What is the text about? Well it’s about the life of faith and it’s about Jesus and his calling. It draws a contrast between the good shepherd, the faithful shepherd and the hired man who’s only in it for the money or the status or whatever. He (or she) is only in it for their own reasons, whatever those reasons might be.

First of all let’s just recognise that there is nothing wrong with doing a job for pay or for self-satisfaction. This story is applying a literary tool to say something profound about Jesus and his mission and about our place in that continuing mission.

Okay, so back to the reindeer farmers of Scandinavia. For centuries the Sami people have been reindeer herders, nomads who travelled with the herd. Everything they had depended on those reindeer. Their clothes, their tents, their food, their stories, everything. Their children grew up knowing the importance of caring for their reindeer and being a part of the community life that revolved around them. But along came modernity and a money-based economy and ultimately that lovely thing called governmental regulation! Soon the Sami way of life was in danger. They were facing a predator that they could not fight off! And so individuals were offered licenses in order to be a reindeer herder. They were given subsidies to help them if they lost any reindeer to predators. They were offered loans to buy machinery and lorries to transport their reindeer between winter and summer pastures and to slaughter-houses. Life became much easier for some of the Sami people, they had money in the bank, easier jobs, better housing and sanitation and health care but of course it broke up the community, changing forever the way that the people relied on each other. But something else changed, more and more reindeer were being lost each year to predators. No one could understand why that was. Predator numbers were increasing like mad! Why? Well because the food supply was getting easier to access each year. And what is it that eats reindeer? Well a number of things but one of the most feared of predators was the wolf, just as it was in Jesus story about the sheep and the shepherd. Wolves travel in packs, as you probably know, and in past times the Sami people never left the herd unattended. Some of the community were always on the watch and when a pack of hunting wolves were sighted, the whole community came out to protect the herd. Men, women and children even in the bitterest of weather physically surrounded the herd of reindeer to protect them. The men carried weapons and fought off the wolves if they dared to come too close. When the threat was over, then and only then, the community would return to their tents to sleep. They were literally all prepared to lay down their lives for their animals.

It won’t surprise you to know that one reindeer herder cannot do that sort of thing on his or her own. Predators were going to take reindeer in increasing numbers and no amount of technology would prevent that. The hired man who takes his subsidy for each dead reindeer does not lay down his life for his animals in the way that the Sami community was prepared to do. They loved their reindeer because their reindeer gave them life and they were prepared to die to protect them.

In Jesus day the wolf was one of the major predators that sheep needed to be protected from. The life of the shepherding families was very like that of the Sami. Someone was with the sheep day and night. The shepherd would travel with them as they searched for food. It was a rough life and a hard life and one that probably began as a child, following in a father’s footsteps. The shepherding community and their families found that their lives revolved around their animals and they recognised the importance of keeping them safe from harm. They loved them and would lay down their lives for them without a second thought. But the hired man who does not have that kind of relationship with the animals, the man who is only doing his job for the money he will be paid, will not worry about running away when danger threatens.

Jesus Christ is the good shepherd. The one who lays down his life for the sheep. The one who loves them and knows them. The one who has been with them from their earliest days and who will never leave them to the mercy of the wolves. But there’s more here than that! When people say someone is a good dentist or doctor or nurse for instance, they’re not just talking about technical ability, they’re talking about things like kindness and approachability. When I worked in chaplaincy I was asked to deliver an annual lecture to medical students. It was supposed to be about recognising the importance of the spiritual element in people’s lives but we always ended up talking about kindness and approachability because many of the students had forgotten that they were going to be dealing with people! They had been concentrating on the technical aspects of medicine (which is good and essential of course) but they had yet to encounter the complexities of working with actual people! Quite a different matter!!

So Jesus is not just good because he is powerful and strong and able to save his people, he is loving and kind and approachable and understanding. He will leave no stone unturned till he gets to root of our problems and he will help us to overcome them. But just to continue for a moment, with this medical model. The doctor, the dentist, the nurse, is no good to us unless we invite them into our lives. We need to consult them, tell them the problem, trust that they can help us and see the treatment through to the end. Just like a course of antibiotics it won’t work effectively unless we finish the course!

And so to conclude. What kind of a community are we? The Church here in this place and in the wider world? Are we like the Sami people of old? Do we work together for the benefit of the whole community? Are we in it because of our love and dependence on each other? Will we protect the life of our community from the marauding forces of modern day wolves; secularity, self-aggrandisement, power, money, influence? Or are we like the modern day reindeer farmer, working alone, perhaps doing the best he can but accepting that there will be losses, or the hired shepherd in it for what he can get and scarpering when the going gets tough, leaving the sheep to fend for themselves. In this parable we are the sheep, Christ is the good shepherd, yes! BUT we are also the shepherds, asked to care for the people of God. And who are the people of God, how large and how wide is the flock? Well the last few verses of this passage tell us the answer to that. ‘Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heavens above, deep deep as the deepest sea is my saviour’s love’. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. These too I must bring in, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock, and there will be one shepherd.

It is not MY task, or YOUR task to help Jesus bring them in. It is OUR task as a community of Christian people. And what are the skills we need? Just like the good reindeer farmer or shepherd or doctor or nurse… knowledge and faith, love and kindness, approachability and the humility to admit we do not have all the answers all of the time.

Interested parties should contact Gillean on 600318

Volunteers should contact David Oakes on 600279

So what am I going to talk about today? At the start of the service I said my theme was the changing scenes and times, so the first part of the meditation looks at my childhood friend Larry and me. The second part looks at the church and its people of today and yesteryear.

I am sure that as I go through this you will recognise yourselves in it.

Larry and I started school on the same day, and went through all our schooling, junior and senior schools together. We sat and failed the same exams, several times, and we even finished up being apprentices together in the same workshop.

It was only when we became interested in girls that our paths parted, only to be reunited later on when we had both been married for a few years.

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, Larry and I and those of us who were kids in the 40s, 50s and 60s should not have survived till now.

Why is that I hear you say?

Well, our baby cots were covered with brightly-coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked; we had no child-proof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans. Why, I can remember using one of my mother’s saucepans as a tin helmet, and no, it did not get stuck!

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just plimsoles or sandals, and we had fluorescent clackers on our wheels.

As children, we rode in cars (if you were lucky) with no seat belts or air bags, and indeed riding in the front passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle, and it tasted just as good, sometimes better. We ate dripping sandwiches and toast, bread-and-butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never fat or unfit because we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with several friends, from one bottle or can, and no one actually died. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scrap and then went at top speed down the hill. Halfway down, we realised that we had forgotten all about the brakes! After running into stinging nettles a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home early in the morning and play all day, as long as were back before it got dark. No one was able to find us all day and no one minded. You see, it was a way of life, our way of life. We did not have PlayStations or Xboxes, no video games at all, no 199 channels on TV, in fact you were very fortunate if you had a TV. I remember watching the Queen’s Coronation on a nine-inch screen at my auntie and uncle’s house along with the rest of the street.

That’s correct. They were the only ones to have a TV!

But I soon got bored with that and went out to play with my cousins. No video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones (thank goodness), no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. But what we did have was we had friends, and we went outside to find them. We played street football, cricket and rounders, and sometimes a game called stinger. And believe you me, if you got hit by the ball, it certainly hurt! We climbed trees. We fell out of trees. We got cut. We broke bones and teeth, but there were no lawsuits; they were accidents of our own making. We soon learned not to do the same thing again. We had fights; we punched each other hard and got black and blue, but we learned to get over it. We walked to friends’ homes. We also, believe it or not, walked to school. Yes, we walked to school! We did not rely on our parents to drive us to school. Mind you, it was only just round the corner anyway. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live in us forever. I hope! We rode bikes in packs of six or seven, and wore our coats by only the hood. We stood on the corner of the main road and collected car numbers; we went to the station and collected train numbers (yes the original trainspotters). Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent’s bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Imagine that in today’s society, where it is always someone else’s fault, never their own.

As choirboys, Larry and I went to church twice on a Sunday i.e. matins and evensong.

And guess what? At both of these services the church was full every week!

So where did it all go wrong? Or has it gone wrong? Is it just the way life is lived today? Has the church stagnated or is it because we are different now? When Larry and I were choirboys, the vicar or curate would preach on hellfire, brimstone, hell and damnation. And, as I said earlier, the churches were full; and we were taught and led to believe that our God was a punishing God. Now we are taught that God is a loving God, and the churches are empty and some are even closing. Even the large Church of England church were I was a choirboy is now closed and has become a café/bistro.

It’s taken a couple of hundred years to come round to this way of thinking, so at least there has been some progress. Sundays now are no longer special to a good many people;

it is treated like a normal work day, or a day when people go shopping.

I wonder how do the children and their parents of today regard God and the church.

I sometimes think that God and the church are looked on like an airman looks on his parachute: It’s there for emergency but hopes that he will never have to use it. However, perhaps as we have done, should it not be said that I believe in God like I believe in the sunrise, not because I can see it, but because I can see all that it touches.

Not so long ago I was talking to some members of the local community who were not members of the church and I asked them how they would feel if Lamlash Church were to close because of the lack of members and money. The response was: “That must not happen. What if I want my children baptised, or married or even if grannie dies, it must be there for me.” But then it’s just a sign of the times that we now live in, and of course we cannot live forever in the past.

One of the problems I feel in trying to progress and bring the church up to date and fit for the 21st century is the word ‘tradition’. I fully agree that tradition has its place in any one’s walk or way of life. However, I think sometimes that it needs to be put on the back burner and we should look to the future.

Statistics have shown that if everything stays the same as it is now the Church of Scotland would cease to exist by about 2036. It is not tradition that will save our churches. It is moving forward and bringing things up to date.

When I was involved in doing the health checks on all the churches in the Ardrossan presbytery in Lamlash alone there were some 750 people who said that they belong to the Church of Scotland. And this was the same story throughout the presbytery area. If you multiply this up across the presbytery there are some 29,000 plus people who state that they belong to the church of Scotland. So where are they, and why are they not here, and should we not be doing something about outreach, rather, than looking inwardly all the time?

We are very good at sending missionaries abroad and supporting things like Christian Aid and Mary’s Meals. But when was the last time we carried mission out into our own community and invited people to come to church? In the 14 years that I have been here it has never happened. Okay, I am as guilty as the rest of us in this.

Today is Low Sunday and from the lectionary for today it states that the disciples were gathered together in a locked room, their fear and misery locking them in far more effectively than the door that they think is doing the job for them. I think that sometimes we are a bit like this: afraid to step out of our comfort zone and only believing what we can see or what we want to believe or do.

In a survey carried out recently on behalf of the Church of Scotland the question was asked: ‘why do you not go to church?’

The biggest single answer was that the church building was so old, dark and dingy, and not very welcoming, and too much was based on tradition. There we are again, that good old word tradition, tradition, and tradition.

Although we all change, as we get older and hopefully wiser, the church in many cases is staying the same.

However having said all this, there is one thing that we should always remember: That God’s love for us is constant and is there whether we want it or not, whether we move forward or stagnate.

It’s the same today as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow. God’s love for us is never ending and we in turn should never forget that, and in return should see that his church here on earth does not falter or fall by the wayside and perish.

Amen

Joan of Arc had a choice to make. She could have told her accusers that she had imagined it all, that God hadn’t spoken to her, that she was mad or ill. She could have denied what she believed to be true and perhaps she would have escaped her terrible fate.

The 4th of April is the anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, another man who had choices to make. He was a pastor living a fairly peaceful existence along with his family. He could have chosen, as many like him did, not to get involved in the struggles for equal rights for blacks. And after he began to speak out his family were threatened and he was told to stop for fear of his own life and that of his wife and children. No one could have condemned him if he had stopped right there. In fact many of his friends thought he was mad to continue, but that famous speech of his in 1968 told the world that his dream of freedom was not to be pushed aside or denied. He believed very strongly that God had spoken to him and that he was doing God’s will, just as it had happened with Joan of Arc, he could not deny nor could he ignore the voice of God.

They both made their choices and ultimately lost their lives at the hands of violent men. These were life and death choices and I am very sure that neither of these people was unafraid of what might come to them. Joan knew what her fate would be if she didn’t say what they wanted her to say and Martin Luther King had become very aware of the danger and the threats that surrounded him, and still he chose to speak up in public and ultimately died for his convictions.

Neither of these people has ever been forgotten.

Joan of Arc was eventually granted Sainthood by the Church, and Martin Luther King started a huge change in the nature of American society, a change that means that today the most powerful man in America is a black man. The story of the kind of bravery that people like Martin Luther King and Joan displayed in the decisions they took have been told to generations of children as an example for them all. Their decisions were based on faith and a belief that God had a job for them to do.

Every day we have choices to make. Our children are constantly being bombarded from a very early age with choices. When they are very young they find choices difficult to deal with. We have watched our grandchildren learning how to make choices as they grow. It’s a hard lesson when the choosing is done and they change their mind and realise it’s too late! It is desperately important to teach our children how to choose between a number of options and how to discern what is best to do in a given situation. At a relatively young age they may well be asked to make what could be life and death decisions. Nowadays the choices offered to our children are frightening ones and our sad statistics show us just how easy it can be to make the wrong choice.

Do I go along with my friends and take the drugs that they are offering me or do I go it alone and stay safe?

Do I get into a drinking culture just because everyone else is doing it or do I resist and end up being laughed at?

Do I sleep with my girlfriend or boyfriend just because they want me to or do I wait till I am ready and behave responsibly?

The High School last week had some special events and speakers coming along to talk to youngsters about health issues. They looked at sexual health and relationships, drug and alcohol use, eating disorders, domestic abuse and of course lots of positive things too: how to deal with stress, how to relax, not something that everyone is very good at. How to talk about problems and not bottle them up. How to make the right healthy choices in life. Almost every choice that we make will have consequences for us and for those around us. The person we choose to marry or live with, the friends we choose, the place we choose to live in, the jobs we choose to do. All of these things make a difference for good or for ill. How do you make your choices? Do you list the pros and cons of one action against another? Do you ask friends or family? Are there times when you need to ask the professionals: lawyers, counsellors, doctors, maybe even ministers! Sometimes we need informed advice and sometimes we just need someone to listen while we go through the process of deciding what to do ourselves.

But ultimately we are the only ones who can actually make the decision. No one can really take that step for us; we gather the information and guidance from others but we have to make the decision ourselves.

As Christians there ought to be another element though. Our first and final consultant, our counsellor in all of our decisions should be God. Decisions taken in and by prayer will be the ones that we can not only live with but also die with. God’s law indelibly written on our hearts and souls.

The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to a time when people did not need to literally carry God’s law around with them in little boxes; he looked forward to a time when God’s law would be written on all our hearts. We would know and love God so much that he would automatically be a part of our lives and thus a vital part of all our decisions. That could only happen through an amazing act of love. Even popular culture knows that love is the strongest emotion, that love can build bridges and change hearts and minds, can inspire poets and writers and painters, can stop wars and change whole cultures. These three things remain: faith, hope and love and the greatest of the three is love.

Jesus had to make his choice, the most difficult choice of all: to live as he had done as a man, or to die a death on the cross and bring salvation and freedom from sin to the whole world. To change the minds and hearts of a people for all time so that their chief motive in all things would be love and their destination would be to live forever with God in heaven. God spoke to Jesus in his anguish and he chose the right path. It was inconceivable that he might not have chosen the route to the cross and I can’t begin to think of our world if he had chosen differently. But even Jesus needed help to make that decision. Are we so arrogant to think that we don’t need God’s help in our life changing decisions?

Let us pray

Lord Jesus Christ

Present with us now

Speak to our hearts

And write your law within that we too might decide to travel with you

The road to eternal life.

Amen.

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Minister’s spring message

Dear Friends,

It’s been a funny old winter hasn’t it? The weather has been strange and, at times, unseasonable. We had become used to Arctic winds and lots of snow, and so in the approach to winter this year we all got ready! At least we did in the Manse. We scrubbed our deck and put away our plants; we got stocked up with coal and wood ready for our new stove. We got a new car and made sure it was winter-ready. We
bought some salt in readiness for the icy conditions. It was a sensible thing to do and we felt secure in the knowledge that we were ready for whatever was to come.

It just didn’t happen!

So, did we waste our time and our money?

During Lent and Easter we consider the promises that Jesus made to his disciples. One of them was that he would come back again. In the Church we call this “The Second Coming.” This kind of talk conjures up visions of men in sandwich boards announcing that THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! Well, despite these gloomy predictions we’re still here aren’t we? Year follows year and these predictors of doom have had to change their date more than once. But that doesn’t mean we should become complacent.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that we must be ready.

But how do we prepare for the promised “Second Coming”? How will we know when it is going to be?

Well, of course we don’t know, no one can. Being ready for it though is incumbent on us as Christians. Jesus taught us, in his life on earth, how he wanted us to behave towards each other. He asks us to be ready always to go the extra mile for other people, to care for those that others turn away from, to be a neighbour to all. He asks us to help those less fortunate than ourselves, to be honest and trustworthy and in faith to work towards peace and unity and acceptance in our churches and in our world.

Being sensibly ready for winter is always a good idea even if the winter we expect doesn’t come. Being ready for Jesus Christ is always a good idea. It can only be good for us to practise what we preach and it will surely benefit those around us. What better time to start afresh than Easter!

Wishing you all God’s blessing.

Gillean

Today’s story occurs near the end of their wanderings, the Promised Land was in sight and Moses asked the King of Edom if the Israelites could pass through his land. But the King said no, so the people had to make a long detour through very inhospitable country. Not surprisingly they were frustrated and discouraged and they started to complain once again. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, ‘Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!’ After wandering for about 35 years—35 years in which God has provided everything they needed, from quail, to manna from heaven, to water gushing out of a rock, the ungrateful shower say to God and Moses, Manna, manna again, we hate manna. We want a change.

And we read that God answered their complaints in a far from sympathetic way by sending poisonous snakes that bit many of the Israelites, who died! That did the trick, almost immediately the people changed their tune from whining to grovelling, they rushed to Moses and urged him to pray to the Lord to take the snakes away. But God didn’t! What God did was a very odd thing. He told Moses to make an image, an image of the very thing that was causing all the death and horror a bronze image of a snake and put it on a pole. And when anyone who was bitten by a snake looked at the bronze snake then they did not die. Now of course in the Ten Commandments the Israelites had been specifically told not to make any graven images because of the temptation to worship them and in fact in time the Bronze snake did become an object of worship. It was called Neshutan which means ‘piece of bronze’ and was eventually destroyed by King Hezekiah hundreds of years later because it was in fact being worshipped. When the people asked God to take the snakes away, God didn’t do that. Instead, God forced the people to look at the very thing that had caused so much pain and grief. The statue didn’t cure anyone, but by looking up at it the Israelites could see the loving, merciful God who gave them this chance at healing.

Now we might have a bit of a problem with this story because our understanding of God is not I hope one of a God who punishes people when they complain to him. Through Jesus we have been permitted to have a better understanding of God’s nature and we see him as the God of love, the good parent. On Mothers’ day when we think about our parents we can probably all remember times when they punished us for our naughtiness. But I hope that none of us had a parent who would have thought the appropriate punishment for a bit of moaning and complaining, even quite a lot of moaning and complaining, was to be bitten by venomous snakes! In the Old Testament there was a belief that when bad things happened it was a punishment from God for the bad things people had done, the sins they had committed. This view is still prevalent in eastern religions with the belief in Karma. In the book of Job, Job’s so-called friends were sure that the trials that were inflicted on Job were the result of some misdemeanours on his part. But as Job worked his way through his debate with God he came to the understanding that bad things are not punishments from God. Sometimes we bring bad things on ourselves by our choices. When a drunk driver crashes his car and kills himself then that is a case of cause and effect but in a lot of cases bad things happen for no reason. Poisonous snakes just exist and on occasion they bite and kill people. We live in a world where bad things happen to good people, where bad things happen to everyone and often there seems no reason behind it. For some people this seems a good reason for rejecting God. Either there is a God who wills bad things to happen or there is no God and bad things are just part of life.

This is known as ‘the problem of evil’, why an all-powerful and all-loving God allows evil to exist and it is a problem that has never been fully answered. It’s a problem we all have to face at different times in our lives and is a problem that we may find different ways of dealing with at different times in our lives. If God as it says in a popular chorus is ‘a God who didn’t care who lived away out there’ then people would be right to want nothing to do with him.

But Jesus let us see that God is not like that. God is love; God is here with his beloved people, caring for them more devotedly than the most loving parent. So Jesus used this story from Numbers to point to his own crucifixion, he says, And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

In this time of Lent as we approach Easter it is important that we take time to confront every part of the Easter story. Without the pain of Good Friday we cannot truly experience the joy of Easter morning. We have to stop and ponder on the meaning of the cross, not see it as only a means to a happy end. Just as the people looked up at a snake on a stick, not because the statue had magic powers but because God’s love and mercy could be seen there, Jesus says that his crucifixion is necessary so that the true extent of God’s love can be seen for all time. How much more shocking is the sight of a man dying a brutal death on a cross than a bronze snake on a stick. Yet both are symbols of God’s love and compassion.

When we focus on the cross then we can see the loving, merciful God who gives us eternal life. In the second half of the twentieth century after the horrors of the concentration camps and the dropping of the atom bomb many theologians including the German Jurgen Moltmann believed that a major concern of men and women was trying to make sense of a world where there was so much suffering and I think we can agree that this is still the case today. The media continually tell us about fresh horrors. During the week I was particularly upset to hear about twenty two school children and six adults being killed when a ski bus crashed in Switzerland. Why does this happen? Moltmann’s answer is that God does not condone or will suffering but that through the suffering, crucifixion and the death of Jesus, God allies himself with all who suffer in the world. Right from the start God the father and God the Son knew that the cross was necessary. They chose to accept that degree of suffering, Jesus chose to share the human experience of pain and death, God chose to give up his son Jesus to betrayal, humiliation, torture, pain and death and finally to abandonment.

As Paul writes in Romans God ‘did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.’ The pain that Jesus feels is real pain the death real death. The grief that the father feels is the infinite grief of love. The physical fact of the crucified Jesus means that when we cry to God ‘do you know what it is like to suffer pain and death?’ God answers ‘yes I do’. And when we ask ‘Do you know what it is like to watch a loved one suffer and die?’ God answers ‘yes I do’. The cross tells us that everywhere that there is human suffering God is there, not condoning it, not allowing it but with his beloved people in their pain.

And it also tells us that through the suffering and through the pain comes eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. God chose to allow himself to feel our pain so that he can lead us to eternal life, as Mark writes ‘to give his life as a ransom for many.’ In the wilderness God did not punish the Israelites for their complaining. As he had always done he provided for their needs, Moses to lead them out of slavery, Manna and Quails to eat, fresh water to drink, a bronze snake to enable them to be healed and eventually the Promised Land.

God is faithful; he knows our needs and continues to provide for us. He loves us so much that he sent Jesus to suffer and die alone on the cross so that we never need to be alone and to lead us to eternal life in him. The crucifixion is necessary so that the true extent of God’s love can be seen for all time. God thinks that we are worth it.

Amen

Nice, huh?

Life of the World

Oh the life of the world is a joy and a treasure,
unfolding in beauty the green-growing tree,
the changing of seasons in mountain and valley
the stars and the bright restless sea.

Oh the life of the world is a fountain of goodness
overflowing in labour and passion and pain,
in the sound of the city and the silence of wisdom,
in the birth of a child once again.

Oh the life of the world is the source of our healing.
It rises in laughter and wells up in song;
it springs from the care of the poor and the broken
and refreshes where justice is strong.

So give thanks for the life and give love to the Maker
and rejoice in the gift of the bright risen Son.
And walk in the peace and power of the Spirit
till the days of our living are done.

The National Health Service the Education System and all the other benefits that our modern Scottish society provides us with are nothing short of a modern day miracle! The majority of the world is in dire straits. The statistics from Mary’s meals annual report tells me that but then Mary’s Meals itself is a modern day miracle. In 2002 Magnus McFarlane-Barrow, a fish farmer from Argyll, visited Malawi and during his visit he met a mother who was dying of AIDS. He spoke to her son and asked him what his dreams in life were. The boy said, “To have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.” Mary’s Meals was born and so began a small feeding programme in the boy’s region. They began with 200 local children and now they feed and educate across the world in excess of 600,000. That is surely a miracle in a country like our own where one of the favourite national pastimes is shopping!

One of the other things I did on my holidays was to meet up with my grand-daughter on the Sunday afternoon. She was taking part in a basketball tournament. All the players are paraplegic and have limited ability, yet the games are frantic and as exciting (in many ways more so) as any able-bodied sports match. Every person is given a handicap score according to their ability so no one need be left out-I’m sure it’s very complicated working out who has won in the end but Lothian Phoenix Wheelchair Basketball Club is another modern day miracle! Able-bodied sportsmen and women with a little bit of time on their hands have started a club that offers hope and dignity to young men and woman and children who in past times, if indeed they had survived, would have been consigned to institutions or if they were lucky kept coddled at home and out of public view.

When I was a junior nurse of 18, I worked as part of my training in a hospital for people with a mixture of disabilities. The place was packed with poor souls, there was no time for individual attention. In some wards all three courses of the meal were served at the same time in one plate and many of them were locked up all day with no free access to outside space or fresh air. There was rarely the time or the resources to develop any skills the patient might have had. Many had been there from birth, placed there by parents unable to cope without help or ashamed of what society might say of their child. The fact that this no longer happens in this country is yet another modern day miracle. It began when one or two people stood up and were counted… when someone said what many were thinking. “This cannot go on, these people don’t have a voice but I’m going to lend them mine.”

These are miracles, all of them. Think of laser surgery to repair a cataract, keyhole surgery to remove a diseased gallbladder, little neo-natal babies of 25 or 26 weeks gestation not just surviving but growing up into fine healthy children. These are miracles! Okay so you can tell me that these things are a result of the development of our society and our learning of new skills and many years of research and that would be the case but the miracle is that people still care about each other. Why was Magnus moved to help children on the other side of the world? What was it that moved the hearts of those who saw the plight of the forgotten people in institutions across the country? What was it that awakened the senses of those who suddenly were moved to begin to provide sporting opportunities for people with disabilities? Why do people who could earn a fortune in private medicine in other parts of the world stay here and spend their whole lives trying to improve the lot of the elderly or the sick. Why do people leave their own home and comfort to go to places of deprivation and volunteer in difficult and dangerous circumstances to work with AIDS and HIV patients? One doctor, working with the Church of Scotland in Nigeria contracted the disease himself when blood from a delirious patient came into contact with a cut on his hand. He has since died.

To my mind, all of these things prove that Clod the Creator is alive and well and working through us.

“He does not faint or grow weary,” says the prophet Isaiah. We frequently grow weary and want to give up for the task seems so enormous. 300 million plus starving children in the world, there is so much to do. The prophet says “He does not faint or grow weary, he gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength.” The eyes of faith see the possibilities as well as the need.

Maybe we just don’t understand the mystery of human suffering and struggle with the concept of a caring God in amongst such need… well don’t worry about that either, don’t waste time in arguing about it! What does the prophet say about God. “His understanding is unsearchable.”

The needy are not interested in theological niceties or our arguments over doctrine; they are just there and their need is apparent for all to see. Many people want to help and wish they could help and worry about it all and discuss the rights and wrongs of corruption and governments who don’t seem to care, others just get on and become God’s hands and feet and hearts in the world.

Of course not everyone who has worked hard to alleviate suffering would profess to being a Christian but our God does not confine his inspiration to those who have signed on the dotted line of any one religion or denomination. If we want to be involved in the modern day miracles that are happening all over the world God will help us to make a difference. Just as Jesus gave Simon’s mother-in-law the strength to rise up and begin to serve there-our God will renew our strength and we will rise up on wings like eagles. We will run and not be weary; we shall walk and not faint. And today is the day to begin, and none of us regardless of our handicap need feel left out of the game.