word,                                   
so that we may bear the fruit you desire,
which the world needs.
Amen.

Christian Aid provides Prayers for the Week.

Questions

• The task of the British Government’s Export Credits Guarantee Department (now renamed UK Export Finance) was to underwrite, and therefore offer better security, to the loans necessary for export trade. But now there are big questions about how this facility was sometimes used.                                             
• What should be the government’s priority? To improve UK job prospects through exports, or to make sure that our dealings with the rest of the world are ethical and just?
• Who are the people in your local area (or congregation) who are regarded as having nothing of worth to offer to the community? (Read again Acts 10.44 to 48)

Action

Get copies of Christian Aid’s booklet Working Together:10 Bible Studies inspired by the Millennium Development Goals, and arrange for a group to study these during the summer.

Discover more about the Millennium Development Goals.

Young People

Check out the Christian Aid resources aimed at youth groups and leaders.

Peter West worked for Christian Aid in London for 15 years, and now lives in a village in North Bedfordshire, working with the local church to create The Meeting Place, a day-conference and study centre.

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