BBC Radio 4 2016-04-07

BBC Radio 4 2016-04-07

Having spent the last weekend wading through my modest mountain of pension papers, it turns out that I may have miscalculated my State pension entitlement.

As from yesterday, men and women born on or after 6 April 1951 and 6 April 1953 respectively, are now entitled to a newly “simplified” flat rate pension of £155. 65 per week.

Or at least, they might be. For according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the newly “simplified” pensions puzzle, will mean that fewer than one in five people who are eligible will get the exact amount.

Simple!

Of course we are facing the demands of an increasingly ageing population and the idea that the State should have any measure of responsibility for us in retirement is relatively new. As in many poor nations today, for centuries security during and beyond our working lives was calculated by the breadth and quality of our relationships.

Children were the measure of our security. No wonder, in Old Testament language the Psalmist concluded, “Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them!”

For many people over sixty, these really can be the golden years when wisdom and experience collude to make us more profitable to our family and friends.

But when our faculties begin to fail and ageing takes its toll, secure dependency becomes a new way of life.

And I like to think that this was an issue with which Jesus was supremely concerned. Whatever you think about the idea of miracles, the whole point of portraying Jesus as a miracle worker was not to present him as a majestic magician wandering through the Holy Lands. It was to demonstrate God’s concern for the vast majority who lived in economic poverty.

A healed leper was restored to his family. The healing a blind beggar or paraplegic was the same as making them employable again. And a widow in a small town called Nain who had her only son rescued from death itself, effectively had her pension scheme restored.
All of these are reminders that God choses to become embroiled in the very fabric our social systems, and that salvation has an economics face.

As a Christian this is the God in whom I believe. But I am also going to have a chat with those nice people at Pension Wise.