Wednesday 12 May 2021

Amos 3:1-15   Psalm 130

Background

As well as the Covid-19 pandemic, in the past year other critical topics that have come to our attention. The murder of George Floyd sparked the hugely important 'Black Lives Matter' campaign and the murder of Sarah Everard shone a light on the evil of violence against women.  In a blog Women's safety on the Methodist Church website, Rachel Lampard asks “What norms do we have to overturn to make this a society where each person will feel valued?” With the Psalmist we do indeed proclaim, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!” (Psalm 130:1-2)

Earlier this week we recognised that it is Christian Aid Week. We have acknowledged the call to climate justice that is sounding through the week. We have recognised that responding to the demand for justice, in all its expression, is not an option but a command Christ lays before his disciples.

As part of their material for this week, Christian Aid have produced resources which bring climate justice into focus through the lens of racial justice. Christian Aid states that although climate change is something which will affect us all, it is a deeply racialised phenomenon. Predominantly black people in the poorest countries face the full force of climate change, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuelsin countries that are predominantly white and the richest in the world. In their report Black Lives Matter Everywhere Christian Aid states “The cold neutrality of climate science obscures the fact that the drivers and the impacts of the climate emergency are personal and societal, and tied to political decisions with clear racial implications.”

While those of us who live in the global north are just beginning to feel the effects of the climate crisis, those in the global south have been living with them for years. Extreme weather events in Latin America, droughts in East Africa, floods in Bangladesh, and rises in sea level threatening the existence of whole islands in the South Pacific, show climate change as not a future threat but a present reality. Climate change has a disproportionate effect on those who have done least to cause it.

Christian Aid believes that if poor political decisions and unjust policies have helped cause the climate crisis, then it is equally the case that the good decisions and right policies can play a role in reaching out towards climate justice.

Anna Briggs’ hymn "We lay our broken world in sorrow at your feet" (Singing the Faith 718) begins:

We lay our broken world
in sorrow at your feet,
haunted by hunger, war and fear,
oppressed by power and hate. 

Then she leads us to a hopeful place in verse five:

We bring our broken selves,
confused and closed and tired;
then through your gift of healing grace
new purpose is inspired. 

Let the prophetic cry be our cry and let our actions be prophetic actions.

To Ponder:

• Read Rachel Lampard’s blog –  Women’s safety: There is much to do.
• Are you the victim of discrimination in any form? What should the Church be saying and doing in order to bring all instances of injustice to an end?