Growing Together

through fair trade in a globalised world

Order of Service for OWW 2008

This service has been prepared for OWW by Peter Collins of Traidcraft , acknowledging the contributions of The Northumbria Community and 
Reg Bailey, Chair, Traidcraft Foundation.

Notes for the service leader
Human enterprise is one of our richest resources; through it everyone can be fed, clothed and housed - but only if the benefits of trade are shared fairly. Sadly, they’re not.
World trade is dominated by a small group of very rich nations. Huge, international businesses control more money than some developing countries. Surpluses from the developed world are dumped in the markets of the developing world, destroying the livelihoods of local traders, while complex regulations and punishing tariffs frustrate the attempts of Southern producers to sell into northern markets. 
Meanwhile, one billion people around the world struggle to survive on less than $1 a day and a child dies of poverty-related causes every three seconds <click….click….click>
.But, amazingly, none of the rules governing world trade sets out to address the scandal – and it is a scandal – of global poverty. Nothing could better underline the truth in Isaiah 55 that, as the Lord says: ‘my ways are not your ways.’ 
There are almost 3,000 verses in the Bible which speak of God’s heart for the poor and his call to seek justice for them. Get a copy of the new "Poverty and Justice Bible", produced by the Bible Society (£9.99) and you can’t miss them – every one has been highlighted for you.
“Here’s proof that faith without a commitment to justice for the poor is a sham, because it ignores the most explicit of all the social concerns of scripture.” Tony Campolo: sociologist and Christian leader.
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You may wish to incorporate the testimony of those who have experienced the benefits of fair trade.  Some examples have been collected together in the section on Resources for Fair Trade, or you can find more on the websites of Traidcraft and the Fairtrade Foundation.   
Welcome:

Call to worship: 
A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. Proverbs 13: 23.

Hymn or song

Kyrie Eleison:
Leader: Lord, have mercy upon us,
All: Christ have mercy upon us,
Leader: Lord have mercy upon us …
When we have forgotten, neglected, rebelled and sinned against you, our neighbours and the world … when we have made you in our own image in order to justify our greed, affluence and ignoring of you, your ways and your heart for the world … when we have assumed that you’ve blessed us when we are comfortable and forgotten that we follow Christ who had nowhere to lay his head, who left the glory to come and identify with the poor … when we’ve thought that to be powerful was right and confused the love of power with the power of love … when we have focused our energies on securing our place, possessions and prestige and forgotten that we follow Christ who refuted reputation, renounced the temptations of status and popularity for the sake of the kingdom.
Lord, have mercy upon us. Correct what is incorrect, remind us what we have forgotten and renew us in your ways. Amen
(The Northumbria Community)

A prayer of confession:
Voice 1: Forgive, O Lord, our indifference to the needs of others; our thoughtlessness and self-interest. How easy it is to forget, when we are loading our trolleys in the supermarket, that others toil to bring us our daily food.
Voice 2: Forgive, O Lord, our voracious appetites for something new, regardless of where it comes from, and who produces it, the unrealistic prices we pay, and the subsidies we expect.
Voice 1: Forgive, O Lord, that we do not equate the results of our own self interest with the plight of so many producers who live in poverty.
Voice 2: Forgive O Lord, when we turn our heads and pretend we do not see. 
All: Lord, forgive us. 
Amen

Silence

"The way the world is organised is wrong, because there is no place for us. We are equal to you. When a tiny part of humanity lives well, and 90 per cent doesn't live well, something is wrong in God's world." (Salome Costas, a Brazilian social worker.)

Bible Reading: 
The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
James 5:4

In the Grove booklet Globalization: Unraveling the New Capitalism * Peter Heslam, Director of the Capitalism Project at the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, says: “In some ways…it is the church and its impulse towards mission that has helped to facilitate globalization. This gives it a particular responsibility to use all the resources at its disposal…to ensure that globalization works as a blessing and not as a curse to humanity. 

* Globalization: Unraveling The New Capitalism by Peter Heslam is published by Grove Books Ltd, Ridley Hall Road, Cambridge CB3 9HU. Price: £2.50. ISSN 1470-854X

As we worship God, trade deals, negotiated by the European Union, in our name, are forcing developing countries to open their markets to competition from the heavily subsidised agriculture and industries of the developed world. Protests from the governments of those developing countries that their economies will be destroyed have been ignored. Many of them are now calling for the deals to be renegotiated and the European Commission’s approach to the negotiations has been widely condemned. 
(See Traidcraft’s Stop EPAs campaign www.traidcraft.co.uk/get_involved/campaign)

A cry of protest:
Dear God, you know that we have struggled for many years to be free, to be ourselves, to make our own decisions, to set our own directions, to formulate our own laws and learn from them. Is this not the way of all your children?

We do not understand, dear God, why those who say they honour our achievement and want to recruit us to their cause, mix friendship with plunderous gain and tell us we must bend our necks to new yokes of their making. 

We do not want new masters, God! We want to be free to live, to risk, to fail perhaps, to rise up again, to share.

What shall we do, if those who say they are our friends do not lend us their strength? How shall we prosper if they keep us poor, deny us opportunity, rob us of hope? What answer shall we give when our children and widows cry for food?

Dear God, we cannot live for ourselves; we are your children, members of your human family. Give us brothers and sisters who will help us to stand up; not lift us, God, not lift us, but give us strength to lift ourselves. Amen.
(Based on a prayer from Central Africa.)

Hymn or song

Bible Reading:
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.1 John 3: 17 – 18
Do not smile and say you are already with us. Millions do not know you and to us who do, what is the difference? What is the point of your presence if our lives do not alter? Change our lives, shatter our complacency. Make your word flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood and our life’s purpose. Take away the quietness of a clear conscience. Press us uncomfortably, for only thus that other peace is made. Your peace.
Dom Helder Camara, Brazil.

Reflections on a knife, fork and spoon:
 (from Traidcraft at Iona: justice and peace prayers):

Knife:
Lord, with this knife you have given me the power to hurt or be useful. Please help me to use this and all that you give me to help and not to harm. Lord, this knife is useless without its cutting edge. Help me to be sharp and keen to work for you.

Fork:
Lord, thank you for food and the farmers who sow and reap; for the suppliers who buy and transport; for the retailers who sell, and for the means to prepare, cook and enjoy my meal. Help me not to be greedy and to eat only what is sufficient for my needs and not for my appetite. Help me to remember that I should live simply so that others may simply live.

Spoon:
Lord, stir me today. Mix in my fear with my confidence, my doubt with my faith, my strength with my weakness, and make me whole, like this cup of (fairly traded) tea!

A prayer of intercession:
We pray for the peoples of the world in all their richness and diversity, and for all those who have influence and authority. As we grow together, may we all, in ways great and small, seek justice, freedom and peace for all and serve each other with wisdom, honesty and love.

We pray that as your followers we may use your gifts to us to set others free from drudgery and want; to redress the imbalances in world trade that keep millions trapped in poverty, to give dignity and respect to those who grow and make the things we buy and use.

We pray for those working for justice in trade: the campaigning organisations, those in the church and those in the commercial world who hear your call to seek justice for the poor. Strengthen and inspire them, and bless them with success.

We pray for ourselves as consumers. The choices we make in our shops and stores and supermarkets will affect the lives of people in other parts of the world for good or for ill. Help us to choose wisely and with care so that exploitation may be overcome and deprivation may be ended.

In you, Father, we grow as one family in earth and in heaven. Save us from false piety and empty prayers. Move us and stir us to make our faith real and active. Help us to share the joy of those who are united in your service. Amen.

Bible Reading:
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.  He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the market-place doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing.
About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' Because no-one has hired us,' they answered. He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'
The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.  So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.
When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'
But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
Matthew 20: 1 – 15

Address
What child hasn’t been heard to say “it’s not fair!” when trying to convince mum and dad they should have something which every other member of their class may, or more likely may not, have been given by their families?  “It’s not fair” is the cry of workers seeking equal pay for equal work.  It’s the cry of businesses facing subsidised competition or rigged trade barriers.

Such concepts of fairness have much to commend them.  It seems right that people should be given the rewards they deserve, and that those who work hard should benefit from their efforts.

But, as our gospel reading shows, God’s perspective on these matters may be rather different.  As so often in his parables, Jesus shocks the listener by showing that our normal human reactions and instincts can be out of kilter with God’s views.

In human terms, the labourers who have slogged away in the vineyard since the early morning, enduring the heat of the day, are quite within their rights to protest at being given only the same pay as those who only came into the fields at the very end of the day.  Any trade union would give full backing to their case.  A modern employment tribunal would almost certainly find in their favour!

But God’s character is different.  In the parable we are challenged to rethink our assumptions about fairness.  God shows us his overwhelming concern for the poor and needy.  The labourers who are still available for hire in the marketplace as the afternoon wears on are probably the less strong, probably the less able workers – for the fitter and brighter ones will have been snapped up by other employers.  But God as the landowner rewards them not just on the same basis as the others, but with huge generosity that responds more to their needs than to their output.

Of course, from a human perspective this doesn’t make sense, it feels unjust.  From a Darwinian or economic perspective, it feels inefficient, a distortion of the market pricing mechanism for labour which should be weeding out the weak in favour of the strong.    But Jesus is telling us that God values every person equally and for whom they are, not for what they can do.  It is a message of unconditional love, of grace, and it should bring joy and relief to all of us, or at least for those of us who are conscious of our own weaknesses.  It is a message that underlines once more God’s special and constant love and compassion for the poor, the needy, the outcast and the oppressed. 

We want to read this parable as one about fairness, but is that what we want or need? 
An old proverb says:
	When we get what we deserve, that is justice.
	When we don’t get what we deserve, that is mercy.
	When we get what we don’t deserve, that is grace.

Clinging to our sense of fairness reveals how we misunderstand God’s ways. God’s kingdom is not based on what is fair but on what we need. We don’t need justice, we need grace. Grace that overlooks all we are and all we have done and said; grace that allows us to stand in line knowing that God will smile upon us. 

The great secret of fair trade is that, in human terms, it actually isn’t fair at all!  Fair trade is really about biased trade – trade that is biased to the poor, as God’s heart is biased to the poor. That is why fair trade is such a profoundly Christian response to world poverty.  That is why fair trade shows God’s profound graciousness.

By making it possible for the poor and disadvantaged to compete in a world where otherwise they would fall by the wayside, fair trade is reflecting the nature of God.  By taking account of people’s needs as well as their productivity in determining the price we pay for their goods, fair trade is putting into practice a Christian perspective of fairness that stands out against the harshness of human standards of fairness. 

Through all of this our core message shines out strongly:  that the world should not operate purely on the basis of economic efficiency; that the laws of the free market should not be seen as paramount.  May we continue to proclaim instead a message that places love, dignity, respect and relationships at the heart of trade and society; a message that proclaims that society’s goals should not be measured purely in terms of money, but should be concerned with human values, quality of life and the impact of policies on people; a message that proclaims God’s sense of fairness and his bias to the poor and calls each of us to work towards a vision of a world where all people are able to prosper and grow into the people God wants them to be.

Whenever you go shopping, just remind yourself that here is another opportunity to answer God’s call to justice, righteousness and love. It may take a touch of mental gymnastics to see the door of your local supermarket as an entry into God’s kingdom, but in its own way that’s exactly what it is. 
[From a sermon by Reg Bailey, Chair, Traidcraft Foundation.]

Hymn or song

A prayer of dismissal:
Almighty God, Creator of all things, Maker of all people,
Grant that we may find a unity in you;
That we may grow together in a bond of peace; 
That we may share with justice, the rich resources of the world;
That no one may be in hunger, or oppressed, 
That none of your creation may be spoiled or abused.
We ask this in the name of him who gave himself for the world,
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
(The Northumbria Community)