Evangelicals Now
<< November 2004 >>

Two tears on the face of Victoria Beckham

The BBC gave a high profile to raising millions for charity through an evening of entertainment under the banner of Sport Relief in July.

They were five magnificent hours dedicated to making people pick up the phone and pledge money for the poor, the needy and the suffering; five prime-time hours in which more than £11 million were donated to good causes at home and overseas.

It was a phenomenal exercise in communal concern for the needy. 81,000 people took part in a one-mile run to highlight the 'Go the extra mile' campaign - supposedly in recognition of Roger Bannister's four-minute mile, but who was it that first talked about 'going the extra mile' 2,000 years ago?

As a warm up to the big day, the BBC aired an earlier programme entitled 'A Mile in their Shoes' which followed three well-known personalities on extraordinary journeys through Zambia, India and Peru. TV presenter Nick Knowles went to Zambia to meet an orphan who had lost both parents to AIDS. Patrick Kielty visited India to meet Vijay, one of India's thousands of vagrant 'railway children'. And Victoria Beckham travelled to Peru, where she spent some days with Dinah, an 11-year-old who spends her life sifting through rubbish looking for anything that her father might be able to sell.

Cathartic culture shock

By any standards this was powerful television, not least because of the emotional reaction of Victoria Beckham to the experience of the little girl on the rubbish tip. This was culture shock of the most cathartic kind. 'I've never experienced anything like it. The poverty that people face everyday is unbelievable', she said, all too aware of the life of privilege that she is accustomed to and the Gucci handbag in her luggage. 'As a mother, to see children living with these challenges every day is heartbreaking... To witness the struggles of one family first hand and spend time with them has been unforgettable.' There were tears on her cheeks as she prepared to leave the slum where Dinah lives. 'It's a real good reality check. It really puts everything into perspective... I will never ever feel sorry for myself again... ever.'

The BBC and Sport Relief did a great service in bringing this kind of reality into the homes of our comfortable world.

Back to Judea

If we were transported back to Judea in the days of Jesus, we might also feel something of the same shock and emotion - beggars on the street corners, the crippled, lame, diseased and mentally damaged lining the streets. The flies and the dirt, the mangy dogs and those most pathetic of creatures, the lepers who were quarantined from normal society and roamed the countryside rejected and unwanted. That was the New Testament world. Our society forgets all too easily how far we have come in hygiene and health, thanks in large part to the principles of human compassion and concern exemplified in the Lord Jesus Christ. The tragedy is that we don't need to go back 2,000 years - only a few miles away to Peru, India or Zambia, or even closer to home. This was powerful emotional drama for secular Britain.

Compassion is a powerful New Testament emotion. Jesus had it in abundance and sometimes it drove him to tears, sometimes it drove him to anger and always it drove him to reach out in mercy to help those who were wounded and in need.

The most common word used in the New Testament is tinged with physical connotations. The Greek splanchnizomai may be hard to pronounce but it is full of significance. Our old King James Bible sometimes speaks graphically of the 'bowels of mercy' - an accurate description lost in most modern translations. Splanchnon are literally the intestines - a word used in Acts 1.18 to describe the gruesome death of Judas. It is not a bad way of expressing the almost physical pain experienced by Jesus in the face of human suffering and sorrow. Jesus was 'movedƒ stirred' by a feeling so deep he could not resist. His compassion invariably resulted in his going out of his way to bring relief to sufferers. It is an extraordinary thought that God is so pained by the sufferings of his needy people.

How much more then should we, as Christians filled with the love of Christ and modelling ourselves on his example, be stirred by the injustice and the sadness of the world? Especially because in many cases it is our own brothers and sisters in less privileged places who are suffering.

As much as he loved me

I was in Bangladesh some years ago, preparing to speak to a group of Christian workers on the fine biblical subject of God's love. On my way to the conference venue, I stopped off for a restaurant meal in a small town along the road. While waiting in my vehicle to start off again, my attention was gripped by a simple beggar lady who was moving from person to person in the town square, appealing for a few coins to feed her children, who were tugging at the hem of her sari. I watched her as she squatted in the corner under a tree to count the few notes she had managed to collect - perhaps 25 or 50 pence for a morning's work. No doubt she was a Muslim, no doubt she was as dishonest and resourceful as many beggars are, but no doubt too she was a candidate for God's grace. But suddenly for me she became a vivid illustration of my own inconsistency and hypocrisy.

My theology (and the messages I had so carefully prepared) declared that God loves me, not for any virtue that I have displayed, nor even because I have responded to him in faith, but because he is love. Love is his nature. And on the same basis, surely God loved that poor Bangladeshi beggar as much as he loved me. Why then was I so much more favoured, both materially and spiritually, than that poor woman? And, even more devastatingly, why was I so indifferent to her suffering and her need?

No money, no school

On a recent visit to Pakistan, a country I visit regularly and know well, I called at the simple home of a lady who works as a cleaner in a Christian ministry centre. Her name is Hanifa and she is a Christian. She has a husband who earns a small daily wage as a labourer, and eight children of all ages. I sat drinking tea in the home of this lady, who was proud to have a foreigner in her simple home. Her children gathered around to watch me and I asked her about them.

Not one of her children has been to school, so none of them can read or write. I asked why. On their low wages they could not afford to send the children to school. So I asked about the Government School - surely the Pakistan Government provides free education for all. But there is no Government school nearby. The closest such school (even if they could gain admission) was three miles away, and the cost of the bus fare was more than they could afford. I turned to the youngest of the daughters, little Seher. She was terribly shy and hid her face in her mother's side. 'Would you like to go to school?' I asked. An eye peered out at me, lit up with hope and joy.

Jesus's challenge

To cut a long story short, with help from the local Christian community, four of Hanifa's children are now attending a Christian school, not only learning how to read and write, but also learning Bible stories that will equip them for life. More than that, three of her neighbour's children started school at the same time, together with about 20 from other poor families in the neighbourhood. Each was provided with two smart new uniforms, school bags and shoes. A little goes a very long way in that society - it cost no more than £12 for the uniforms and shoes and the school fees are about £2 for each child per month. Who says we can't afford to be more helpful?

Thank God we do not have to wait for Victoria Beckham to awaken us to the need to do something to change the world. Jesus gave us that challenge many centuries ago and then placed the love of Christ in our hearts to make sure we took him seriously. But as I watched that programme on my television, I could not help reflecting: if two tears on the face of Victoria Beckham could open the hearts and pockets of the stony British public to such an extent, how much greater should be our response to the words (and tears) of Jesus?

Mike Wakely