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The Curate Writes...
Finally
the summer's here – the air is warm, the kids are off school (and
running around, yelling!), the sky is blue, and in a few days time
will be full of aircraft as the Sunderland Air Show gets off the
ground. This is all great, a cause for rejoicing. Yet as I sit to
write this, my Twitter feed keeps distracting me. The BBC News
website keeps grabbing my attention:
 |
| This mark stands for Nazarene. In last few days ISIS in Mosul put this mark on the homes of the Christians to mark them out for death. |
* Mosul, Iraq, where tens of thousands of our brothers & sisters in Christ have fled after being offered an unattractive choice by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS): convert, pay an unaffordable religious tax, or be put to the sword.
*
Flight MH17, allegedly shot down by pro-Russian rebels, killing 283
passengers of which 80 were children.
*
The ongoing situations in the Central African Republic, South Sudan,
Nigeria, Afghanistan, North Korea.
*
The latest statistics showing that worldwide a child is trafficked
every 30 seconds: that's about 1.2 million children or the population
of Birmingham.
The list could go on, does go on, and it's overwhelming. Amongst all the stuff going on in our own individual lives, our own daily battles, stresses and concerns it all seems too much to take in. It leaves us, as Christians, with really hard questions. What can I do about this? Where is God in all of it?
Well, you'd expect me to say we should pray – and we should. But with such huge overpowering issues our own personal prayers can seem so little, & God can seem so far removed that we don't know where to start. So I find myself turning to St. Paul's letter to the Romans, and the second half of chapter 8, beginning at verse 18. For all of us, life can be unimaginably hard. For many in our list above, hell on earth. But through the life, death & resurrection of Jesus there is hope. We cannot see it, but we long for it. We cannot find the words to ask for it, but the Spirit intercedes for us. The darkness that enfolds us seems impenetrable, the gulf between us & God far too wide, yet there is nothing in, of, above or below this world that can “separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
A
wise man, when asked how to eat an elephant, replied “one bite at a
time.” So we need to start small: praying the Spirit will help us
to pray, meditating on the passage from Romans (and others that the
Lord places on our hearts), giving what we can to charities who
directly help those caught up in these situations, like Christian Aid
working in Gaza, or Tearfund's “No Child Taken” campaign. And
those questions that keep running around our heads? Maybe consider
joining the Alpha course that will start in October, where we'll
explore together our Christian faith & get to know the Lord, and
each other, that bit better.
For more on the situation in Iraq, including things we can be doing to help, visit the dedicated #WeAreN page on the Parish website - http://www.monkwearmouthcofe.com/-wearen.html
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