Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

If you read my sermon on worship (posted about a month ago) you will have seen my reference to justice and poverty. I feel really challenged about my response to the poor, I am trying to find ways in which I can serve the poor as worship to God. God is very clear about the kind of worship we should bring before him. He tells us that he does not hear our songs and prayers if we ignore the poor and live our lives irresponsibly. I am frustrated by the ignorance of many people (including myself) who claim to be followers of Jesus but yet who continue to live in ways that simply do not take God seriously.
A brief reminder of Isaiah 58

3 'Why have we fasted,' they say,
'and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

I have eves-dropped on 2 conversations in the past week where people have said "I was having coffee in Starbucks with a friend". Why is 'Starbucks' relevant ? Because we want people to know that we are in the "right" places with the "right" people.

I went to see 'Black Gold' this weekend and attended a discussion with the co-director Nick Francis, a representative from 'Oxfam Ireland' and a representative from 'Fair Trade Ireland'. The QFT's description is as follows: "Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping centres and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over 80 billion Dollars, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price".

I am moved to action after seeing this film. Although buying fairly traded food is one of the ways we try to live out this call, I feel that it is time to increase my committment to worshipping God through my attention to the poor and those who are being exploited. Strangely enough (with a hint of sarcasm) Nestle, Kraft, Sara Lee, Proctor & Gamble and Starbucks, the 5 largest companies making coffee 'products', refused to take part in the making of the film. However, in recent months after the film's release some have met with the directors for discussions but would not answer one simple question: "How much do you pay for your coffee?" Easy question, simple answer .... you would think!

It is time to "wake the sleeping giant". Can we be converted to Jesus? Can the church be converted to the God of the oppressed? What if the church was converted to causes larger than it's own preservation?