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Yesterday, the former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli having served his prison sentence for fraud, spoke on this programme about his crime of trading away £1.4 billion. I accept that I lied he said. I made a sequence of terrible choices. He’s accepted personal responsibility for what he did at the same time as saying that the culture of “profit no matter what” still prevails in the financial services industry. And he said that because of this culture, what he did could absolutely happen again. I have to say I felt somewhat helpless when I watched his interview online. If he’s right, then even after all the suffering that economic recession has brought to the poorest in our society, there are, mostly young, traders who were maybe still at school in 2008 when it all fell apart, sitting at desks in London this morning, asking themselves the same questions as he did as they take positions in the international money markets: Where’s the line? How far can I go? Can I beat the guy sitting next to me – because frankly if I don’t, I’ll be sacked. If he’s right, there are surely some who are already in trouble, hoping that they won’t be found out. There are some staring at computers, feeling a certain thrill even as the screens go red, thinking – this rush is what I’m in it for – I can smash this - I can win. And before we think that this is an alien instinct, before we get holier than thou, and while obviously not condoning Adoboli’s actions, shouldn’t we acknowledge that this so-called risk appetite is some part of what it is to be alive? Isn’t part of the difficulty of changing the “profit no matter what” culture because taking risks is essential to living a rewarding life. Perhaps the nub of the question then is in whose service is the risk taken? Jesus told a story about the risk averse builder who sits down with his plans before building a house; but he also told stories about the importance of taking risks by multiplying talents rather than burying them safe in the ground. Kweku Adoboli’s crime was committed when risk and lying became an addiction. But to have a fundamentally healthy appetite for risk serves us well, and I think it’s intrinsic in particular to a life of faith and trust in God. So perhaps a good question to ask ourselves is how, as with our other appetites, we can learn to control our greed? To have a sense of what is enough. And remember to ask ourselves in whose service we’re taking the risk in the first place. There’s a chance then to practise courage and become less not more risk averse - but in the service of the common good.