Forgive us our debts

Tomorrow is the second Sunday in Advent. I've chosen four great phrases from the Lord's Prayer as our themes for Advent. I guess I'd like all in St Andrew's Bo'ness to see the importance of prayer being at the centre of the vision we have as being a community that is seeking to live an alternative way from the world around us. Last week we looked at "Your Kingdom Come!" For those who are extra keen you can get the whole sermon by  clicking here. This week we look at "Forgive Us Our Debts". We put together three meditations around the topic. I hope to use the three clips in the service, to help us reflect upon our personal debt, then to think about our corporate responsibility to the poor and the need for third world debt to be eradicated and finally to realise the need for all of us to receive God's forgiveness for our own personal wrong doings. Here is another of these videos focussing on the challenge to think differently and see what love can do.Regular members of the congregation will know that I've set myself a challenge to play a U2 song to fit into every sermon until the end of the year. I don't know about anyone else but I've been having great fun 

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3 Comments
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Posted By: James Hogg   On: 10 Dec 2007   At: 12:32am

I think giving via NGO’s does have clear benefits. especially in respect to the individual ability to target aid as they see fit. This though could lead to two problem firstly NGO’s would them have to face the question of corruption head on, do they give in to it for the betterment of the people they are trying to help, or do they fight and by there endangering their mission? Also the people involved in governmental corruption have a vested interest in seeing it continue and are they going to idly stand by as the aid bypasses governmental channels and goes direct via NGO’s? Again i am not bright enough to come up with answers, and maybe these question should really wait for a latter time when the consequence of giving through ngo’s have come to fruition and we should take advantage of the situation now.

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Posted By: italker   On: 9 Dec 2007   At: 1:04am

James you are so right in what you say. It is almost a given that when we do this kind of work that corruption will be almost inherent. I think it is also a reflection on human nature. We will never be able to wipe it out completely but we can begin to work with organisations that are much more hands on. The problem with Governments is that they don’t have the personal relationships with the people on the ground unlike many of the NGOs. I was hearing recently about a woman in Scotland who is just back from Africa and has started up her own charity called one to one. This is an effort to take aid out to the poor literally on a one to one basis.

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Posted By: James Hogg   On: 8 Dec 2007   At: 11:45pm

While eradicating third world debt is in the best interest, no pun intended, of all involved, i think we must also look at the failures caused by the misuse of the original funds. The project these loans were taken out to fund never saw the full amount of the money, to quote a wikipedia reference (I know not the best, but it is easy smile)“While a proportion of borrowed funds went towards infrastructure and economic development, a proportion was lost to corruption and about one-fifth was spent on arms.”. We must come up with better ways at directing the money than in the past. Which countries did the third world countries buy the arms from, who were they “forced” to use a contractors. Also i think this country has a responsibility to it’s ex-colonies in the way it left them, especially in respect to good governance and tribal harmony. How many third world dictators were elected only to cling to power a sweep away democracy? Who left the power systems in place that allowed them to do this? I suppose correcting this just leads to bigger questions that if could lead to Carl von Clausewitz famous quote “War is merely a continuation of politics,” and who is to say i know best?

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