2007 New Year Message

Here in this London shopping centre - as in towns across the UK - the January sales are well underway - after a Christmas when many of us probably spent more than we should and eaten more than we should ... It's all in stark contrast to Sudan where I visited last February.

The local church feeds several hundred each day, using its school as the feeding point where the World Food Programme's supplies can be distributed. Centres like this are few and far between - and the World Food Programme is already warning that resources are running out.

We all respond as best we can to one emergency appeal after another. And we feel just a bit guilty as we acknowledge that we're almost bored by yet another appeal - yet another set of pictures of suffering children in need.

It's true that endless appeals lose their impact. Information - statistics, won't really motivate us; The only thing that makes a difference is if we get to see those faces and figures as somehow about us - not just Them.

It's when the hunger or the homelessness or the loneliness of someone else becomes something that I feel for myself as an affront - something that makes me less of a person.

In the Bible, Jesus talks about being hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for justice. And if we hear that in the way it's surely meant, we have to conclude that he means that we should feel there's something missing in us, something taken away from us, when another person, near or far away, has to face need and suffering. We get to be ourselves only when we wake up to them and their needs.

2007 marks two hundred years since the slave trade was abolished. Here at Holy Trinity Clapham - a group of Christians called the "Clapham Sect" were at the forefront of the fight to end the slave trade.

People like William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton felt they were made less human than they should be by the appalling injustice of the slave trade. They felt a hunger for justice - a sense of being spiritually impoverished - "undernourished" because of slavery.

This is what made the difference. When we look at the familiar images of other people's suffering, do we feel a void inside ourselves, a yearning for something different and a conviction that it needn't be like this?

That's where change begins. And it's one of the differences that faith can make; faith in God and in people.

It's worth remembering this year those who struggled to do away with the slave trade. If we lived in a society that tolerated slavery now, wouldn't we feel soiled and diminished by it? Wouldn't we feel hungry for something different?

So what are the things today that make us feel the same?

People often speak about the spiritual hunger of our society. But the answer to that isn't in ideas or spiritual feelings; it's in the decision to act - to reach out to feed, to heal, to befriend, knowing that this is where we discover who we're really meant to be.

We get the power for that when we believe that there is a divine love that is waiting eagerly for us to cooperate.

And when we do, both physical and spiritual hunger can be met. We find our nourishment as human beings together, as we really learn to share the world we've been given to live in.

God bless you all in this New Year and help you find the nourishment you need for spirit and body.

© Rowan Williams, 2007