C4CC(21): Therefore the land mourns (1)
Finally I get to engage with what was the initial ‘presenting issue’, ie the ecological crisis, from a Christian point of view!
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“If my people who are called by my Name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7.14
We live in a wicked world and there is a heart of darkness in the West. These might seem words that are too strong – after all, are there not also many blessings flowing from Western civilisation? Yes there are, and they need to be preserved, but our society values and esteems and rewards the worship of idols – the idols of money, power, success, sexuality and many others. These are all idols. None of them in themselves are intrinsically wrong. To take Mammon, for example, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with material wealth. The divine intention for the Israelites is the Promised Land which is a land flowing with milk and honey – this is a vision of material wealth. Our society, though, has elevated material wealth above God; material wealth has been given too much importance, and the consequences of this idolatrous distortion of values are all around us.
What are the wicked ways of the Israelites, and why does God link it to the healing of the land? Consider this famous passage from the Gospel of Luke:
'There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell where he was in torment he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, “Father Abraham have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire.” But Abraham replied, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony, and besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” He answered, “Then I beg you Father, send Lazarus to my father's house for I have five brothers, let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.” “No, Father Abraham”, he said, “But if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'
There is no hint in this story that the rich man does anything actively against Lazarus. He simply ignores him. However, because the rich man ignores the suffering of the poor man at his gate, he ends up in Hell. Jesus puts it pithily: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
The great teachings of the prophets are centred on two things which Jesus summed up when He gave his two commandments: first, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength”; second, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”. The first is precisely right worship, having nothing else in the place of God – it is about abandoning idols and pursuing right values. The second is right relations, love your neighbour as yourself – and this second commandment is about poverty, about making sure that no-one is abandoned by society. This is not a marginal part of Scripture. Something like 2,000 verses in the Bible refer to poverty, expressing God's concern for the poor. For example, Deuteronomy 15: “Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people with you, therefore I command you to be open handed towards your brothers and towards the poor and needy.” The New Testament maintains the emphasis: one in ten verses in the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) deal with poverty and in Luke it is one in seven. This is not a right wing or a left wing political point. There are still debates about what is the best thing to do about poverty, but it is impossible to be a Christian and not work for social justice.
How much poverty is there in the world? Well the good news is that, on the whole, poverty has been getting less throughout the twentieth century. The most significant change that has reduced poverty around the world in the last 30 years was China's embrace of market reforms. The bad news is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where the main problems lie. That is where the poor in our world are mainly found.
Now Scripture is not against material blessing. The vision of the Promised Land is of a land flowing with milk and honey, a materially wealthy environment, and that is God's intention for us. Nor is Scripture against absolute poverty, in the sense that the embrace of poverty is not alien to God's intentions for us. What Scripture teaches us to reject, what it is very strongly against, is the idea that some people can get left behind. To use modern language, the Bible is less concerned about absolute poverty than about relative poverty. It is about not letting some people suffer while other people enjoy great wealth. It is the imbalance that is being criticised: hence “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” We must not separate love of neighbour and love of self for we are all a part of one community.