So now we have a word for it – two words in fact, “Social Harm”. That’s what the Golden Circle of Bankers, “Light touch” Regulators and self seeking Politicians were doing to us. We would not have known if it were not for the report of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

It said it was “fundamentally incorrect” to perceive white collar crime as victimless. Now that is hardly groundbreaking news!

It further said that the criminal justice system was focused on less serious crime and failed to address larger scale, so-called ”victimless” social harm that may arise through white collar, regulatory and other crimes of the wealthy.

So now we know. How do we correct it? How do those in authority pass legislation to bring in boundaries to their authority and include sanctions against those who break them? Sounds like turkeys being asked to vote for Christmas!

So in the meantime we have an adult version of cops and robbers with the cops working in a land where the powers that be conspire against a successful prosecution ever being made.

Even the Bankers have joined in the game to round up the assets of their former clients only to find that the assets are now registered anonymously in the Virgin Islands!

It’s not an easy thing to bring the big boys to justice!

What has the Bible to say to all this?

Scripture is in the business of forgiving debt! If it was not so we would have no chance of ever getting to heaven. The formula is simple – if you have racked up a debt that you could not pay debt forgiveness or cancellation is the only remedy.

Jesus outlined it in the parable of the “Unforgiving Servant”. In this case the servant begged for mercy. His debt was so large that working for 10 lifetimes could not repay it and, “out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.” (St Matthew Chapter 18 verse 27)

This makes no sense unless you realise the accumulation of debt each one of us has in our account with God. Starting with our determination not to believe; to have nothing to do with him ruling over our lives and outworking in 100 and 1 ways in which we maintain our self centered existence out of relationship with him.

When the Lord converts a person they see with 20/20 vision their state before him and, like the servant in the parable, look for mercy (not justice!) their debt is cancelled. They are completely forgiven. Jesus has paid the ultimate price for it on the cross. The reality if it all strikes home. The believer is set free! This freedom is to be used to emulate our Saviour, as St Paul puts it; “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you”. (Ephesians Chapter 4 verse 32)

Releasing someone from a debt is not condoning their action. It’s recognising that the person cannot pay. If they repent, that is show godly sorrow for the social harm their actions have caused, it will be the means of their salvation. St Paul puts it clearly in 2 Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 10 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”

Tolerance used to mean the stance which, while disagreeing with another’s views, guarded the right of those other views to be heard.

Since the passing of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, purporting to outlaw intemperate speech, its meaning has changed.

The new tolerance insists that disagreeing with another’s views and saying they are wrong, is intrinsically intolerant.

So who was it who spoke out of line? Bishop Philip Boyce of Raphoe! Speaking at Knock shrine last August said the Church was being attacked from the outside “by the arrows of a secular and godless culture”. The other remark to which offence was taken referred to the believer’s future hope.

These comments were too much for a Humanist who has been able to get the Garda to send a file to the Department of Public Prosecution.

Of course this new meaning of intolerance is irrational. The Labour Party does not agree with the Shinners. Marxists don’t agree with Capitalists. Humanist’s don’t agree with Christian’s.

Each pair may acknowledge some commonalities, but on many fronts they differ. Yet each tolerates the other if each insists that the other has equal right to speak and convince others of their position.

What has the Bible to say about this new definition of tolerance?

John the Baptist would have been caught by the Act. Commenting on the Religious of his day coming to him for baptism he said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” – and these people were repenting as a result of his preaching!

The Lord Jesus Christ also used this expression of double-tongued people, “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

And to those Religious whose fathers had silenced the prophets in their day he said, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

(St Matthew Chapters 3, 12 & 23).

Ironically their only hope of escape was not to pass some “politically correct” law to control language but to put their faith in the One who everything that was written about in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. ”Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations…and for us today…. beginning from Dublin” (St Luke 22v44/7 paraphrased).

It’s not every day that such an event occurs – a Prime Minister being honest.    This was not done in a corner but in public and before his peers at a world gathering of “Money Men”.   2,600 of them descended on the snowy Switz resort of Davos making it this week the Capitalist’s capital of the world.

It was there that the Taoiseach spilled the beans!   He told it like it was!  No fudging, that came later, but the initial message was clear “We went mad borrowing…which spawned greed”.   We did not listen to Jesus’ warning in St Luke’s Gospel chapter 12 verse 15.  “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

The availability of money coupled with our innate greed would have been well understood by the Taoiseach’s audience.   After all they are the 1% so named by the “Occupy” movement as they represent the world’s financial elite of movers and shakers who would perfectly understand his description of the Irish scene.   Actually some of them were feeding our Banks with the funds to fuel the fire!

Of course it is hard to live with the truth so the pundits back home said it was not true.  They caviled at the inclusiveness of the speech.  Political spin then becomes the order of the day.

By muting the element of certainty, our post-modern age claims “the truth is different for everyone”.    You have your truth and I have my truth.   By removing meaning in this way from the word “truth” you permit license and give an illusion of freedom.

Biblical truth on the other hand is true at all times in all places for all people. Jesus said in his prayer recorded in St John’s Gospel chapter 17, “Your word (the Scriptures) is truth”.

Our natural inclination to deny truth by lying comes from the devil who is “a liar and the father of lies” (St John’s Gospel chapter 8 verse 44).   His version of salvation is that we must work for it.  The truth is that God has provided it freely in the work of Christ on the cross for all who have turned to him believing his word to be true, (Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 8 & 9).

To the money merchants at Davos St James would issue a timely reminder of their dependency on God. ‘Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.’ (Chapter 4 verses13-14).

When the Costa Concordia hit the rocks on the Isola del Giglio last weekend it drew a few parallels with the sinking of the Titanic.
Pride drove the Titanic to travel at full speed through the iceberg danger area as a record fast crossing was attempted.
Pride brought the Costa Concordia to within 200m of the shore to celebrate their famous “sail-bys” giving the passengers a thrill to remember.
Both cruise liners were symbolic of their countries attitudes.
The Titanic was thought to be unsinkable so half the lifeboats were discarded.
The Costa Concordia reflected present Italian difficulties. Her Captain’s behaviour resembling the former Prime Minister Berlusconi who’s carousing contributed to the delay in Italy adopting corrective financial measures. In the same way Captain Schettino was distracted from his task and delayed giving the order to abandon ship causing loss of life.
The ship was designed to maximise revenue at the expense of safety. Limited to a 30m width (in order to navigate places like the Panama Canal) the only way the cruise ship design could go was up so more and more decks were constructed. This made her top heavy resulting in graphic pictures of her plight being published in the media all week.

The honourable sea-faring tradition of the Captain being last to leave the sinking ship didn’t appeal much to Schettino who cleared off a couple of hours before the last survivor! His recorded dialogue with the local coastguard, who ordered him back on board, will go down in the annals of maritime history as a prime example of dereliction of duty.

What has the Bible to do with any of this?

Pride, greed and the desire to save ones own skin at the expense of others are fairly common human trends and are certainly easily identified in Scripture.
Take those who surrounded Jesus for example. The Religious of the day, the Pharisees, who were proud of their tradition and greedy for the rewards it brought them.
At the same time they needed to be converted – changed on the inside.
Jesus hadn’t much time for such frauds, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” St Matthew Chapter 23 verse 25.

But it was when under the threat of immanent death that we read of the dying thief on the cross wanting to save his skin. “Save yourself and us” he shouted at Jesus – St Luke chapter 23 verse 39. But that would have been a dereliction of Jesus duty. He was there to atone for our sins so that by faith in His sacrifice we can be forgiven and accepted into God’s household. He is our substitute as John called him, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” St John chapter 1 verse 29.
Thank God that Jesus did not desert his calling and has become the only hope for drowning sailors or those of us on shore as well. Trust Him.

The Governments search for additional income has led them back to the Nation’s pensioners. They present an easy target with Revenue able to get together with the Department of Social Protection and obtain details of the State pension payments. This led to 500,000 files being examined and 150,000 letters issued. Out of that total 115,000 have been asked to pay up and 20,000 are to get a refund for paying too much! Those being asked to pay may have a liability for the arrears accumulated over past years so there is a sting in the tail. Whoever said that nothing was certain except death and taxes never spoke a truer word! There has been a protest from some that having worked to earn the pension they thought the benefits were tax free. Alas its income and income is taxed. There is no escape. There may well be a coterie of ex Bankers and Developers who have been able to squirrel away some ill gotten gains in oversea banks but they present a much harder target for Revenue. The money trails usually lead to some well known islands and their owners have now embarked on bankruptcy tourism to defend their stash. Regarding the latter those previously staunch Republicans have shown a sudden attraction for the UK with its more benign bankruptcy laws! Greed ruins patriotism! What has the Bible to say to all this? In Jesus’ day the tax gatherers were able to extract as much tax as possible from the people aided and abetted by their Roman masters. There was little that was just about the system. Never the less Jesus did not attack the system but converted Matthew one of the tax men! Another incident recorded by St Matthew recorded in Chapter 17 verses 24/27 refers to the annual Temple tax due by each person over the age of 20. St Peter was asked for the tax by the collectors and agreed to pay. Because the Temple was God the Father’s house Jesus the Son and those he brought into the Father’s family are exempt. Jesus said this to show that, with the coming of the Kingdom, believers were no longer under the Old Testament law but now are under the law of Christ. But he paid the tax. Although abolished this revenue stream was too good to ignore and re-emerged in the form of “Peter’s pence” which continues in some churches to this day! For those entering Christ’s family the price has been paid in full. As St Peter said, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Salvation is a free gift to be accepted by the empty hand of faith but you had better pay your taxes!

As a Nation we are famed for long memories and while the Bible states that 1,000 years are like a day in God’s reckoning we might say the same of our collective memory of the 800 years English rule. The National Library houses the Papal Bull of 1155 granting Henry 11 the right to claim lordship over Ireland. Rather like some parts of the State papers released this week under the 30 year rule the Bull may be a forgery! However Bull or no Bull Henry was able to get the Irish Kings and Chieftains to sign up to his Lordship and the rest, as they say, is history. That is up to a defining moment during Queen Elizabeth’s State visit this year when she bowed her head before the memorial to the dead who fell in wars – both fighting for and against the English. Documents may be forged but deeds have an indelible language of their own which testifies to a deeper truth. That one very public act of contrition achieved a great deal of healing of relationships between our two countries paving the way to build constructive memories in the years ahead.  What comment can we glean from the Bible to take us into 2012? It is much easier to destroy a friendship than restore it. The Bible attributes this to our sinful nature. The truth is that sin separates. It divides families, communities and even nations. It is present in us all. Isaiah puts it simply “your iniquities have separated you from your God”. Repentance is the first step towards restoration. This involves a 180 degree turn in our thoughts, words and deeds. It is a God given grace which He may or may not grant. The heart needs to be renewed. This is God’s work, we cannot do it. Ezekiel, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, writes, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Chapter 36 verse 26). One thing we can do is follow the promise God gave to Jeremiah, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. As we go into 2012 take the invitation of Jesus as your own; “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out”.  His death in the sinners place makes it possible. Make this your first prayer for the New Year and with that relationship in place forgiveness can flow to others and healing take place.

Carols come in three main groups, Tradition – “The Holly and the Ivy” Myth “The Snowman” and Biblical “Joy to the World”. The latter is belted out by every supermarket sound system with scant regard for the words but what a great melody! It’s attributed to Lowell Mason in 1836 with more than a nod in the direction of G F Handel. But the words composed in 1719, when Isaac Watts at age 45, make David the Psalmist sing like a Christian! This is his interpretation of Psalm 98 written at a time when the extermination of Christianity was predicted and persecution of Christians was widespread. Watts, like true believers in the West today, saw through the antics of those opposed to God to the fulfilment of the universal availability of the Gospel of God’s redeeming love in Christ. The first two stanzas predict the flow of redemptive history breaking out of its Jewish mould to encircle the world. Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing. Verse 2 Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy. Clearly Watts rejoices in verse 1 at the fact of Jesus coming to earth with the invitation for people to open their hearts to receive Him. In verse 2 he sees the Saviour, conquering sin and death, now reigning at the right hand of the majesty on high. Creation rejoices at His salvation. Verse 3 No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found. Verse 4 He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love. The last two verses have the second coming of Jesus in view. In a Biblically illiterate world the 3rd verse is usually omitted as few people would have heard of God’s curse on the ground as one of the results of the fall and cannot anticipate its joyous reversal when Christ comes again. The last verse points to the righteous rule and reign of Christ in the new earth when the “Thy Kingdom come” request of the Lord’s prayer is completely fulfilled. St John writing in Revelation Chapter 11 verse 15 catches the completion of salvation – “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.” and Watts has us sing it out!

This week there has been much talk by scientists operating the Large Hadron Collider about finding a “god particle”. Great excitement was generated about this particle which they think exists but up till now has managed to remain invisible. One of the investigating groups of physicists thought their experiment gave a grain of credence to their idea resulting in euphoria. So what’s it all about? Apparently we know quite a lot about stuff, matter or mass, like what it’s made up of, but what makes it stick together has remained a mystery. Peter Higgs working in Edinburgh back in the 1960ies reckoned there is a special particle which, like super glue, holds it all together. You might call it the Creator particle but the scientists, who mainly claim to be atheists, have called it the ‘Higgs boson’ after one of their own. Believing as they do in the Big Bang they have built this 17 mile tube which they send particles around in opposite directions so as to replicate the Big Bang. When they collide and bits fly off in all directions they hope to catch a glimpse of the “god particle” that held them all together. A kind of reversal of Creation to find out how the God, whom they don’t believe in, did it. What does the Bible have to say about all this? The Teacher in Ecclesiastes says, “there is nothing new under the sun” and back in the beginning of Genesis we read of men building a tower at Babel (which literally means God’s gate) to reach the heavens. Their quest to reach God by their own efforts failed, God creating confusion, and scientists have been trying to rationalise that confusion ever since. Job had a hard life and wanted to know why one misfortune after another happened to him. He never did get an answer but he gained an insight into the vast difference between the Almighty’s ways and his thoughts and ours; “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” Job Chapters 38 to 41 spell it out for us. The point is that God has made a way whereby mere mortals can know Him. That way is through His Son who came into the world to save sinners. The ‘Joy to the World’ that we sing isn’t about a ‘god particle’ but a Person who we can know. Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (St John  17:3). This eternal life comes to those who bow the knee to Him and acknowledge the great God He is – the Creator and sustainer of all that is – and not simply a sort of super glue! Don’t be blinded by science, look to Jesus who will reveal Himself to you and one day in the not too distant future, in the second Advent, will make all things plain.

This week I opened an account with a new server for my emails. No one knew the address but I discovered 10 emails waiting in it. They all showed the sender as me although I had not sent them. Each had a caption of a sexual nature. After the initial moment of freezing I set about to get rid of the stuff. There seemed no way unless each was opened then it could be “binned”. Each picture displayed those parts of the female anatomy that even our first parents, in their state of rebellion against God, had the wit to cover. It induced a guilty feeling that made me want to keep quiet about it. Presumably this was similar to the feelings of abused people who remain silent. It is this silence that I believe to be the devil’s weapon. It’s in the silence that guilt grows and illogical thinking takes over. The recipient of such material tries to sweep it under the carpet, conceal it, only to find that it will reappear to bite you. The trouble with addiction is that you don’t have a gauge that tells you when you’re hooked. The astonishment of the accused when the Garda tell him the number of pictures on his computer testifies to that fact. By then it’s too late the serpents bite has fastened on the victim. He is helpless. What remedy does the Bible offer? The Psalmist knew all about being silent and concealing his sin. He graphically describes it in psalm 32. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” Then the Psalmist breaks the sound barrier and speaks first to the prophet Nathan then to God. “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”— and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Some try to impose rules to overcome addictive urges but St Paul writes that “they lack any value in restraining sexual indulgences”. Colossians Chapter 2verse 23. Encouragingly we read of a greater power that can and does bring release to the sexually immoral; “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 11. Sadly these adult addictions defeat many today but they can be overcome by real Christian fellowship where people are not afraid to be open with one another and through prayer and the power of the Gospel to bring freedom to the modern captives: 2Timothy 2:25 – “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

My father told the story of when he worked in Nigeria between the two world wars the currency was almost worthless. The basic coin had a hole in the centre and was used as a washer by the building trade. In fact when buildings were being taken down the labourers were paid in that currency – the faster they worked the more coins they collected as their pay!

The euro is beginning to have certain similarities to the Nigerian coin, except it doesn’t have a hole in its centre! Its hole is in the bank balance sheets of the Mediterranean countries plus Ireland – a far more vulnerable place to have it. Basically the massive lending from the banks of the stronger European countries to the weaker ones during our years of profligacy has left the latter exposed to national default. As these countries are financially related to each other the default of one of the larger ones could produce a domino effect with the banks collapsing all around Europe.

Whilst it is too soon to start drilling holes in our euro, if the meetings of the heads of state taking place this coming week show as little progress as they have done we could be returning to the Irish punt – with 50 punts buying a German sausage! What light can the Bible shed on all this? St Peter writing to Christians reminds them of something much more precious than material riches: – “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot”(1 Peter 1:18-19).

Jesus sacrifice completed the most important transaction any individual will ever make and not a cent leaves our hands. The writer of Hebrews puts it, “Jesus has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him”. Trust in Jesus death on your behalf and turn away from relying in uncertain riches. To those who were putting their trust in the wrong place St Paul writes, “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1Timothy 6:17). Remember there are no pockets in shrouds, trust what is everlasting.