As we start the New Year, the Internet will be awash with end-of-the-world predictions! This is because people with more time than sense have calculated that according to an ancient Mayan calendar the world is due to end in 2012. No matter that there is almost nothing else in Mayan mythology that we would want to take literally, we are asked to entertain the idea that in this matter the Mayans may be right!

Why bother even to mention this particularly far-fetched instance of the perennial, and perennially disproven, pastime of predicting the end of the world? Because even in the most mistaken of views there can be hidden a kernel of Wisdom. I don't believe for a moment that the world will end this year. Jesus Himself told us that no-one knows the time, and yet Jesus also points to the paradox that awareness of the end is the key to a new beginning. He specifically told His followers not to be anxious, but to see 'the end' as a time of deliverance and renewal. Then, in the most dramatic and decisive way, He showed that the end we will all meet one day, Mayan calendars or no, our own personal end in death, has become, in Him, a beginning! Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies He said it bears no fruit, but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.

And then He Himself went through that 'end' - the grave, and gate of death, and showed in His resurrection that it was not a final end, but, as the Collect puts it, 'a bed of hope' to all people. Not only does His life, death and resurrection give us new hope and help us to see that final end as a beginning, it also shows us that every other ending, every little death, even the ending of an old year, is really also a beginning and a new start. As the poet TS Eliot, reflecting on this very truth, said, 'The end is where we start from'. So at the end of an old year I wish you joy and life in the new, and pray that in Christ we may be set free from the false anxieties that pervade the society around us, free to help that society make the new beginnings it so desperately needs.

For over a fortnight, St Paul's Cathedral was in the news every day, as economic protesters camped outside. The coverage of St Paul's went in three phases. It started well, with Giles Fraser (who preached at St Edward's recently) welcoming the protesters and dispensing with the police guarding the Cathedral. I thought that St Paul's was very fortunate to have on its staff a Canon who clearly understood the issues, could relate to the protesters, and could handle the media effectively.

However, St Paul's then entered a second phase in which it got increasingly concerned about the implications of the protest for its own operation, and made two bad and poorly explained decisions; one was to close the Cathedral, the other was to take legal steps to have the protesters removed. The reaction of most people, in and out of church, was that St Paul's was missing an opportunity to connect with the real issues, and the Cathedral got a bad press.

Things improved when the Bishop of London took over leadership of the Cathedral, rescinded the legal action, and tried to get back to the issues the protest was about. He commented that the incident was a wake-up call to the church to focus more on the issues the general population are concerned about, rather than being absorbed with its own affairs. That is surely the key point for the church. God showed His concern for the world in becoming incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. The church should follow that example and show its social concern too, by getting involved with human and social issues at grass roots level. Jesus set an example of service, and the church must be a servant church, or it is nothing.

The economic and moral issues raised by the protest are very complex, and Ann Kember and I will start to address some of them on two forthcoming Wednesdays (Nov 29 and Dec 6). Every economic crisis hits the poor hardest, and this one is sending many people deeply into levels of debt, from which it is hard to recover. Indeed, our collective debt is at the heart of the crisis. Behind this, there are more general issues about money, the fascination it holds for us, the way it increasingly dominates our lives, and its spiritual significance.

We need to recognise that there is a moral and spiritual dimension to this crisis. I don't want to blame bankers as individuals; the problem lies more with an economic system that has given us an increase in prosperity, but has become a monster that is now out of control. We need better financial regulation, and we need to back away from the principle that increased prosperity is a goal that justifies any means whatever. Slavery was good for prosperity, but was eventually abandoned on moral grounds. We need to start trying to tell the difference between ways of increasing prosperity that are morally defensible, and those that are not. It is actually in our own best interest to pay attention to moral issues, because morally indefensible actions have a habit of coming back to bite us, even if they seem to serve our interests in the short-term.

For the church generally, there is now the big challenge of re-engaging with social issues. There is a turn to spirituality in our society, and a growing sense amongst those unconnected with church that some of our current social problems will require a turn to spiritual values if they are to be solved. That is certainly true of the economic and financial crisis, which will require a turn to less acquisitive values to be resolved. It is equally true of the ecological crisis, which requires a less exploitative approach to creation. It is true of the many lost and unemployed young people in our society who desperately need something that will give meaning and hope to their lives. It is also true of problems of global security that are being fuelled by rather dogmatic forms of religion, and which will only be resolved if each world religion takes a spiritual turn.

In short, the secular world needs the spiritual leadership that the churches could provide, if it is to solve its most urgent problems. The church should be increasingly directing its energy to helping to meet these needs. I hope that in the New Year we can take some significant steps at St Edward's to developing our social mission.