Big ideaWe bring about relief to poverty when we ‘do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God’ by having conversations with those in power, each other and our community.

IntroductionWhat are some hard conversations that you have had to have? With your loved ones? With your work colleagues? With complete strangers?

What makes them hard? Is it because we fear that we won’t be liked, people will disagree with us or that our own beliefs will be challenged?

As disciples there is a need to continually be challenged about the way we are in the world and the way we engage with others and with God. The way we have a change of mindset is through conversations that we need to have. And these can often be hard.

But they are critical.

Its often said that you shouldn’t talk about money, religion or politics in polite conversation. Well if that’s the benchmark, I think Jesus broke that taboo almost every time he opened his mouth! After the love of God, the right use of money and possessions was second on Jesus’ list, followed by warnings and critiques of those in political and religious power.

Jesus often had these hard conversations with his disciples, his community and those in power. These issues were always confronting and difficult to deal with – and these topics and his teaching weren’t always popular.

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Conversations we need to have - let’s talk about poverty

2021

Sermon outline

He was often criticised for raising these issues. But he was not afraid to direct people on the path of the kingdom. As disciples of Jesus, nor should we. We are in fact called to do this, it’s not an optional extra or to be left to someone else – it’s for all of us.

A conversation that we need to have today is about poverty. Poverty is not God’s idea, yet we see it all around us. As God’s people we are called to do something about it.

• Watch Anti-Poverty Week video with Kim Haworth Divisional Commander Tasmania – or speak the following in italics.

Anti-Poverty Week 2021 will be held from Sunday 17 to Saturday 23 October. It’s a time when we are reminded that poverty exists, that it hurts us all, and that together, we can all do something about it.

Right now, in Australia, there are millions of people who are:

• anxious about where their next meal will come from.

• worrying about how to pay the rent or mortgage.

• fretting about clothing their children for school.

• afraid their electricity or gas will be cut off.

The 2020 report, Poverty in Australia, revealed the staggering statistic that there are more than three million Australians, or 14 per cent of the population, living below the poverty line. These numbers include 774,000 children aged 14 or under.

Take a moment to think about that - more than 1 in 6 children, in a wealthy country like Australia, are living below the poverty line.

But poverty is more than statistics. It is about real people, like you and me, living with family stress, anxiety and lack of security. It’s about poor health and education outcomes for children, and reduced opportunities in life.

PPT The prophet Micah in his well-known words to the people of Israel gives a good framework on how to tackle seemingly insurmountable issues:“What does the LORD require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

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PPT Walk humbly with your God‘Walking humbly with our God’ requires us to shift our view of what is good and right to God’s view of good and right. This requires to us to be challenged on our ideas of fairness and equity and shift to them God’s preferred future.

PPT The prophet Isaiah gives a glimpse of this preferred future:

17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth . . .

20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime . . .

21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat;for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (Isaiah 65:17, 20-22).

Imagine that! A society where everyone has housing, meaningful work and healthcare. A society where poverty is a thing of the past. That’s a vision worth striving for and vision we are called to partner with God in bringing about. Walking humbly with our God replaces our vision of what society should be with this kingdom one – and then using all our energies to achieve it.

What are the conversations between ourselves and God that we need to have in order to walk humbly?

PPT Love kindnessLoving kindness does not mean having pity or feeling sorry for people and responding out of that pity or sorrow. Our vision statement calls us to work alongside others, especially those we serve. To be truly kind, we affirm a person’s dignity and strength and gifts that they have and use our response to partner with them. To show kindness we must have an appreciation of other’s situations. That means we need to have some understanding of their world. And this means having conversations, gaining understanding and upholding the worth of those in our community.

I think you know that in The Salvation Army we are generally pretty good at allocating resources to help those who are vulnerable. We have great fundraising campaigns and great programmes run by our social mission and community engagement personnel.

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But the danger we have, is that we rely on all of these great things the movement does in order to fulfil our personal responsibilities as disciples of Jesus. We effectively outsource our personal calling to others. The challenge for us personally is to give up our comfort and our personal space to engage with those who are vulnerable and experiencing poverty. Engaging with people who are vulnerable is not always easy, it puts us out of our comfort zone, and it is challenging. But it’s what we’re called to do. And when God’s flourishing becomes a reality for those that we journey with – wow what a transformation!

Another trap we can fall into, is to support those who are vulnerable but not actually engage with them. One of the conversations we need to have is how are we personally engaged in dealing with the poverty that is around us. For some of us the capacity we might have is to provide financial resources and for prayer. But that’s not most of us. Most of us have to choose to engage with vulnerable people. We have to have conversations with people who are experiencing poverty.

What are the conversations we need to have with those we walk alongside with? What are the conversations in our church communities to do this better?

PPT Do Justice Our Doorways and Moneycare services work with our corps every day to help alleviate financial stress and provide a caring community for people. This professional work is important.

But a question for us is how we can walk alongside our professional services to provide a community of love and acceptance. When we work together, we can provide support for one another to prevent financial stress.

Another question is how can we get on the front foot and build healthy communities before people are in crisis? How can we have good conversations with one another, to check on how we are going?

PPT Let’s join together to respond in a practical way to Anti-Poverty Week. Some options include:

• Pray for and be generous with others.

• Support and raise awareness of the Raise the Rate for Good campaigns.

• Be an advocate for ending poverty through your state and federal political representatives

• Invite a Doorways or Moneycare worker to share stories at your faith community / corps.

• Raise awareness – hold an Anti-Poverty Week stall or event at your corps.

• Visit a Moneycare worker and get help with your own financial struggles.

Let’s show the community that we are a safe place where people can seek support – a community working for a more just world where everyone can flourish.

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ConclusionThis Anti-Poverty Week, let’s have a conversation that matters. Conversations with God to change our mindset, to challenge our worldview to the ideals of the kingdom. Let’s ask God to break our hearts for what breaks God’s.

Conversations with vulnerable people experiencing poverty. Conversations that focus on the person, not the situation they find themselves in. Conversations which are full of kindness and love.

And finally, conversations within our community and our leaders. We need to speak up for the vulnerable, those who cannot speak for themselves. Let’s turn our conversations into action!

PrayerEternal God, giver of all good things. We thank you for all of the good things we experience. We acknowledge this morning that many people in our communities are vulnerable and are experiencing hardship and poverty. We pray for all those with The Salvation Army and other organisations who provide professional support. We pray that through their actions, people would begin to flourish as you intended.

Help us to ‘speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.’ Help us to be your hands, feet and love in the world.

Help us, by your Spirit, to gain a vision for your kingdom. We ask for your grace and compassion to have conversations with those in our community who need to experience your love and grace.

Give us wisdom and courage to have conversations with our community and our leaders to bring about structural and social change. Help us to love kindness, do justice and walk humbly with you.

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