Dunblane Cathedral Magazine November 2008
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Dunblane Cathedral
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No.
203 November 2008
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
Who Tells You Who You Are?
FROM THE MINISTER
QUESTION: What is
the difference between an
investment banker and a
pigeon? Answer - ‘a pigeon
can still put a deposit on...
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No.
203 November 2008
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
Who Tells You Who You Are?
FROM THE MINISTER
QUESTION: What is
the difference between an
investment banker and a
pigeon? Answer - ‘a pigeon
can still put a deposit on a
BMW’.
Whatisthedefinition
of an optimist? ‘A banker
who irons five shirts at the
weekend’.
So a gallows humour takes
over when things get out of
hand.
Andthoughwemaynot
understand the complexities
of global finance, we do have
a sense that something has
gone seriously wrong.
Mindboggling sums of money
have been wiped off stock
exchanges, banks have been
forcibly merged to stop them
sinking, and others have
been bailed out - effectively
nationalised - not just in
Britain but in the seat of
private enterprise, the USA.
Billions upon billions of
taxpayers’ money have been
spent to prop up a faltering
system.
Who would have
believed it?
Ficitious Wealth
Rowan Williams, the
Archbishop of Canterbury,
made this comment about
why the credit crunch
happened:
“Unimaginable wealth has
been generated by equally
unimaginablelevelsoffiction,
paper transactions with no
concrete outcome beyond the
profits for traders.
”
Ithasbeendescribedas‘casino
capitalism’ - hundreds of
thousands of traders playing
the market on their computer
screens, effectively betting
on small changes in exchange
rates between currencies, on
the fortunes of companies or
packaging debt and selling it
on.
And this happens every
day in the borderless world of
cyberspace.
You Are Mine
While these global events
were taking place, in one
little corner of the world our
first grandchild was born.
We went to see him on the
day of his birth, and holding
him brought a sense of
overwhelming wonder.
That
night I couldn’t sleep, so I got
up and wrote the first sermon
I would ever preach as a
grandfather.
I thought about
names and those famous
words of Isaiah: “Fear not,
for I have redeemed you; I
have called you by name;
you are mine.
” It’s a powerful
statement about the unique
value of every life, known,
named and loved by God.
“You are mine.
” So - who
tells you who you are?
Some people need money to
tell them who they are.
So
they generate extraordinary
wealth, based on fictions and
paper transactions with no
concrete outcome apart from
the profit they produced at
the end.
Some people need power to
tell them who they are.
But
that means they will face
the temptation to use power
irresponsibly, and abuse the
trust placed in them, for the
sake of gain.
Some people need their
possessions to tell them who
they are.
They think that
having more means being
more.
But limitless growth,
limitless spending, limitless
debt has brought the whole
economy to the very brink of
collapse.
Some people just let the
world tell them who they are.
Conformity claims many
people.
They get along by
simply going along.
If they’re
not lemmings, they’re close
to it.
A Good Question
So it’s a good question, isn’t
it? Who tells you who you
are? “I have called you by
name; you are mine.
” What
doesthatmean? Amongother
things, it means you never
have to prove yourself.
Love
is poured out universally,
equally on everybody on
the planet, from the Pope
to the lowest pauper.
And
furthermore, love doesn’t
seek value, it creates it.
It’s
not because we have value
that we are loved; it’s
because we love that we have
value.
Our value is a gift, not
an achievement.
So you don’t
have to prove yourself, ever.
That’s taken care of.
“Some people need money to tell them who they
are.
So they generate extraordinary wealth,
based on fictions and paper transactions”
REMEMBRANCE
SUNDAY SERVICES
On Remembrance Sunday, 9 November, the Morning
Service will begin at the usual time at 10.
30am This will
allow the two minutes’ silence observed at 11.
00am to be
at the very heart of the service.
Continued on page 2, column 3
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