I have reflected before on our strange attitude to taxation. For what seems like an age, politics appears to have been obsessed by tax rates. The potential for tax cuts offset by the need to increase taxation is the balance. Why are we surprised and indignant, if we are surprised and indignant, that after the pandemic and in the midst of a war, inflation is boiling over and massive bills must be settled.
Psalm 113 set for today, says:
7 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
8 he seats them with princes,
with the princes of his people.
9 He settles the childless woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.
The Psalmist was ahead of politics now; in writing about levelling up the author has described simply, something that is an aspiration for many, but which fewer of us have the stomach to commit to wholeheartedly.
Taxation is a fundamental ingredient in helping to lift the poor, but often people paying tax do not see it like that.
We are approaching the anniversary of a travelling couple, needing a place to stay, being unable to secure rooms. The story turns on the one person, the innkeeper, prepared to think laterally and solve the problem in an imaginative way.
For Mary and Joseph the stable may not have been perfect for the birth of their child, but it served a purpose. Every time we pay tax, directly or indirectly, we contribute to a system which is imperfect, but which is designed to take out the worst of the discrepancies between those who have lots and those with little.
If, despite what you are prepared to admit, your life is reasonably comfortable then give thanks that, from the luxury your home you may at least be helping provide a stable for someone else.
A Prayer Gracious Father, at this time of focus on those in great need, may we be gracious in all our giving, our paying of taxes, and our service of others. May we think of the manger, used as a crib, and be humbled that one innkeeper wa