What difference can a paper flower make?

On the 8th June, Justice Matters will be joining with many others from across the country for the Big If London gathering. The day will include inspiring speakers, stories, family activities and music. The symbolic centre of the day will be the planting of a breathtaking field of paper flowers, with two million petals representing the two million children that die from hunger every year – lives that could be saved.

The obvious questions is: Aside from being a visually impressive stunt, exactly what good will two million paper flowers actually achieve?

Its easy to get disheartened when campaigning for change. We look at the scale of the problems facing our world and tell us ourselves that we don't have enough power to make a difference; that only the rich and influential like Bono, Bill Gates or the Prime Minister can make a real impact. Standing there in Hyde Park with our paper flowers could seem a bit of a pointless gesture, but maybe there's more to it than meets the eye.

At St Barnabas last week,  David Brown talked about Gideon, an unlikely Old Testament leader who God used to rescue Israel from overwhelming enemy odds. Having already radically thinned out the Israelite army (from 32,000 men down to 300), God had Gideon equip the remaining force with highly unlikely weapons - trumpets and torches concealed within clay jars. In other words, Gideon's army was vastly outnumbered and had no hands free to draw their swords against the enemy forces. This sounds a lot like the situation we find ourselves in when facing the seemingly intractable evils of the world - a small voice for justice amid the howling gale, armed not with sword and spear, but paper flowers and wry placards.

Despite expectations, Gideon's army saw a great victory:

"Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.

When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords." (Judges 7 v19-22a)

As the final verse highlights, the victory was not Gideon's but God's (indeed, God had told Gideon to reduce his army to ensure that this point was abundantly clear). So too, when we take our stand against the silent scandal of hunger, we should remember that our paper flowers are like those trumpets and torches - laughably fragile, ridiculously inconsequential and yet of heaven-rending, world-changing power in God's hands.

So join us and thousands of others to make a big noise and demand G8 leaders take action to tackle the silent scandal of hunger. We may not only have limited power by ourselves, but with God anything is possible...