Pentecost 22, Proper 23A – October 12, 2008

In response to the economic crisis

Exodus 32:1-14

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

When our diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Jeff Lee, issued a pastoral letter concerning the economic crisis on Tuesday, the gesture gained national attention. The director of Cathedral Shelter, the Rev. Glenn Chalmers, reports that recently a request for help with food came from a woman whose upscale Chicago address belies her current financial need. Chaplains in New York City are actively engaged in giving spiritual support to those who work, or until very recently used to work, on Wall Street.  This past week the Church of England reported that the current world financial situation has boosted traffic to a section of their website focusing on debt advice by over 70 per cent, and has increased visitor numbers to the Church's online prayer page by more than a quarter.  (I trust that the imbalance in those two numbers means only that people are more adept at praying than they are at solving their fiscal woes unaided!) A section of that website called “Matter of Life and Debt”, which contains a new 'debt spiral' feature so visitors can work out if they are one of the many families who will be seriously affected by the credit crunch, has seen a 71 per cent increase in traffic in recent weeks.

We’ve all been witnesses as the consequences and impact of the worldwide economic crisis continue to unfold.  Each new day, each new hour, brings reports of new troubles: another bank collapse; more plunging stocks; foreign markets struggling; and bail-out packages and other possible solutions being considered as the consequences of greed, mismanagement, arrogance and ignorance continue to draw almost every area of national and international commerce and finance into a bigger and bigger vortex.

At this point is seems there are very few areas of life that have not been affected in some way.  And while debates and blame and counter-blame rage on at the higher levels of government and finance, ordinary people – the residents of the quaint and fabled “Main Street” that we’re suddenly hearing so much about – are suffering: losing their homes, their retirement savings and pensions, their jobs and healthcare, their children’s college funds. For many, the American Dream is fast becoming an unAmerican nightmare.  Some are beginning to compare the events of our day to those in the 1930s that spawned the Great Depression. I can’t keep up with it all, and I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. It’s a fiscal disaster, an unprecedented crisis.  We’re way beyond quick fixes.  Even those of us who have not yet felt the immediate squeeze will surely do so, and we have one or two or half a dozen friends who already have.

Crises of any sort always test the faithful.  The failure of Moses to come down from Mt. Sinai when he was expected was a crisis for the people of Israel.  We can hardly blame them for that; the apparent disappearance of their leader, however ambivalent may have been there feelings toward him, was unsettling.  But instead of remaining faithful to God, for whom Moses was merely the spokesperson, they began to fish around for a solution that would give them some security – a god they could look at, a god they could touch. “Come,” they say to Moses’ brother Aaron, the second in command, “make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses” – (you remember him, the guy who single-handedly brought us out of slavery in Egypt, the guy we complain to when we don’t like the food, the guy who talks to God for us, you know, that guy) “we do not know what has become of him.”  And so Aaron, in a lapse of judgment unworthy of a high priest, passes the basket around and says, “OK, bring me your bling, and let’s make us a god.”  How simple it is.  And so is created the fabled golden calf, complete with altar, festival, sacrifices, and empty promises.

The irony in all this is that while the people were anxiously and eagerly making themselves a graven image, an idol of gold, Moses was on Mt. Sinai in the presence of God and God was instructing Moses how to build the ark of the covenant, how to vest the priests, the use of incense and oil for anointing, what the altar and sanctuary should be like, and who among the people of Israel God had gifted the purposes of carrying all this out.  No wonder Moses ‘delayed to come down from the mountain’!  God was instructing Moses how to create a outward and visible sign, if you will, of the presence of God among the people: a God who would go before them, a God who had gone before them and followed them and was in the midst of them; a God who had demonstrated his power at the Red Sea and his sustaining love by feeding them in the wilderness; a God whom they could trust and rely on, but at this point their faith was tested beyond their abilities to be faithful.

The Hebrew people didn’t choose the events and circumstances of their situation in the Sinai wilderness.  We didn’t choose the events and circumstances of this economic crisis any more than we chose the terrorist attacks of September 11 or the dreadful hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis that have plagued us in the recent past. But we can choose how we will respond.  As Bishop Lee notes in his pastoral letter

…it is essential to remember now, as at other times of transition and turmoil, that most of the challenges in life are ones we cannot control and that our trust, as always, is best placed in the Lord. (10/7/08) http://www.episcopalchicago.org/about/office/documents/leepastorallettereconomiccrisis.pdf

And we know God is here for us, in our midst.  We’re reminded of this in the collect we prayed this morning, asking that God’s grace will “always precede and follow us….” That’s ‘always’.  We are surrounded by God’s grace, and God’s love, always.  We have the gift of community – we need each other. We need to support one another, especially those whom this crisis is hitting particularly hard. 

We also have the gift of service – our neighbors need us too. In that same collect, we also pray that “we may continually be given to good works”.   That’s ‘continually’.  We cannot afford – we cannot afford - to forget the needs of our neighbors. As Fr. Chalmers noted, Now is the time when the need for mutual support blurs the distinction between "the haves" and "the have nots".

One of my big concerns is how all of this focus on the ruined economy is taking our attention away at every level from other important issues: climate change, bringing the war in Iraq to a close, human rights abuses, pandemics on the African continent. In particular, I’m concerned about the needs of the chronically poor and continually underprivileged in our local communities and beyond.  All too often generosity is the first casualty of an economic crisis, and most of us have never seen a fiscal calamity as broad and deep and far-reaching as this one so it’s tempting to turn away from the needs of others.  But I encourage us all not to do that, and I know this faith community well enough to know that in fact you won’t let that happen.  The CROP Walk will still go on next week, and now more than ever efforts like the St. Giles Hunger Project and the Bishop’s Malaria Net Challenge need our support, and the food banks need our weekly donations, so please let’s not let go of any of that.  All those kingdom parables we’ve been hearing in Matthew’s gospel over the past few months talk about God’s abundance, and what happens when God’s people follow God’s example of generosity and share what they’ve been given.

It’s very difficult, in times like these, to heed the advice of the epistle: “Rejoice in the Lord always” – that’s always, not just when things are looking good and going our way.  But God is good.  And God is merciful.  And God is loving.  And God is with us.  God is with us.  As we weather this latest challenge, together, may the peace of God which truly does pass all our human understanding, indeed guard and keep us.