In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the book “Freakonomics”, the authors write, “Morality… represents the way that people would like the world to work-whereas economics represents how it actually does work.” Now economics as a branch of study has come a long way since Thomas Carlyle, the sage of Chelsea, deemed it to be the “dismal science”.

When you look at our society in terms of how much we worship money and material goods economics has become the new theology. Economists are the new theologians reading the signs of the marketplace in order to detect the providence of Adam Smith’s invisible hand. The traditional theologians and clergy, like me, are “no higher than Molly Maid most days” as my mentor the Rev. Dr. Jim Dickey used to say. (No offence to Molly Maid)

 All of us are affected by economics whether it is in the form of government economic policy-drop in the G.S.T. or private economic decisions. Is it simply a coincidence that gas prices skyrocket on long weekends? Economist state that it is a case of supply and demand. We cannot be an informed voter or an informed reader of the London Free Press or our mutual fund report without some knowledge of economics. It is like some sort of omnipresent economics god is all around us.

Meanwhile the stock market continues to generate record corporate profits. Executive salaries and bonuses continue to climb. Sales of luxury homes, automobiles and other material items are at an all time high. And yet paradoxically, many people do not feel secure.

In a corporate climate where mergers take place everyday in order to achieve ever greater “economies of scale, where competition is the key principle, no job and no company is safe from the threat of being “downsized” or “outsourced” to India.

The result is that many people are fearful and insecure concerning our future. As a society, we retreat into the narrowest possible definitions of community and neighbour in order to defend ourselves and what we have at all costs. A “Social Darwinism”-the economic survival of the fittest seems to rule the day.

Now there is a story told of a rich but miserable man who once visited a rabbi seeking understanding of his life and how he might find peace. The rabbi led the man to a window and said, “What do you see?”  “I see men, women, and children,” answered the rich man.

The rabbi then took the man and stood him in front of a mirror. “Now what do you see?” he asked. “I see myself” the rich man replied.
“Yes” said the rabbi. “It is a strange thing is it not?” In the window there is glass and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass in the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is silver added than you cease to see others, and you see only yourself.”

Now for thousands of years, the Christian tradition has offered an alternative ethic which proclaims that God is the source of all blessing, that every single person is a child of God made in God’s image and that material prosperity does not belong to a few but must be shared throughout the whole human family. It is an ethic that defines community and neighbour as broadly as possible without reference to race, class, creed or any other category by which we separate ourselves one from another.

Jesus throughout his ministry performs healing miracles on the poorest beggars, and reaches out to the despised Samaritan woman at the well. In today’s Gospel passage he saves the daughter of Jairus and heals the sick woman who had spent all she had in seeking relief for her suffering.

In our reading Second Corinthians, the Apostle Paul does not command but rather encourages his churches to take up a collection for their impoverished brothers and sisters in Christ in Jerusalem. He calls them to share out of their own abundance so “that there might be equality.” Not equally rich but equally poor.
To put in our own context, we could think of it like a PWS&D appeal that we receive periodically. An appeal where we are encouraged to share out of our abundance with those who have experienced tragedy or disaster. But there is a big difference between Paul’s situation and our own.

The Apostle’s Paul’s world was focused around the Mediterranean. He knew nothing of sub-Saharan Africa or even of North America for that matter. Our world, however, is truly global. Images of famine in Africa, earthquakes in Iran Tsunamis in Indonesia as well as homegrown tragedies are almost instantly transmitted into our homes for days on end.

I remember last year the media going on and on about people suffering from “compassion fatigue” as donations began to dwindle because a string of disasters took place. Now on one level this “compassion fatigue” could be construed as an economic problem. People had given what they deemed to be enough money, looked at their bank accounts and turned off the tap.

But being a minister, I saw it in terms of being a theological problem. The Apostle Paul uses the example of the selfless offering by Christ as a model for imitation by the members of his churches. It then becomes an issue of grace.
As Christ has poured or emptied himself out for the world, for us, we in response to that grace empty ourselves “so that there might be equality”.
Our giving then is related to how deeply we sense that same grace at work in our own lives. If there is a deep sense of gratitude for what Christ has done for us then there is a deep desire to share in the continuing mission of Jesus Christ.

For what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Certainly, this theological ethic calls us to an impossibly high vocation: to live each day as disciples. And yet, the real miracle is that for thousands of years there have been idealist, dreamers and fools attracted to this theological ethic rather than economics.

The real miracle is that there are people like you who give generously to build schools in Latin America, wells in Malawi and support AIDS projects in India without descending into cynicism. Who seek to live out Kingdom ethics without descending into self-centredness. For these are the real signs of the age into which God is drawing us.

THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN