From my book Daily Prayer, a session exploring God’s challenge to help combat injustice in the world, righting wrongs so far as we are able.
Righting wrongs
Read
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:15-17
Ponder
In my garden is a small area that for a few months every year is overrun by fungi. The reason is very simple: it sits next to an old tree stump that has long since died but that I have been unable to dig out. I can treat the area with fungicide as much as I like, dig up the fungi until the cows come home, but it will make no difference – the problem will always return unless I succeed in tackling that root cause.
There are parallels here with world hunger and poverty. It has increasingly been recognised in recent years that the only way to resolve the growing gap between rich and poor, and to give what we call the Third World real hope, is to address the underlying factors of inequality. Short-term relief is vital but more needs doing if we are to see anything approaching a genuine solution. So where does that leave us? Are we left powerless in the face of impersonal economic forces or international government bureaucracy? Not at all! Ordinary people can make their voices heard. Through the way we shop or invest our money, the causes we support and the products we boycott, through more direct measures – such as petitioning our MP or lobbying multinational companies – we can call for change. The Jubilee 2000 campaign was a classic example of what can be achieved through concerted effort. Should Christians involve themselves in such matters? Isaiah reminds us that a hunger for justice and a commitment to the poor is not an optional extra in the Christian faith but a responsibility at its very heart.
Ask yourself
What practical steps have you taken to work for a more just world? Do you steer clear of such issues, claiming it is out of your hands or none of your business? Is this what you genuinely feel or are you using it as an excuse to avoid the issue?
Pray
Loving God, I am reminded today that in terms of this world’s resources I am one of the lucky ones – one of those with food in my belly and a roof over my head, with ample water and medicine, and with access to education, technology and so much else, my life brimming over with good things. Forgive me my complacency in the face of the world’s evils and my share in an order that not only perpetuates the divide between rich and poor but that actively widens the gap. Hear now my prayer for the millions less fortunate than me – those for whom hunger is a daily reality and a lifetime of poverty all that the future seems to offer. Teach me to give sacrificially in response to their need but, more than that, teach me to work for change, to do all in my power to help build a fairer world until that day when your kingdom dawns and all wrongs are righted. I ask it in the name of Christ. Amen.
Remember
The righteous plead the cause of the poor; the wicked feel no such concern. Proverbs 29:7
Close
Lord of all, may my worship of you be reflected in a commitment to others and a passion for justice. Through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.