Truth Stumbles in the Market Place

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

20 June 2010, pm

Bishop Richard Randerson

• Isaiah 59:9-17, 20
• Luke 12:13-31

I was driving our 6-year old grand-daughter, Julia, home recently when she asked about a land agent’s sign. I explained to her about how houses were sold, and how people made an offer in an envelope and gave it to the agent. Then when the agent opened all the envelopes, the house was sold to the person who offered the most money. “Why,” asked Julia, “would the house not be sold to the one who offered the least money, because that person would probably be the one who most needed the house but could least afford it?”

There is the perception of one who saw precisely what a house is for – a place to live, grow up, have a family and know the love and security of a home. But a house can serve other purposes. Move along the spectrum a little and a house can become an investment, or a bit further and house-trading can become a way of life, although such activities are not intrinsically wrong in themselves: they can be legitimate means of self-support, or providing a service to others.

But push further again along the spectrum and one becomes part of that frenzied maelstrom of buying and selling, characterized by greed and reckless dealing, that led to the spectacular collapse of 2008, the victims of which were predominantly (in Julia’s words) ‘those who most needed a home and could least afford one’.

Somewhere one crosses a moral divide between the concept of a house as a home, and a greed-inspired lifestyle which is heedless of the consequences. Where is that line crossed? - probably at the point where something shifts in our own mind and values, so that we become subverted in our moral purpose, just as a house can be subverted from a home to become a means of excessive profit-making and exploitation of others.

The very subtle factor in the shift is that we might not even be aware we are making it. There are some in society who are intentional malefactors, but for most of us we are simply caught up in the prevailing ethos, prompted by media reports of burgeoning escalation in house prices to go out there and get our share. Our reading from Isaiah 59. 9-17 has telling words about such a society: “Justice is removed far from us, and integrity keeps its distance…Like the blind we feel our way along walls and hesitate like a people without eyes….Truth stumbles in the market-place”.

This relates to the insights from a new book The Spirit Level by two British researchers, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The authors correlate two sets of statistics. The first measures the rich/poor gap in 24 of the richer nations in the world. In Singapore the aggregate income of the top 20% is ten times the income of the bottom 20%. Following Singapore come the USA, Portugal, UK, Australia, and then New Zealand with the 6th highest gap where the top 20% earn seven times the bottom 20%. The countries with the least inequality are Japan and the Scandinavian nations where the gap is only four times. (Graphs of the statistics are available for free download from www.equalitytrust.org.uk).

The second set of factors The Spirit Level analyses is a composite social well-being index for each country made up of these factors: levels of trust, mental illness, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, education, drug use, homicides, imprisonment rates and social mobility. Correlating the two sets of statistics, it was found that in virtually every case the larger the rich/poor gap the worse that country did on the social performance scales, not just in the poorest sectors of society but across the whole board. The conclusion offered was that in countries with high income inequality there is an ethos of individualistic competition (“keeping up with the Jones”, or “keeping ahead of the Jones”) that has a divisive and stress-producing producing quality. By contrast countries with greater income equality have a greater sense of mutuality and social cohesion.

One of the factors measured is imprisonment. Per 100,000 of the population, Japan has 40 imprisoned, the Scandinavian countries around 60, NZ has 197, and the USA 576. Victoria University criminologist John Pratt has researched the different rates of imprisonment in Scandinavia and NZ. He says that in NZ there is a sense of resentment and exclusion, particularly against lawbreakers and prisoners. Kiwis lack sufficient levels of trust and egalitarianism to permit any changes in our penal system.

So our social, and also our spiritual, well-being has a lot to do with our attitude towards housing and other possessions, and also on our attitudes to others. Our Gospel reading today, Luke 12. 13-21, is pertinent in this regard. Jesus tells the story of the man who built ever larger barns in which to store his grain and his goods, only to find his soul required of him suddenly. We can, of course, read the parable in terms of sudden physical death when our goods are no longer of any use to us. But we can also read the parable in a deeper way to remind us that true life, the life that God provides, can be lost well before physical death overtakes us. Once our life turns from a central relationship with God and becomes subverted by the pursuit of wealth, fame or power, we are in fact already dead in the eyes of God. Jesus said: “Watch and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions” (Luke 12.15).

In our Christian discipleship, we might ask ourselves three questions:

1. About our lifestyle and vocation: what do we seek centrally from life? What are our driving goals and ambitions? Are our lives directed to God and to others, or do they focus largely on ourselves?

2. About the policies of governments, corporations and institutions, the Church included: are they essentially self-serving, aimed at institutional preservation and profit, or is there a central element of service to individuals and the community?

3. Where do our lives touch the poor? –whether directly through voluntary service or indirectly through our support of church or voluntary agencies that reach out to the poor both here and overseas. To do something for someone, however small but according to our ability, is at the heart of discipleship.

A Prayer :

May the Spirit of Jesus, who loved and suffered for us and all people, inspire us, change us, sustain us, so that following the path of costly discipleship we may be channels of God’s love and justice in our hurting and needy world.

Amen.