The Officer’s Christmas Blog
Major Drew McCombe brings us some thoughts for Christmas Day.
Major Drew McCombe
Give or take?
‘Unto us a child is given……and the increase of his rule will establish and up hold justice and righteousness (paraphrase mine)’ Isaiah 9
As we lead into Christmas Day Father Tim Jones, a parish priest in York, has made the headlines about encouraging shoplifting read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/8425420.stm
Of course the media have jumped on this and taken it a little out of context. He is raising the important issue about how some people are so desperate when they have exhausted every legal means to get the support and benefits they need. So, rather than selling themselves into prostitution, committing suicide or mugging individuals, then as a lesser of evils he says it is better to take a tin of ravioli from a large supermarket to at least keep themselves fed. Now he is not advocating stealing really but raising the issue of injustice in our society that leaves once again the poor and marginalised out in the cold.
Now I commend him for raising the issue but I cannot agree that shoplifting is the way. I think the answer is much closer to home for our society and in particular those of us who call ourselves Christian. And it reminded me of a sermon I gave earlier this year. I leave you with an extract of that sermon and some challenges to the problem – the answer is not in taking …but in giving
‘What if we were to encourage and empower each other to be church exactly where we live? What if every Salvationist home could be something of a hub of community ministry? What if we could resource every Salvationist household to become something of a food-bank? What if we were to rediscover the practice of hospitality, the practice of sharing our dinner tables with others, the practice of sharing what we traditionally label our own and private? What difference could that make to the communities with which we live and mix? – the possibilities were transformational in the early church and still are transformational today. Of course its so much easier to give money to agencies , donate food to food banks and never get involved personally ..that may satisfy the immediate but it will leave no one transformed.’
and
‘We have to help the communities we connect with feel and see that they can contribute to something good, that there is some expectation on them to add something of real value. We have to shift from “hand-outs” to “hand-ups” to “sharing the workload together.” This creates a “… community that (can) embrace not just the poor and their advocates, but the better-off as well. For the poor will not only be less poor if they work (contribute); they will become less alien to (and less distant from) other people.’
What could this look like? It could mean that clients of our Monday lunch programme get invited to help Salvationists and other interested groups establish and sustain community gardens areas. It could mean that some clients of our Monday lunch and Endeavour House get invited to help with the preparation and serving of community meals. It could mean that clients of our Food Parcels get invited to volunteer time in providing a community allotment to grow fresh veg and distribute it. The opportunities are endless but if handled carefully, this can increase the felt dignity of individuals and strengthen the communal feel. There will be a renewed sense of what is possible together and of how “we’re (truly) in this together.”’
You see there is enough to go around. We just need to follow the example of God who gave his Son and as we give from what we have we can be part of establishing His kingdom rule, His justice and righteousness.
May Christ be born in you this Christmas
God bless and thank you for who you are and what you do.
NB My thanks go to The Salvation Army in New Zealand and the Social and Parliamentary Unit for their article ‘Economic Elephants’ that inspired the above application.