Sermon Archive
Make Poverty History
Sermon preached by Michael Doe at Holy Communion on 3 July 2005, the day after the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh, in the week before the G8 summit at Gleneagles
Last Sunday I was in Delaware, in the United States, preaching at the Tercentenary of a parish founded by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the year 1705. The history of the USPG, which is what we call ourselves these days, and where I’ve now been General Secretary for just over a year, follows very much in the steps of the expanding British Empire: North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, South and Central Africa, and then India and all points East. And we did great things, establishing churches, hospitals and schools - but all according to the received wisdom of the imperial, colonial model: we knew what was best for them.
Today we work in a very different way. Indeed, for all the criticism they sometimes get, missionary societies like USPG were often in the forefront of change: educating local people, giving way to indigenous leadership, standing out against injustice, whether over apartheid in South Africa or with the dalits in India. Today our model is one of partnership: we talk about being with and alongside all the different parts of the world-wide Church, building relationships, sharing resources, so that people may "grow spiritually, thrive physically, and have a voice in an unjust world".
And it’s against that background that I want to reflect on what has brought so many of us to Edinburgh this weekend: to Make Poverty History. Because colonialism remains a strong legacy in our culture, and still colours much of how we see the rest of the world.
At first, of course, the end of the Empire led to a loss of interest in what had previously belonged to us. If they now wanted to run their own show, why should we continue to care? In foreign affairs we looked more to America and Europe, and in economic affairs we found alternatives to their raw materials and developed our own markets over against theirs. We happily lent them our surplus money, even if it was for the purchase of armaments, and greedily awaited the large interest payments. We gave them Development Aid, where possible linked to our own trading interests, but ignored the United Nations call for the level of Aid to be linked to our own prosperity. And when their economies began to grow, we looked to new trading structures which gave access to their markets but protect our own.
Well, maybe, thank God, we are turning that corner. Maybe we are once again recognising, as the pioneers and commissioners of the old imperial world certainly did, that we live in one world, under God, and we have responsibilities for each other. But we are called to live in this world, and to carry out those responsibilities, not in the spirit of colonialism, but in the spirit of partnership. So what might that mean?
First we might look at ourselves,
and St Paul’s moral moanings in today’s Epistle can help us with that.
"I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is what I do".
Firstly, the sin we are all caught up in is about all of our life, private and public.
It’s difficult coming to Edinburgh not to remember the famous 'Sermon on the Mound' in which our then Leader sanctified the culture of those who think that when we have done what we sensibly can we are no longer responsible.
That’s the morality of the colonial overseer who because he has come to do good can shut his eyes to all the poverty and injustice around him - he is doing as much as can properly be expected of him.
To make poverty history requires a very broad and deep acknowledgement of sin and the need for repentance, a change of life.
St Paul understands that - ignore those who imply that he would now be more interested in the bedroom than the boardroom!
And the second thing I get from Paul is that sin is universal. I get fed up with talking about Make Poverty History and the first question is about corruption: why should we [good] people help these [bad] people?
Of course there is corruption in the countries of the global south: and there would be even more corruption here if we did not have resources for proper law and order, and the systems of tax and benefits. But of course there is corruption here. Try to get round it if you will, but our whole economic system, based as it is on Usury, is, according to the Bible, sinful! And I find it difficult not to see many aspects of import tariffs, currency speculation, offshore banking, the futures market, as very sinful in their effects on the poor.
So if - returning to my overall theme - we need to find ourselves as members of One World, but in a partnership rather than a neo-colonial relationship, what might we take from today’s Gospel? Are we rather like that generation which Jesus compared to the children sitting in the market places, happy to play their pipes for the passers-by, but upset that none of them were willing to either mourn or dance? For we too have our expectations of those we want to help we want them to run their countries according to our patterns of Western democracy we want them to develop their economies according to how they can best fit in with ours Like all good colonialists, we want to help them and we want them to be grateful. That’s a real problem for agencies like USPG. We think our job these days is to help the Church in Britain and Ireland to be in partnership with the Churches in rest of the Anglican Communion, and if they ask for help - for people or for funding - we try to find and share that with them, for them to use it as they think best. But more and more people here want to have a direct involvement, to send their missionary, to adopt their project, or even to sponsor their child. And yes that can mean a real ongoing relationship with another part of the world. But is can also mean the old colonial attitudes of charity and control.
For that reason it’s not surprising that some people in Africa are suspicious of Make Poverty History. They see especially Aid and Debt Relief as Western condescension reinforcing the idea that Africa is just poor and helpless. Perhaps that’s why the third aspect of Trade Justice is so important, and it’s good that you have drawn this out, not least in the great mural which is now outside this Church. Africa is rich, rich in so many things, and it needs not so much our colonial charity but a real global partnership which allows it to develop its own economies unfettered by Western self-interest.
On Friday morning, just before coming up to Edinburgh, I met Bishop John Osmers, a priest who has spent almost all his ministry in Africa, supported by U.S.P.G. In the days of apartheid in South Africa he was actively involved in the A.N.C., and lost his right hand from a letter bomb sent by white extremists. Today, when he could be comfortably retired, he’s working in one of the poorest Dioceses in Zambia. I asked him about this weekend: does it have any real significance for the people with whom he now works? He told me: we need Aid, as long as it doesn’t come with strings attached. Debt Cancellation has already brought more schools and more hospitals, but again we need more and we need it without conditions which hinder our own development. But most of all we need freedom to trade, to grow our own economy, and to do it in our own way. And, he told me, the more Africa is allowed to grow up, to meet its own needs, the more able it will be to tackle corruption in its own midst.
Just one more thing - but perhaps the most important thing. We might get this move from colonialism to partnership right if we heard again the words of Jesus as the end of today’s Gospel. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. That’s who we’re following - the one who sees and feels the burdens which lay so heavily on the poor. "Come to me, and I will give you rest". Mission and Development are not about what we here can give to others. It’s about how we engage with what God is doing. For us, Making Poverty History is fundamentally about the God who in Christ came not to give charity but to share our burdens who weeps with those who fall under their weight today who calls us together to rebuild a world where we can live together as one people.
May Edinburgh this weekend
May Gleneagles this week
be the beginning of this new world.
Amen.
Rt Revd Michael Doe is the General Secretary of U.S.P.G.