Introduction
Loving our neighbour is costly and acts of kindness may put us at risk, but there is also a cost to closing ourselves off from one another.
Context
The context this week is one of shock, sadness and tears as we remember those who died in the bomb attack in Manchester. Our thoughts and prayers go out in compassion for all who are grieving at this time, all who wait for news, and all medical staff who care for the injured – and to a city working out how to live ordinary life following the most challenging of situations.
We pray too for all who are afraid of a hardening of hearts, of violence as a reaction to violence. As we read the news, we also see responses full of love and compassion – paramedics, bystanders and members of the public who offered what they could in response to other people’s suffering. What does it mean to be community when trouble comes and members of the community suffer?
This week also saw an act of remembrance for Jo Cox, the MP who was murdered last year.
In the light of these events, we may reflect on the love that binds us together and that ultimately will defeat hatred and all that divides us.
Reflection
Community is vital. ‘We’re glue – we stick together when it counts.’
Jesus asks that we might be one – not to remove our difference and diversity, but to work at community where each person is valued, just as we ourselves are valued by God. God sets us in community to be beacons of self-giving love and unity in the face of all that would seek to divide us. We need to invest in one another.
We live our lives ‘in the world’. We cannot be removed from its pain, its challenges and its dangers. How does our worship, our teaching, and our being together in church, equip us to be sent out into the world?
There are no easy answers to the challenges we face – Manchester, Paris, Syria, Iran, North Korea; climate change and climate justice; how to vote in the General Election; deciding what kind of Britain we want to be post-Brexit. We are as bad at resolving our differences and healing the hurts of our divided world as we have ever been. Some of the battles that we thought had been won, have to be fought again and again because we do not always learn from the mistakes of the past. We should be very wary of those who come to us with simple solutions for complex problems.
There are some actions that can never be fully understood and some motivations that defy all reason and all humanity. Hate speech needs to be robustly challenged wherever it appears.
We look to politicians to articulate their positive vision for the future of this country. How should we live in community? How should we relate to our international neighbours? How should we care for the elderly, the poor, the dispossessed, the benefit claimant, the jobless, the refugee? As Christians, we need to contribute to this debate wherever it is happening – at home, at school, at work, in our local communities – and in the political sphere as well. We should look for positive vision of our common life and of the common good, rather than mudslinging at the opposition.
We should not allow fear to dominate our lives so that we lose our ability to connect to our neighbour.
Prayer
You might like to use the well-known prayer of St Francis as you meditate on the call to live lives of love in a difficult and often painful world.
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope;
where there is darkness, only light;
and where there's sadness, ever joy.
Amen.
Questions
Who is my neighbour?
Action
Build up your community! Find one action to undertake this week that affirms and values someone else. Pray for them – write to them – spend time with them – do something that makes their life easier in some way – offer them help – respond to their situation.
Young people
Pray with a map of the world, placing tea lights on the map as you ask for the light and peace of Christ to surround troubled regions of the world.
Diane Craven is a Licensed Lay Minister at York Minster and a freelance education consultant.
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