Hope key to changing world

Andrew Bradstock considers the value and future of the Commonwealth and how Christian faith and hope can help to make the world a better place.

Hope is believing despite the evidence, and watching the evidence change Jim WallisIF I were to suggest that we all jot down, say on the back of our hymn-sheets, one word that summed up what the Commonwealth meant to us, I wonder what we would put.

Perhaps some of us would not write anything.

Others might find it difficult to sum up our thoughts in just one word, but the word I would choose to express my feelings about the Commonwealth is "hope" - because it seems to me that, in a time of great uncertainty and crisis like today, it is to institutions like the Commonwealth that we look to realise our hopes for a better and more peaceful world.

I need not dwell long on what I mean by the crises we face:

•the reality of global warming and the very real prospect of half the world's population facing permanent water shortage and relocation;

•the increasing number of "natural" disasters, which may or may not be linked to climate change;

•our inability, as a global community, to bring justice to the poor countries of the world,

•to change the systems which condemn 50,000 children, women and men to die every day from hunger and disease;

•the spectre of terrorism;

•and now the global economic crisis, and the spectre of financial ruin, unemployment and homelessness.

One way to look at these "problems" is not in fact as problems but as challenges.

Because the world is now so much smaller, we all feel affected by them, involved in them, united by them. And we have to face them as a global community.

No longer can the challenges we face be resolved simply by individual nation states.

And hence we look to our global institutions to lead in co-ordinating our response - and among them, of course, the Commonwealth.

Bringing together two billion people - one-third of the world's population - the Commonwealth, a network of 53 self-governing nations, is a unique organisation.

Unlike many other global bodies, it gives equal status, equal recognition and an equal voice to each of its member countries, which are drawn from both the developed and the developing world.

The Commonwealth's motto for 2009 is "serving a new generation", but what scope is there for young people to help shape the world that they will have to live in?

In fact, the Commonwealth provides great opportunities for young people to get involved in shaping the world:

•by offering support and resources for new enterprises;

•by providing opportunities for education, training and development; by making available networks for exchanging ideas and experiences;

•by supporting cultural, artistic, sporting and leisure pursuits; and in many other ways.

And importantly, as with all democratic institutions, it is only as effective as those who work with it and those who pressure it to act.

For what we need to remember is that slowing down global warming, or eliminating poverty, or reducing conflict, are not beyond our capacity as a race to achieve.

It is a matter of our leaders having the political will to make these things happen.

And this should encourage us, young and old alike, to continue to lobby those leaders to use the means at their disposal to bring about the change that is needed, to ensure that the "common weal" or "common wellbeing" is properly served.

If a sense of hope that things can change is now abroad, then we who are people of faith should share in it fully.

Our Scripture readings remind us both of God's concern for those who are downtrodden and denied their rights - a constant theme in Scripture - and the centrality of hope to the Christian faith.

Look again at that profound truth in our Hebrews reading, which some of us may know better in its Authorised Version form as "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".

Because we know what we anticipate - both in this world and the next - accords with God's agenda, we can be sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see.

That is the biblical conception of hope - not a blind optimism things might get better one day or problems will disappear if we ignore them, but a certainty when all seems dark and beyond hope, God can bring about a transformation.

As we shall recall again at the end of Lent season, Good Friday is not where the story ends - there is Easter Sunday, where it starts again with resurrection.

I like the paraphrase of Hebrews verse used by the American writer and activist Jim Wallis: "Hope is believing despite the evidence, and watching the evidence change."

But by watching the evidence change, Jim doesn't just mean sitting back and letting it happen, but getting involved, partnering with God, to make it change.

That is the essence of Christian hope, and I believe the calling of all of us who claim to be disciples of Christ, who look for and work for the coming of his "kingdom".

We are people who dare to have what President Obama has called "the audacity of hope".

Far from offering counsel of despair, I'm excited by the hope of which the Bible speaks and the motivation and energy it gives us to change the world.

And I'm grateful, too, for powerful vehicles for change and progress like the Commonwealth, for its work to promote freedom, respect, human rights and peace, and for the opportunities each of us have to play a part in seeing our hopes for the future realised.

•Andrew Bradstock is the University of Otago Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues.

Above is his abridged sermon from the Commonwealth Day Service at St Paul's Cathedral last Sunday.

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