THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - 23rd April 2008

The Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

Good Morning from Liverpool, although my thought begins with a stroll through the City of London.  I was walking to a meeting past St Paul’s Cathedral, up Cheapside, past the Bank of England and into Cornhill when I caught sight of the inscription engraved in stone over the grand façade of the Royal Exchange: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”.

Here at the heart of the world’s markets a simple truth: fullness.  God’s earth is full of everything we need.

But that’s not the impression to be gained from yesterday’s summit presided over by the Prime Minister.   We’re facing a world food shortage.  The lives of millions are under threat.  The poor are already rising up and the World Bank believes that over 30 countries are in danger of being de-stabilised by rising food prices.

 

As pundits cast around for scapegoats attention focuses on the production of bio-fuels – the taking of land to grow crops to feed our cars instead of our mouths.  It’s easy to knock this development.  The truth is that there is no simple way of balancing climate security, fair trade and feeding the world. 

I was in Geneva recently meeting with a number of different international organisations dealing with food, development, trade and conservation.  After 24 hours of meetings my head was reeling with the complexity of the issues.  Frankly I take my hat off to those who painstakingly negotiate the details of global agreements.  And of course, there are vested interests of companies and countries that have to  be challenged in the struggle for a fairer world. 

But although there are no simple solutions I find amongst all the siren voices a deeper sound beckoning me back to the source of the inscription above the Royal Exchange.  When God took to the fields in the person of Jesus he trod the earth gently.  There’s that famous story of him feeding a hungry crowd with the loaves and fish of a young lad.  Taking the food in his hands he didn’t moan about the paltry provision,.  He gave thanks for it.  Whatever happened in that moment, it was the thanksgiving that marked the transformation.  Not only did the food feed everybody but there was food left over.  And here’s the gentleness.  Jesus then told his disciples to gather up all the leftovers.  They filled 12 baskets with bread.  Why?  According to Jesus ‘so that nothing may be wasted’ 

Interestingly Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations, inspired so many to make the City of London the hub of global markets, believed that waste, or to use his word, ‘profligacy’, was the enemy of the people. 

Whatever decisions come out of yesterday’s summit on the world shortage of food there’s a personal response which in our global village is inescapable.  As people go hungry today whatever we waste is food from their mouths.