Pray the News » Ron Sharp

Formed in the womb to be My servant.

Denis — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:35:30 +0000

This Sunday’s reading from Isaiah 49; was about God’s servant who simply gives his/her life in service – “formed in the womb to be My servant.”
Jordan Rice was only 13 years old when he had no hesitation in telling his would-be rescuers to save his brother first. Is this story telling us that service is built-into our personality from the womb? Is it still there at 13? When do we lose it then, because it doeesn’t seem to be in our present market forces culture?
Service of one’s brother is what caused all the trouble for Jesus with the leaders of the Jewish religion and civil authorities leading to his death within three years. Championing the cause of the outcasts and unwanted in society is not exactly flavour of the Western capitalistic world.
The influence of the 70′s ideology of the market forces dictating economies still runs rampant in the commercial world. It believes the very opposite to Jesus service. It upholds selfishness as a virtue, if you please! It also believes that there is no room on our planet for non-contributors. The handicapped, mentally ill, disabled might as well be terminated.
Even the extreme natural weather behaviour causing Jordon’s death is not awakening us to the urgent need to replace materialistic consumerism with service. Or is Jordan heralding our hope?
The other thing about Jordan’s sacrifice is that, despite the “Herald’s” comment of his “almost unimaginable fear”, he doesn’t show any sign of it. Is fear, too, an adult obsession, since September 11 and the declaration of War on Terror.
In the late 80′s I used to take my son over to the local Petrol Station and let him “drive” the tractors and machines to his delight. Today I can’t take my grandson unless he has a helmut, safety glasses and steel-capped boots and he is not allowed in the workshop, in case he trips or has an accident for which the company might be liable!!!!

No home – No Life

Denis — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:48:27 +0000

I don’t know what I would do if I felt that my turangawaewae was being banned to me. I would probably break down, because all the yearning of the human heart points home. What does it mean to be home and at home? Home is an attitude, as well as a place. It is an attitude, which depends on how much we are able to feel at home with ourselves and with others. Home is something that happens to us. Home coming is about a sense of personal integrity and inner wholeness. The most important of all endeavours is to come home. The most terrifying of fears is loneliness, to feel lost, exiled or without refuge – a refugee. To be cast out of one’s home is to feel fear, to be forever unsettled, never at rest.
Some one truly loves us when they bring us home, when they make us comfortable with ourselves. Jesus promised us a home. A day will come, he believed, when we shall be called by name, when no door will be sealed against us, when we will be welcomed in our mother’s and father’s home. Come you, who will never have to leave home again; come, you shall never know a wrong turn, a strange night, a loss of direction, an alien face. Come, you belong, you are safe. We know you, you are ours and we are yours.

The health of wealth

Denis — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 06:20:53 +0000

The recent ‘shake up’ in the international economic systems and consequent ‘recession’ has raised a whole new debate about the health of wealth. Money isn’t a simple, wholesome and value-neutral commodity. Its no longer backed by real wealth and it isn’t created by Government or by people but by banks, when they make new loans and the interest on these loans requires the very growth economy that is now transgressing the limits of human communities and the natural resources of our world. 95% of money is based on interest-bearing bank loans. In the Bible Jews were forbidden to take interest from each other. It was called usury – remember! How money is created, by whom and on what terms actually creates an artificial world of winners and losers, a world where abundantly creative humans are pitted against one another for scarce money while all around them – and in them – is the real wealth to create a rich life for everyone. By issuing money to unproductive or privileged clients of the money monopoly at more favourable terms and by demanding higher interest rates from the rest, the banking system redistributes from producers to privileged non-producers. Humans have ingeniously created the marvelous money system for exchange amongst each other but it has been monopolised and distorted to an intolerable degree and needs reinventing for supporting social justice, community self-reliance, economic democracy and personal freedom. Complementary currencies, without interest, are springing up all around the world creating a life-serving medium of exchange and helping God’s dream on its way.