Christian Aid - not a week a year only

I did assembly on Friday afternoon at our local school. As I walked in the school, I sensed something was not quite right. The Headteacher pulled a face at me when I asked her how she was and I noticed her summoning children one by one into her office.

At the assembly, she went onto the stage and gave the whole school what for. There had clearly been an “incident” and she had spent all day investigating it. She said “you have let me down, where’s your respect for one another? If you see it, you say so!”

If you see it, you say so! I get inspiration from the strangest place… It made me think about our responsibilities in the world as part of a global community.

If we see it, we need to say so, voicing the wrong, sharing the hurt of the world with others and then doing something about it so it doesn’t happen again. Monday morning at that school they hope will bring a new start as someone somewhere shares what might have happened and the issue can begin to be resolved – whatever it is!

If you see it, you say so!

I wonder though whether because we live in an era where the news is “in your face” we take the injustice and suffering and the cry for help in the world less seriously. We can get news weary. We can get used to scenes of distress, even when we are warned “this report has some things some people might find distressing.” Is it easier to ignore the situation, keep quiet, seeing it but not talking about it, hoping it will go away?   

Jesus tells us to love our neighbour and so on - but what if I don't want to do that because my own life is so complicated today?

If you see it, you say so!

What if I can’t be bothered to say so? What if it is easier to keep my head down, because the need for aid might be messy? Do I allow the pain to continue, the injustice to continue because we are too wrapped up in what might happen to us if I stand up and am counted? 

It is easy to ignore the world’s pain, to say it has nothing to do with us, there is nothing to say. We see it, but we say nothing, so the negative things continue because we didn’t intervene. 

At the beginning of Christian Aid Week, I think we all can justify our failure to give aid, but sometimes we betray the Christ who suffers for the world and all his teachings which are all about giving help where help is needed. Jesus gets involved with Christian Aid every day. I believe the God we worship and Jesus shows is one of mercy, infinite grace, compassion and care, and who chooses to enter the difficult places and transform them.

The world is not right yet, but we don’t bury our head in the sand, or hide in fear for speaking out, we believe that we can make a better world, beginning here, and praying and giving for other parts of the world we will perhaps never visit. If you see it, you say so. I love what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “Don’t give up, don’t be discouraged, I’ve read the end of the book. We win!”             

If you see it, you say so.

We see the world as it is as we watch the news and so on today, but we also see the possibilities that bringing Jesus’ love into that world can bring.

How can we really keep quiet, or do nothing?