This morning I spoke on fair trade, an approach to business based on scriptural principles. As a believer I discovered fair trade is an expression of God’s love, for at the heart of fair trade is the demand for just and right treatment of impoverished people.
Throughout the Old Testament God and His prophets expressed dire warnings for those who oppress and exploit the poor. Jesus then brought God’s love to earth and modeled exactly what God’s love looks like in the way we treat others. Jesus defined His mission on earth in specific terms related to the poor: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19 HCSB). Fair trade is a message of hope, and not of exploitation.
The revolution we are watching in Egypt certainly has come from years of exploitation. The desperation of a nation has made concentration on mundane weekend tasks challenging. As I watched the scenes from the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, I wondered at the catalyst that led the Egyptian citizens to overcome their fears for a common cause. How long have they been without meaningful work, or watched their children lose their future, or been repressed and abused? In truth, a revolution is not really a mass of people, but one person joining with another person, whose life situations have finally become more than they can bear.
We have our own history of standing for freedom’s rights, beginning with our founding fathers, who believed we had a right to freely govern ourselves. We fought against burdensome taxes and abusive actions by our parent nation. Even in a nation formed with human rights at the core of our values, slavery became an issue. One of my personal heroes is Abraham Lincoln whose stand against slavery brought a deeper understanding of exploitation to a country birthed on the belief that every person has a right to life and liberty. And more recently, we have the example of Martin Luther King, a minister whose peaceful dissent led to another milestone for civil rights in our nation.
When I see events like those in Sudan, Tunisia, and Egypt, I am deeply grateful to be involved with WorldCrafts, a fair trade ministry (a member of the Fair Trade Federation) that reaches out to those who have no hope as well as a business that frees people from a plethora of exploitive circumstances. There is no doubt in my mind that when human need is addressed through God’s love, grace, and compassion, hope is born.
⌊They asked⌋ only that we would remember the poor, which I made every effort to do (Galatians 2:10 HCSB).
