The week before last was given over largely to a children's Holiday Club at Mossley Hill. Over 120 children came each day, and about 70 church members were involved. It was a tremendous feat of organization, and this year was the 25th consecutive year it has happened. It was also the one where I was most involved personally. Each day, I led a brief devotional, looking at 5 people in the Bible who said 'Here I am'. I then featured as 'Mr Tagliatelli', the head chef of a fish and chip restaurant. This involved a slapstick sketch each day with 'Salt' and 'Vinegar' my trainee chefs who eventually, last Sunday morning, managed to cover me with cream as they tried to ice a cake! All good fun, but that meant lines to learn, rehearsal time, as well as prep for each day's devotional.
All well worth it. Tremendous atmosphere, some very happy children, and some very happy parents and grandparents too: 5 afternoons to themselves! Already next year's dates are in the diary.
That same week, a total of 7 deaths were recorded in our 3 parish areas - 8 if you include a small-hours call-out to a dying resident in a care home, for whom no RC priest could be found! It just happened to be the week between Administrators: one had left, the other didn't start till this week. They all had to be arranged, and although I wasn't taking all of them, each one required some organization. Three were of very elderly church members, whose funeral services are or will be genuine times of thanksgiving and hope. One - which I have taken - was of a 59 year old woman, murdered in South Africa, where she was running a holiday estate. Her family were distraught of course. 'Why did God allow this?' cried her niece to me. I could only refer to C.S. Lewis' writing that if there were no evil we would not know what good looked like. The response to atrocities is often remarkable for its courage, hope and beauty. There were at least 7 tributes to this remarkable woman at the service, who was clearly much loved and truly inspirational in lots of ways.
Because of the South African connection, I thought it appropriate (in answer to the niece's question), to quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words, 'Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate...Victory is ours through him who loved us.' At a few minutes notice, our choir - bless them! - sang it for us.
All this against the backdrop of the most horrific atrocities and inhumane behaviour in Northern Iraq and Syria. The stories coming from that region put our own struggles and difficulties into perspective. Reading the testimonies of some of our Christian brothers and sisters I am humbled, and have noticed 3 things:
- They are incredibly grateful for the smallest mercy and act of kindness, be it material help or the prayerful support of Christian brothers and sisters around the world.
- They have learned to trust God in ways we simply do not in our culture, where we can more often than not help ourselves, thank you very much. There is no one else they can trust, and so often the relationship with God is stronger, deeper, wider - making them more generous in their judgments than sometimes we are.
- They have hope - realising that this earth is not their home, they look forward to the heavenly country. As the writer to the Hebrews says, 'this world is not worthy of them'. In fact, chapter 11 from v32 is uncannily descriptive of what many experience today.
Two things follow from this:
- Our need to care for these brothers and sisters. Could I appeal to all readers of this blog to donate to either Christian Aid: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/iraq-crisis-appeal/index.aspx or Canon Andrew White's own charity Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East: http://frrme.org/get-involved/donate/.
- We are challenged to consider the strength of our own faith. Of course, none of us knows how we would react to persecution. But we can at least ask ourselves the question, 'Is my faith worth dying for?' If so, why? If not, why not?
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