KEY: 
icon indicates ways to connect faith with everyday life
Context
Even as a UN Climate Change Summit convenes in Poland, Brazil, Poland and factions in the US oppose international warnings about global warming.
France is in turmoil as taxes partially intended to reduce carbon emissions are suspended.
In the UK legal, constitutional and political turbulence continues as diverse groups clash with conventional parliamentary democracy and variously interpret the impact of Brexit on the UK’s economic future and
- its possible influence on inter-community relations
- the widening poverty gap
- protecting the planet from emissions
- protecting the nations from international terrorism
- tackling the migration crisis
- sustaining the Peace Process in Ireland
Reflection
It is challenging that John demands immediate baptism with God’s time almost here (Luke 3.3). Malachi looked from the turmoil of his own times to a perhaps distant if sure future when God would suddenly come (3.1). This offers space for reflection. Can we adopt this loftier stance, turning away from struggles to determine the rights and wrongs of immediate choices, to participate in the terrible thrill of purity and righteousness (3.3-4) tomorrow?
If so, let’s forget the means and concentrate on the ends. Let’s go for vision! Let’s contemplate humans flourishing and achieving justice on a stable planet in God’s good time, and forget pitfalls like restricting cheap, dirty fuel supplies for the best of reasons and tumbling struggling nations into dire distress and the poorest citizens of wealthy states into near destitution.
Let’s concentrate on that good Brexit deal that will heal our divisions, and forget climate change collaboration, the Irish border, the historic hatreds of Europe, and the migrant crisis shaking it from the Mediterranean coast to the channel ports.
It is right that we respond warmly to idealism, to many dignified reflections on the horrors of war and the preciousness of friendship which accompanied the 1918 commemorations. The UN conference in Poland focuses far ahead. It is proper that we encourage Westminster to think beyond March 2019 as the decisions are taken.
But we are also called to grapple with the immediate, as were the people John addressed. Our spiritual strengths and our moral compasses are needed as we decide how we should vote in whatever campaigns, elections or referendums may be called, and how to accommodate national and wider concerns. We will need to scrutinise our loyalties, to parties, nations, regions, and communities and ask whether our first duty is to any of them or to God’s creation, this fragile planet and its diverse peoples.
Those who share the faith that God has purposes for the world should not shirk responsibility for trying to discern the ‘path’ (Luke 3.4) that leads through human obstructions to achieving them. We will need to bring each choice that arises painfully up against God’s preference for plainness, straightness, levelness (v5): a stark contrast to the twisting, hidden, even treacherous places our domestic politics currently inhabit. But we can hang on to tomorrow’s promise that we know will be fulfilled: ‘all flesh shall see the salvation of God’ (Luke 3.6).
Prayer
A meditation on the difficulties of doing right by the planet at a time of multiple political crises
God of Creation and Eternity,
we find it hard to appreciate at the same time the vastness of Creation and its fragility,
to believe in both its antiquity and its vulnerability.
We find it hard to think constructively while the institutions we take for granted in our public life are going through such convulsions.
Because we are told that only strong immediate action will save our planet from irreparable harm, we want our government to act decisively there, whatever the immediate cost.
But our thoughts are full of contradictions.
We want peace and righteousness, prosperity and responsible action, even when the paths to each seem to lead in different directions.
In the turmoil, keep us true to your righteous purposes, mindful always of the needs of the most vulnerable members of our communities.
May we not ignore the claims to attention of the least powerful voices in the wider world.
Keep us from selfishness, and indifference.
And comfort us always with the knowledge that, at the last, your purposes will be accomplished.
Amen
Questions
- What do you think is the most important issue facing either the UK, or Europe, or both at the present time?
- Can you suggest one positive step towards solving it?
All-age activity
Do a bit of mind-mapping of the political tangle.
Put ‘Brexit’ at the centre of a large sheet of paper and draw lines from it to issues implicated in the change e.g.
- climate change is impacted because the UK will no longer be bound by EU commitments in this area
- migration and security are impacted because the relationship between UK and continental Europe will change
- community relations are perceived to suffer
Can we ensure changes are for good, or morally neutral?
Young people
As the Brexit drama continues, think about how you see your group being affected.
- Is it mostly good, or mostly bad?
- Is there anything you can do individually or as a group to improve things?
Brenda Vance is a URC elder and a retired university teacher
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