Context
Just a few of so many stories over the last few days that could be used to make similar points.
- The Pope has a difficult visit in Myanmar.
- A workable solution to the Irish border problem? Or perhaps not.
- Will Kenyatta usher in a new era in Kenya?
- Egypt crack down on the LGBT community.
- Harry and Meghan – a good news story!
Reflection
Would that we inhabited the world of the gentle fable Paddington 2, governed by kindness and good manners! Paddington Bear can afford to be unfailingly polite and hopeful. Benign comic devices reliably provide him with happy solutions with perfect timing. In our world, God’s hidden purposes can seem only too well hidden. Smiling trust in Providence in a world apparently dominated by aggression, cruelty, political deviousness and ruthless competition, exposes faith to charges of shallowness, naivety, and indifference to suffering.
This week’s passage from 1 Corinthians points to the spiritual gifts of grace which enrich and strengthen believers, laying on them a responsibility to use such gifts to God’s glory. We are not mere spectators but doorkeepers watching the street for the kingdom’s return. And we approach the tumult of news issues with prepared minds and consciences.
The doorkeeper surely behaves as his master would wish towards passers-by in distress? Campaigning sites (e.g. Unicef and Crisis) bring to us those distressed strangers and news makes their immediate situations. Empathy readies us to give and act when appropriate and possible (v.33). Some people are in positions to do more: e.g. the Pope brought gifts of diplomacy, courage and insight to Myanmar, and significant change may follow his visit.
The doorkeeper evaluates. We must know before we judge. The resources of the modern media allow us to access and assess a wide range of views. Should we not know how people in the Irish Republic, and on both sides in Ulster regard the question of Ireland’s border before we think we know the answer? What about a European view? When we see the incompatibility of the various aspirations we may be moved to discard ideas of advocating for particular views or actions in favour of simply lifting the matter in prayer and urging others to do so. But there is a thin line to be crossed between resignation and giving up on hope.
With democratic governments wobbling in Germany, Ireland and in the UK; with governments of disputed legitimacy in Kenya and Zimbabwe, with draconian attacks in Egypt on what the West regards as inalienable human rights; with all this and more, it is easy to think nothing is right with the world and any completion of God’s plans is simply irrelevant to our generation. Good news stories like the royal engagement don’t seem to cut it.
Does this require another facet of the mandated wakefulness? That we don’t slump into a despairing stupor. Rather, we remind ourselves that religious leaders and other men and women of goodwill are using their gifts, advocating for peace, looking for solutions, trying to protect the environment, like a door-keeper heading off trouble before it impacts on his master’s house .
We don’t live in Paddington’s Windsor Gardens but we do live in a world that, we are promised, will survive to see God’s coming ‘with great power and glory’ (v.26). And we keep willing the good ending!
Prayer
A prayer meditating on the gift of time.
Lord, we live in a world of compressed time-scales and demands for ever-increased productivity. Make us more respectful of time, time to think, time to heal, time to enjoy, time to perfect.
Slow us down to enjoy the beauties of your ever-evolving world:
to enjoy the trees as they go from green, to gold, to silver-grey skeletons against an ever-changing winter sky;
to watch berries turn from green to red only to disappear again as the hungry birds devour them;
to enjoy frost slowly disappearing as the morning sun rises above the horizon and warms the grass.
Steady us to support the stressed, the angry, and the frustrated, to offer them perspective, head-room, time to take stock.
Give us patience to take time to get things right, to find the right words to say to a grieving friend, the right gift to give to the happy couple, the right place to put the gift we were given by someone dear.
Give us self-control to keep our tempers, let go of our grudges and fears and live life for you.
For this is Advent and we are waiting for you with patience and with expectation of good.
And there is no hurry or pressure.
Amen.
Questions
- Where can you see evidence of God’s purposes working out in your community?
- Do you see things accomplished or works in progress? (Think about the time-scales involved!)
Action
If you can, go and see the film Paddington 2 (or a similar ‘feel good’ film) and reflect on the possibilities for changing things by looking for good everywhere and expecting to find it.
Young people
Find an issue or situation that is of concern to you and your friends. On a large sheet of paper, mark out three columns: what we can do; what we need others to do; what has to be left to God. Discuss the issue and make a list of actions (etc.) undert the three headings. Use it as a focus for prayer.
Brenda Vance is a URC elder living in Sussex.
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