Sermon – Toldot : the power of small changes magnified

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 22 November 2017

The opening ceremony of the “Faith in Finance” conference, held in Zug, Switzerland two weeks ago told you a great deal about what was to come.

Representatives from eight world faiths were there, each faith group had one person come forwards, share a blessing and then leave an object which represented their faith in the monastery chapel where it took place.

The Sikh representative left a sacred cloth, the Shinto representative a sprig from a Japanese tree, the Christian representative a marquetry wooden cross, so on for the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Daoist from China and the Hindu.  I was privileged to be the Jewish representative and so along with the blessing I blew a Shofar, the Jewish symbol of a time for change and transformation – and then left it there.

The room and the conference which followed it represented faiths which span humanity, and span the globe that we all, like it or not, share.  Those who were there like it that we share the world.  We know that what we do in China will affect the rest of the planet, when China moves away from burning coal it will improve our environment here in Britain.   The decisions that America makes will cause climate change in Bangladesh.   Employment decisions from companies based in London will improve workers’ conditions in Nigeria.

The point of the Zug conference was to bring faith leaders from the various denominations of these world faiths together with bankers and investment houses from the world’s capital markets and with leaders of the United Nations Development Programme to see if we together can help to inspire the millions of small changes that will take the world on a path towards sustainable development.   We defined sustainable development as specified in the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 – noble and necessary – goals for the reduction of poverty, for equality of access to education, for making clean water and sanitation available to all, for halting man made climate change, for greening and cleaning energy and more www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.

Why faiths and why finance?    Faiths because, in the words of Martin Palmer of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, Faiths are ways “to communicate and effect centuries of experience in working with peculiarities of human behaviour within the context of a greater vision of the meaning and significance of life” (The Zug Guidelines, 2017, p5) – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Daoism and Sikhism are investors in eternity.  We do not sacrifice the dream of long term human happiness on the altar of short term and temporary gain.  And we aim to do so as the larger part of the whole of humanity.

Finance because between all of the world’s faiths, their institutional might owns about 8% of the world’s habitable land surface, from the Church of England’s over 100,000 acres of Britain, including shopping centres, industrial estates and school premises (Independent 10/6/15) to the 5% of all commercial forests worldwide owned by faiths (Zug Guidelines 2017, p5).   Critically faith groups own an estimated 10% of the world’s total financial investment, through their endowments, pension funds, development funds, charitable funds, even burial funds like the £14 million managed by the Jewish Joint Burial Society to ensure that we can all have a decent funeral when the time comes.   But well beyond this – finance because faiths can, when effective, help their adherents make long term and future focussed decisions on what they do with their own investments for the good of their grandchildren, great grandchildren and onwards – and for the good of the whole of humanity and the planet for which we care.  This can have a huge impact.

One more question – in this conference and in these issues why bother with Jews?   As I said, in the paper I gave at the conference, Jews are a small people.  There are only 14 million of us in the entire world.    We are therefore well aware that any Jewish contribution to sustainable development has to be done together with other peoples and other faiths.

Just under half of the world’s Jewish population lives in the State of Israel, which is a highly developed Western style economy with low unemployment, decent education standards and high consumption patterns.   It is not always the best example of Jewish values put into action, but there are some very strong examples of sustainable development there such as the use of solar energy generation, both in Israel and by Israeli companies around the world, conservation of water resources and pioneering ways to enable fresh water to be as sparingly used as possible.   Encouraging Israel to be an example of sustainable development through investments in the country in businesses and social enterprises which encourage the wellbeing of all, is open to Jews and others around the world.

Outside of Israel, Jews are strongly represented in the economies of the Jewish diaspora.   They are investors, users of resources, professionals, members of governments, businesspeople.

At any conference such as this the Jews turn up in all kinds of places.   Not only the Jewish faith representation but of course among the bankers and investors there, among those who specialise in socially responsible investment, among the United Nations staff – people of deep commitment to world change, as Jews often are.  There was one particularly interesting ex Jew – he was wearing orange robes, is now the abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery near Hemel Hempstead and is now called Ajahn Amaro.  He did look very Jewish, if you can say such a thing, and when we sat down together at Lunch Abbot Ajahn delightedly told me that his mother still lives in Golders Green and before he became a Buddhist in Thailand his surname was Goldsmith – the same as mine!

Why Jews?  There is another reason why we absolutely cannot ghettoise ourselves away from the sustainable development of the world and the changes we are going to have to make if we are to be able to hand a good world over to our children and grandchildren.   It is because of our teachings.  We are a religion that values small changes just as much as the huge earth-shattering transformation.  Our Torah tells it both ways – yes sometimes we need the Red Sea to part to make progress, sometimes we need the presence of God to inhabit our sanctuary in a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire, sometimes we need Mount Sinai to erupt so that we hear the Ten Commandments.   But more often, our religion teaches, it is small changes and individual decisions that change the world.   Moses decides to intervene when he sees a single Israelite slave being beaten by a task master, Judah decides to save his brother Joseph from death in the desert and, in, our Torah portion today, Rebecca decides to substitute Jacob for Esau at a critical moment in Isaac’s life.   Because of these small decisions Moses becomes the first Rabbi of the Jewish people and our teacher for all time, Joseph finds himself in Egypt ready to make us into a people who know the heart of a stranger and Jacob becomes Israel and makes us who we are – the people who struggle with God and work in partnership to repair the world.

I believe strongly in the power of small changes and small steps that we can make towards a future worth living.  I also believe strongly in constructive, learning relationships between people of many faiths to magnify these steps.  I believe in partnership between religions and business and good causes to bring the steps onto a global level.

Saying what does it matter what my car’s emissions are if China is building coal fired power stations condemns us all to a downward spiral to destruction.    While we worship together today, in Bonn at the Global Climate Change Conference, representatives of the people of Kirbati, a tiny island in the Pacific with a population of 103,000, just 3 meters above sea level, are reminding us of the cost of no change.   They have bought, from the Church of England, 20 KM2 on Fiji, 1500 miles away so that when their Island is sunk by rising sea levels they can all be evacuated there. (Guardian 30/6/14).  They hope never to use it.  Their future and that of what might become 700 million climate change refugees worldwide by 2050 in the most doom laden predictions, depends upon millions of small changes made by the majority of the worlds individual people.

It is why Alyth is a founder of Eco Synagogues – a movement across the Jewish denominations for Synagogues to model sustainability in their buildings, activities, travel decisions and more.   There is a counterpart Eco Churches and GreenFaith for Christians, and at the Switzerland Conference I met with the founder of Eco Sikh, Rajwant Singh, working both in the Punjab and in the Sikh Diaspora.   Anybody who would like to help with Eco Synagogues I would love to speak with as we encourage all Synagogue’s to be good environmental citizens.  Come and join the Jews who are want sustainability built into to our shuls.

Our portion today is a story – Toldot – a story of the beginning of a people Israel – ourselves.   The story should be one of bringing good to the world and, in a globalised world, working with others who are not Israel to make the world liveable, sustaining and nurturing for all.  It’s a story where the selfish one Isaac and his selfish son Esau get’s his meat stew today but loses his future.  The ones who love because love is the real meaning of life, Rebecca and Jacob, hold the keys to the future.  (Avot de R Natan 5:19) May we ever be lovers of our planet and of humanity, making the small changes we need day by day.