Diocese of Liverpool

Thought for the Day, 4 August 2004

The Rt Rev. James Jones

Good Morning
A secret intelligence briefing done on the state of the earth by somebody from another planet beyond Mercury and Saturn would make interesting reading. The section on ‘Motivation of the People' would have questions about how they spend their time and how they're rewarded. The report would reveal that the earthlings measure the value of everything and everyone by something called ‘money'. You can imagine the conversation as the Head of Joint Intelligence briefs the Head of Planet Omega who asks ‘do they give everybody the same amount? ‘No' comes the answer. ‘Well, she asks, ‘who do they give most to?' ‘Judging by our latest reports', the chief spook replies ‘they're thinking of giving millions of it to someone who trains 11 earthlings to kick a ball into a net'. ‘Does this make them happy?' asks the Head. ‘The Ball or the money, Ma'am?' ‘Either'
‘The Ball, not very often. The money, hardly ever.'
‘And who do they give the least to?'
‘Latest reports reveal that the vast majority – almost 80% of earthlings have little or no money.'
‘That's strange', says his Leader ‘Your report says that democracy has come to this planet. That's a contradiction. How do you explain this inconsistency? At which point the Head of Intelligence changes colour, even a lighter shade of scarlet!

This fanciful reflection comes in a week when an international bank announces mid-year profits of billions of pounds, and when in Bangladesh millions face disease and destitution as floods drown their ability to survive.

If you were to compare the earth to a body and present it to a doctor it would be diagnosed as having diabetes. The blood is still pumping around the heart, but it's failing to reach most other parts of the body which eventually will atrophy and die. It's a serious prognosis.

Our corporate selfishness is killing the earth.

This cannot be a matter of indifference to the One who made it. Which is why he sent his child to the earth, to press upon our hearts God's forgiveness and to challenge us to treat each other more justly. In a disturbing sermon, Jesus holds before us the prospect of ignoring God's pleading. Taking as his picture the foul-smelling municipal waste tip called Gehenna, which lies in the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, he warns us that unless we change our ways we shall end up part of a smouldering cosmic rubbish dump.

This image of Hell is extraordinarily contemporary in a world where one of the biggest ecological threats is the sheer scale of our waste.

Some years ago I walked along the rocky road from West Bengal to Bangladesh in the company of those who have no land, no money and nothing to protect them. At a time when the distance between the poor and the rich refuses to shrink, I often think of them and wonder what scale of conversion – individual and corporate – is necessary for God's will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.