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‘It’s very fashionable to talk about the poor, it’s not so fashionable to talk to the poor’ – Mother Teresa

For some reason it feels strange to talk about money in church. We silently give in an offering each week. Often we talk about poverty. Occasionally we hear the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, but that’s about it.

The Bible is full of stories, laws and incidents involving money. It doesn’t just teach us about the evils of greed and putting possessions before God, it also talks about money in terms of justice and love. It talks about shifting the balance of inequality between the rich and the poor – not just sending them money, but knowing them and loving them, advocating for them and supporting them.

This three-part series will hopefully help you and your group to explore Scripture, and what it has to say on money, justice, love and forgiveness. Hopefully it will challenge you and motivate you. There are questions that will prompt discussion and these should inspire you. There are stories and accounts and these are intended to educate you.

But remember Mother Teresa’s words. It is easy to go along with a trend. Take time to use Scripture and other resources to become truly convicted and convinced about God’s desire to see equality and justice through your life’s actions.

Week 1 – Balancing Resources

Week 2 – Corporation or Co-operation

Week 3 – Payback

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Week 1 – BalanCing resourCes

WelComeBefore the start of your group, get some cups and place different amounts of Fairtrade chocolate buttons (eg, Cadbury’s or Traidcraft) into opaque cups. Give some just a few, and others a large amount. Get the group all to look into their cups at the same time.

Ask: what is their reaction to their gift? How do those feel who have more? Are they going to share what they have with those that have less?

‘Having nothing is a heavy burden’ – Andy Matheson, ‘In His Image’

WorshipPlay or sing the song ‘God of Justice’ by Tim Hughes (from the album Holding Nothing Back, available on Survivor Records).

Take time to pray about our calling as Christians to ‘feed the hungry’ and to ‘stand beside the broken’. If possible print out the words of the chorus on to a small foot shape for each person. Use this to represent our call to action: that ‘we must go’.

WordLike the chocolate buttons earlier, resources in our world are not always evenly distributed. There are those whose lives are a daily struggle to have even the most basic provisions. What does Scripture tell us about this?

Throughout the Bible we see that God is a great one for balancing resources. He often uses those who would be considered weak by the world, to be strong: Moses, the stuttering prophet who became the voice of God; Sarah, the barren old woman who became the mother of a nation; David, the shepherd boy who became a king of that nation; and a refugee baby who led that nation home.

Have a look at Isaiah 58:5–10

‘Do you think the Lord wants you to give up eating and to act as humble as a bent-over bush? Or dress in sackcloth and sit in ashes? Is this really what he wants on a day of worship?

I’ll tell you what it really means to worship the Lord. Remove the chains of prisoners who are chained unjustly. Free those who are abused! Share your food with everyone who is hungry; share your home with the poor and the homeless. Give clothes to those in need; don’t turn away your relatives. Then your light will shine like the dawning sun, and you will quickly be healed. Your honesty will protect you as you advance, and the glory of the Lord will defend you from behind. When you beg the Lord for help, he will answer, “Here I am!”

Don’t mistreat others or falsely accuse them or say something cruel. Give your food to the hungry and care for the homeless. Then your light will shine in the dark; your darkest hour will be like the noonday sun’

(Contemporary English Version – Poverty and Justice Bible).

Is this passage a great piece of rhetoric, or a terrifying instruction? Ask your group if they have ever heard a sermon/message that made the hair on the back of their necks stand up? Can they think of a film where eventually the lead protagonist gives a victorious, eloquent and exciting speech? (At this point you might want to use a clip from a DVD as an example, such as Remember the Titans or The West Wing). Was the speech about justice?

As Christians we love to talk about justice – it excites us. As The Salvation Army we have a heritage of being invested in social justice. William Booth’s ‘I’ll fight…’ message is a message that gets those hairs on end again:

‘While women weep, as they do now,I’ll fight;while little children go hungry, as they do now,I’ll fight;while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now,I’ll fight;while there is a drunkard left,while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets,while there remains one dark soul without the light of God,I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end!’

This passage in Isaiah has a similar effect, but how keen would we really be to follow its instructions to the letter to balance the resources between us and the ‘prisoners, abused, hungry and homeless’?

Ask: Reading the passage do you feel a sense of responsibility, guilt or challenge?

Take a moment to imagine a world where EVERYONE follows the prophet Isaiah’s instructions. What differences would you see in your everyday lives? (For example, do you see people in need regularly? this includes on the news

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and in the media.) How would it impact you and your life to follow these instructions to the letter?

WitnessTake some time to explain a bit about what GENERATION is (you may want to show the overview video, use the PowerPoint presentation or flyer in the resource pack to help you).

Challenge: Give 20p to each member of the group. Between now and the next meeting get them to trade/swap and keep swapping, or ‘trading up’ the 20p for something else and see what they can each generate from just 20p. This challenge can be a lot of fun, and the results can be surprising. However, it is also to demonstrate how difficult it can be to start with little (there are bound to be some members of the group who bring you back either the same 20p or a different 20p as they lost the first one). It also serves as a crude explanation of microcredit, which is one of the types of project which The Salvation Army is involved in around the world to help people to earn an income).

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Week 2 – Corporation or Co-operation?

WelComeBefore you get started with this week’s session, you may want to give a few minutes for the group to feedback on how they got on in last week’s challenge and show what they managed to end up with for their 20p.

Set out small piles of paper and sticky tape; one pile for each of the members of your group. Give them just the instruction to build a tower that reaches 2m high. Leave them to work, maybe even leave the room. Allow them just a short time. At the end of the time, see if they have pooled their resources and skills to complete the task or if they have each built their own smaller tower. Use this exercise to ask them which they think would work better as a world model: a ‘co-operative’ one (where everyone pitches in and all are interdependent), or a ‘corporation’ one (where some have a great deal and some are isolated).

‘Interdependent’ is a term often used in psychology and sociology. It is a play on the word ‘independent’, which means self-sustaining to the point of isolation. Interdependent, on the other hand, means sustainable, but reliant on others. Like a co-operative, each entity survives because of its relationship to the others around it.

WorshipShow this ‘Dragons Den’ clip from YouTube - http://youtu.be/M_wjKZ9wwmw where Simon Boyle presents his business ‘Beyond Boyle’.

True-life story: ‘Beyond Boyle’ is an alternative business model. Simon Boyle runs a catering firm doing large events in London and is quite successful. What makes ‘Beyond Boyle’ an alternative business model is who Simon’s staff are. Simon hires, exclusively, ex-homeless men. A rough sleeper named Frank, who regularly attended one of The Salvation Army’s London drop-in centres had struggled unsuccessfully for two years to get a foothold to rebuild his life. Language was a huge barrier as Frank was German and could not write any English and spoke little. In a passing conversation with a staff member Frank mentioned he was a chef. He expressed this in such broken English that it took several minutes to actually understand precisely what Frank was trying to convey. A few days later a temporary shelter place opened up for Frank, who up until then had been sleeping under a bridge in a construction zone on the Embankment. Due to Frank’s changing status, from ‘rough-sleeper’ to ‘accommodated’, he was now eligible to find employment as a chef. But who would take him on? The staff member remembered an old university friend who had mentioned a friend on Dragons’ Den. After a series of phone calls through some tenuous links Frank started work for ‘Beyond Boyle’ and now rents his own flat in Brixton.

As well as being a heart-warming story, here we see how alternative business models can succeed. We see how by co-operation, through God’s gentle and subtle involvement, lives can be transformed. In the space of a week Frank’s life was turned completely around.

Spend some time praying for people like Simon and Frank, as well as each of us, to think how we can help people to earn a living, especially those living in extreme poverty around the world.

WordRead Job 22:6–14

‘To guarantee payment of a debt, you have taken clothes from the poor. And you refused bread and water to the hungry and thirsty, although you were rich, respected, and powerful. You have turned away widows and have broken the arms of orphans. That’s why you were suddenly trapped by terror, blinded by darkness, and drowned in a flood. God lives in the heavens above the highest stars, where he sees everything. Do you think the deep darkness hides you from God? Do thick clouds cover his eyes, as he walks around heaven’s dome high above the earth?’ (CEV)

This passage in Job makes reference to the following passage from Deuteronomy 24:10–13:

‘When you lend money to people, you are allowed to keep something of theirs as a guarantee that the money will be paid back. But you must not go into their house to get it. Wait outside, and they will bring out the item you have agreed on. Suppose someone is so poor that a coat is the only thing that can be offered as a guarantee on a loan. Don’t keep the coat overnight. Instead, give it back before sunset, so the owner can keep warm and sleep and ask the Lord to bless you. Then the Lord you God will notice that you have done the right thing.’

Ask: What strikes you about these two passages? What are the similarities and what are the differences?

The word ‘Deuteronomy’ comes from a Greek phrase, which translated means ‘second law’. It originated before the Israelites crossed the River Jordan into Canaan. God stopped the Israelites’ progress and got Moses to repeat the law to them again, just to make sure they knew it before they settled down. Moses does this, and reminds them about their history. You can almost hear him saying: ‘Come on, guys, we’ve got this far. It hasn’t been easy and we’ve made some mistakes but God has got us here and this is how we should be living.’

Lots of the laws in Deuteronomy and other books of law in the Bible can seem strange out of the context of the time

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and place that they originated (the Middle East, 900BC) but when God’s intentions behind them are revealed they make perfect sense for today and for ever.

Ask: what do you think this law means for today? (Try to take it apart in the group a little bit – what is God trying to ensure happens in Israel then and how does this link to our world now?)

In this passage we see a practical side of God. He understands that people will have hard times, financially and otherwise, and within his law he makes provision for them. Quite simply the passage is saying: if someone owes you anything, don’t demand it be repaid if it means they will be in need. Don’t leave them out in the cold.

The passage in Job has a very different tone. The laws set in Deuteronomy have been ignored or forgotten. Verse 6 makes a clear link to the law we’ve looked at. ‘To guarantee payment of a debt you have takes clothes from the poor.’ Something has gone terribly wrong with the economic structure God intended. The poor are being oppressed by the rich. Those with wealth are doing worse than just ignoring poverty; they are abusing its results. Those without means can be exploited so easily: their clothes taken, their food eaten. Is this something that sounds familiar?

This is an extract from a news article printed in September 2007 in The Guardian:

‘Workers who make clothes for Gap and Primark in India are being paid as little as 13p per hour for a 48-hour week, wages so low the workers have to rely on government food parcels.

Employees of factories owned by exporters who supply Gap and Matalan claimed they were often made to work extra hours without pay to meet unattainable production targets. They claimed the mostly female workforce was harassed and bullied by male production managers and supervisors for not achieving targets and that they were refused time off when ill. One worker claimed that security guards patrolled the toilets, harassing the women inside to get back to work, while the unions said public address systems were used to publicly humiliate and harass workers. Texport Overseas denied there was pressure to meet targets. It said female guards in the toilets were present to ensure “proper security”, while the address system was to “co-ordinate production” and ensure health and safety.

One worker, a tailor who makes clothes for Gap, told The Guardian she was dismissed after being off work for more than 15 days due to illness. Texport Overseas denies this. Another said that when she could not achieve her production targets, the clothes were thrown in her face. She said up to 15 workers a day collapsed and had to be given medical attention. In February, a young woman hanged herself in the toilets of one factory. A report by a number of Indian NGOs alleges that she was verbally sexually harassed and repeatedly refused permission for leave on the day she died.

Jagadamba, 43, the mother of the dead woman, who now looks after her daughter’s two sons, Sarti, eight, and Surya, four, told The Guardian that her daughter had only worked at the factory for 20 days, but had been very unhappy there. “She told me, ‘They are always shouting at me because I can’t meet the targets’.”

A month later, a nine-month pregnant woman from Shalina Creations, a factory supplying Gap, went into labour at work and subsequently lost her baby. Rathnamma, 27, a mother of two, claimed that she was refused immediate leave on March 29 this year, after going into labour. When she asked to go home, the production manager made her fill in forms that took an hour and a half, she said. “I was in such pain, I could hardly stand up.”

When she finally made it outside the factory gates, she collapsed, she said, and gave birth to the baby in the street. A passer-by helped her into an auto ricksaw, but when she got home, she discovered the baby was dead. Rathnamma, who has returned to work after being given paid leave for three months, said: “I feel angry. They gave me money, but nothing will bring the baby back. But I need the job. If I have no job, I have no food.”

Gap representatives in the US did not dispute her allegations. However, a Gap representative in India denied that she was refused immediate leave, said that she gave birth in a rickshaw, and not on the street, and claimed the baby died when it slipped from her grasp.

KP Gopinath, the director of Cividep, an Indian workers’ rights group, said: “When we speak to the workers, they tell us all they want is to be treated like human beings. They need a living wage to live in dignity, to get running water, to get a better education for their children.”

These stories don’t speak much of the co-operation we see in the economic laws of Deuteronomy, does it? How can we ensure that we are not contributing to these problems?

WitnessTogether, as a co-operative, collect the belongings you have that maybe you don’t need or want any more. It may be CDs that you no longer need, books you don’t read, toys you have outgrown (or really should have by now!). Sell them, either at a car boot sale, at a sale in your hall, or online through eBay or Amazon. With the money you make (as well as any raised through last week’s challenge) co-operate with those left out in the cold by corporations by donating it to GENERATION. Your money, by helping to invest in those living in poverty, will not only help people to develop their income, but could provide clean safe water, education, money for healthcare and much more. The difference made when we co-operate as, and with, people of God is huge!

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Week 3 – paYBaCk

WelComeStart by playing a quick game of Monopoly (set yourself a time limit – Monopoly can be a long game!), but keep all the money in the bank (don’t give any out at the start as you would normally) and borrow as and when you need it (from either the bank or the other players if they are willing). Keep a record of each player’s debts as they mount up. What’s the point? What happens when you start with nothing? How much harder is it than what we are used to as people who start with so much?

WorshipSing or play the song ‘I will offer up my life’ by Matt Redman (eg, on the album The Friendship And The Fear, available on Survivor Records).

Offer up the following prayer, which is based on The Message translation of Romans 12:1-2, as a group (print enough copies for everyone and get the whole group to read it out together).

‘Father, Here’s what I want to do, God helping me: Take my everyday, ordinary life — my sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before you as an offering. Help me embrace what you do for me – it is the best thing I can do. Don’t let me become so well-adjusted to my culture that I fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix my attention on you, God. Change me from the inside out. Help me to recognise what you want from me, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around me, always dragging me down to its level of immaturity, you bring the best out of me, develop well-formed maturity in me. Amen.’

WordLook at Matthew 18:23–35 (CEV):

‘This story will show you what the Kingdom of Heaven is like: One day a king decided to call in his officials and ask them to give an account of what they owed him. As he was doing this, one official was brought in who owed him fifty million silver coins. But he didn’t have any money to pay what he owed. The king ordered him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all he owned, in order to pay the debt. The official got down on his knees and began begging, “Have pity on me, and I will pay you every cent I owe!” The king felt sorry for him and let him go free. He even told the official that he did not have to pay back the money.

As the official was leaving, he happened to meet another official, who owed him a hundred silver coins. So he grabbed the man by the throat. He started choking him and said, “Pay me what you owe!”

The man got down on his knees and began begging, “Have pity on me, and I will pay you back.” But the first official refused to have pity. Instead, he went and had the other official put in jail until he could pay what he owed.

When some other officials found out what had happened, they felt sorry for the man who had been put in jail. Then they told the king what had happened. The king called the first official back in and said, “You’re an evil man! When you begged for mercy, I said you did not have to pay back a cent. Don’t you think you should show pity to someone else, as I did to you?” The king was so angry that he ordered the official to be tortured until he could pay back everything he owed. That is how my Father in heaven will treat you, if you don’t forgive each of my followers with all your heart.

It is fairly obvious from Scripture that God is big on forgiveness. From the instant Adam and Eve fall, God is weaving a web to catch them. As well as being a history book, a law book, a poetry and song book, the Bible is one long story of redemption. Forgiveness is something that is given and received throughout its pages. God has forgiven you – how often do you really think about that?

Read Luke 7:41–43 (CEV):

‘Jesus told him, “Two people were in debt to a moneylender. One of them owed him five hundred silver coins, and the other owed him fifty. Since neither of them could pay him back, the moneylender said that they didn’t have to pay him anything. Which one of them will like him more?”

Simon answered, “I suppose it would be the one who had owed more and didn’t have to pay it back.”

“You are right,” Jesus said.’

In the early days of Israel, when God was instructing Moses how to build his nation as set apart, the Holy Israel, God thought about forgiveness. Within the structure of Israel’s laws and customs God put in the Sabbath Laws (which are not just as simple as resting on a Sunday; there’s more to it spread over the Law books of the Bible). Every seventh year Israel was supposed to rest – not just the people, but also the land and the animals, which would be depleted and tired from six years of feeding a hungry old nation. Within this year all debts were dropped! All of

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them! Families that were struggling could eat from any field. It was an economic solution that meant the rich would not get too rich too fast, and equally the poor would not get too poor too fast. It was a balancing of resources like we spoke of in week 1. It’s redemption for those in need.

An even more extreme and economically complicated law was the ‘Year of Jubilee’ (found in Leviticus 25:8) where all the land that Israel inhabited was given back to God to be redistributed between the Israelites. Those who had lost it all, financially and socially, had opportunity and hope restored to them. Those who had spent a life either cheating or beating others out of land were humbled, and suddenly everyone was even again – as at the start of a normal Monopoly game. God had seen how man loved empire and how the powerful wanted to exercise dominion over those who were weak, and, come to think of it, so had the people of Israel. All they had to do is look into their history, when Egypt and Pharaoh enslaved them, to see how man’s economics never redeemed or forgave. God built into this nation a fail-safe. Leviticus 25:40 (CEV) says: ‘…in the year of celebration they are to be set free!’

Ask: Could the Year of Jubilee work today?

When you read in Matthew’s Gospel the parable Jesus told, can you think of a minor wrong someone has done to you that, like the first official, you haven’t forgiven?

Do you find it easy or hard to let other people off paying you back, if they owe you money?

Do you find it easy or hard to let other people off, if they have hurt you? Are you holding grudges?

Payback is a strange thing. We see it glorified in action films, where the persecuted (and usually good-looking) underdog eventually gets his own back on the nasty bad guy. Jesus calls us to pay back in love. God created an economic and social system that would avoid oppression or persecution and promote equality. He wanted man to be regularly involved in acts of redemption – he wants us to forgive.

On small pieces of paper, write down anything that in your heart you have not forgiven. It may seem little or it may be significant. Pray individually that you will be given grace to forgive this, and that the pain and hurt will be taken away as you do. Have a small fire (outside and in a suitable area/container – a barbecue works well, even a disposable one without the wire grate on top) and drop (carefully please!) the piece of paper on to it and watch the pieces of paper, and the writing on them, burn away as a sign of your forgiveness.

WitnessCampaign: Making your voice heard works! Petitions, demonstrations, letters etc all add up to a humanity that is seeking to change how it balances its resources. On 27 July 2010 the IMF (International Monetary Fund) dropped all the debts owed to it by Haiti. Just a month before that, on 30 June 2010, Liberia, the world’s most indebted country, had its debts cancelled by both the IMF and the World Bank. However, the people in these countries and others in similar positions are still without the basic resources they need. They stand at the bottom of a huge climb to economic stability and a standard of living above the poverty line. What can you do to help balance their resources with yours? What does Isaiah 58 tell you to do?

You can find out more about campaigns that you can get involved in by looking at the GENERATION Advocacy document in the resource pack or visiting www.salvationarmy.org.uk/id.

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