Learning Life

Any church, a community of people joined together with some focus on the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, should welcome any, and all, questions. It should also help people discover a whole range of answers. I’d like to explore that big statement by thinking about a few large events over the past few months.

First, any questions and a welcoming church. It was fascinating to be here on Friday evening when Orchardhill hosted BBC Radio 4’s flagship panel discussion Any Questions? but I want to speak of the idea rather than the event.

For here we were, in a building used for Christian worship, welcoming the nation to discuss key issues of the day. Not only was it a great space – it was a fitting one. I overheard the young chaps sitting near me being surprised that a church could be warm. It was bright, friendly and comfortable, and looked great in the floodlights with the twinkling Tree of Kindness showing, immediately, a concern for others.

What better place than a church  – and this church is ideal – for people to gather to talk, explore and consider? If we extend that idea only slightly: what more fitting location than a place of worship to be also a place of creativity and endeavour, where music may be learned, children taught, wood crafted, songs sung, and technology put to good use?

I don’t simply mean the building is a good size, well located and beautiful to look at, though it is. We surely exist as a church, in part, to be a place of questioning, creating, conversing and thereby constructing a richer, fuller, better world.

And I don’t mean this in an exclusively religious sense. I simply mean you, the people in this place, have a gift of hospitality. I encourage you to keep on using it.

If you do that, you will be a bit like the court of Solomon. Like us, he lived in a world of ‘competitive knowing’. Just like us, he lived surrounded by people and institutions offering insight and knowledge, learning and the prospect of progress. That’s why, in the passage, Solomon’s knowledge is compared favourably with the people of the east, and Egypt, and Ethan; and Heman, Kalkol and Darda, too. There wasn’t a dearth of learning and knowing – quite the opposite – but whatever Solomon offered, it topped them all. And people came to listen and learn.

In these days, when uses for church premises (and therefore the task of the people of God) is becoming more demanding, can I encourage you to continue to be a place where any questions are welcome? Thinking Aloud is a great example of this sort of creative engagement, but there are many other examples as you meet to talk, think, study, pray and share. 

Scotland appreciates this hospitality. I was privileged for the overnight period to sit in St Giles – a Church of Scotland church – beside the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth as thousands quietly passed by to pay their respects. So I saw their faces: solemnity and gratitude, respect and thanks, appreciation and love. And it was all done, not in a parliament (as in Westminster Hall in London), but in a church. And no-one thought that odd. Indeed, there was every sense that it was right, and fitting. The church welcomes people of all faiths from all places in the world for a most significant moment, and they are happy to come in.

That was very recent. You will soon celebrate here the centenary of learning for children starting for this community. It did so in this very building. It could not have been more fitting that Giffnock’s first school found a welcome in Orchardhill Church. 

If you think of creative ways to use all your buildings, and shape your activities along these lines, you may find the church plays host to all sorts of people. If you do that and hear criticism, remember it is nothing new.

Gordon Donaldson, former Royal Historiographer in Scotland, notes that as far back as the fifteenth century:

‘the church was the only public building and, despite legislation to preserve its sanctity, was constantly used for a wide range of secular purposes. … It fulfilled the functions which today belong to broadcasting, the theatre, the newspaper, local government offices, council chamber, law courts and social centre. Donaldson (1985). Scottish Church History, p.223.

Any questions? They are welcome. For all are welcome in this place.

The calling of the people of God is, though, do more than to be good hosts. We want to welcome and encourage exploration and creativity, and we do that gladly and without setting preconditions. But we also want to stand for what we believe, to share our commitments so that others may be encouraged, where they agree, to join us. And we need to step out in inspired action, and look for others to make common cause with us. 

In all this, we must not fail to discover what God may call us to become, and how God may take to do with us in our lives. Almost every part of this building points to God at work in the world, and in Christ. Our actions and our talk should do the same.

I don’t mean that we should be unduly pious or that everything we say should have a religious reference – that would be difficult to endure. But I do mean we should make use of the richness of the gifts we’ve received to think well, together, and to share our lives. These gifts include our history and tradition, the wide and considered thinking about God at large in our world which is accessible to us over the past thousand years (and especially the last hundred), and the gift we have in one another and in opportunities to meet to worship, talk, and serve together.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus was able to find space in the Temple area to speak with anyone who listened. What did he speak about? Well, tax and personal spending choices.  About marriage, divorce and social relationships. He offered a surprising strategy for employee remuneration. He pushed the then-acceptable limits of healthcare provision. And he did all this in the place specially reserved for worship. The authorities might be painted black in the passion story, but in providing space to meet, they offered hospitality at the heart of worship. Jesus, uses that, and goes on to do far more than welcome.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks about God, and of people’s need to seek God out in life. It’s not all easy stuff. Jesus was not always clear and unambiguous. He divided opinion, but that must mean people had opinions. Jesus was not someone easily ignored or dismissed. In much of this, Jesus pointed people to himself, ’Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ Some thought him a prophet, others the Messiah. And people have wondered, and trusted, and taken a stance on that ever since.

In the world just after the First War, when the optimism of human progress had been trampled into the mud of Flanders’ fields, an Aberdonian theologian spoke up for Christ through his writing. PT Forsyth wrote powerfully of the need for people to engage with God in Christ. Not just to think about what Jesus said or did, but to meet the living God who comes to people not because they are brilliant, but because God wishes to bless. In that time of war and death, of realising that human progress would never itself produce a perfect peace, Forsyth wrote:

‘And the question is not, ‘What do you think of Christ?’ but ‘How do you treat him?’ It is not what he is to you. It is more even than what he is for you. And still more it is what is he in you. And are you in him? That last is in some ways the most crucial question of all.’

It is the task of the people of God to enable you to find yourself in Christ. We will only do that as we are, together, in him; and as we open the doors to enable others to come in, too.

Richard Last, in an article earlier this year, draws an intriguing picture of how this might be done, and he looks to the life of the early church, which often flourished in cities. When Christians gathered for worship back then, probably in a flat in a tenement or in a back court, those in the neighbourhood who were going to their work or the shops might hear what was going on. If there was singing in worship or a preacher speaking of Jesus’s life, they might pop their heads round to discover more. The worshippers were neighbours, maybe friends. Not all who looked in would have joined in this early church, but some clearly did – and the church grew rapidly.  Richard Last says:

‘The success of Paul’s assemblies probably would depend on members’ openness to people living nearby, for whom the gathering places were conveniently located, whether they practised Christ worship or not.’ and he continues: ‘Christ worship on this street could co-exist harmoniously, at least in Paul’s thought, with the other practices and identities that characterised life in the neighbourhood.’
Last, R. (2022). Christ Worship in the Neighbourhood: Corinth’s ekklēsia and its Vicinity (1 Cor 14.22 – 5). New Testament Studies, 68, pp.310–325.

In other words, the early Christian communities were, in the name of Christ, places both of warm welcome and distinctive declaration. Nearly twenty centuries on, we may be very much the same. 

I encourage you, then, to welcome broadly and warmly, but not to stop there. Explore and discover, together with any who wish, what Christ is offering us and all people. Listen to his call to everyone who hears, to experience God’s love in him in life-transforming ways, to be bold to speak out for justice, and to live with generosity and compassion. Allow the questions, and offer some answers.

These two aspects of welcome and witness both matter. In the days ahead may you do both fully, and discover in this joint practice an increase of friendships and the growth of faith in Jesus the Christ, the giver of life.

And to God be glory. Amen.

Until fairly recently I was a parish minister in south Glasgow but, in the past year, I’ve swapped standing behind the Communion Table for sitting behind a desk.

Even before I was confined to an office for much of the week I had come to value going for long walks on my own. One, which I remember clearly, was from Barrhill to Glenluce Abbey in beautiful Dumfries and Galloway, a distance of about fifteen miles which I planned to walk in both directions on the same day. I managed it, but not without pretty painful blisters by the end!

The little bit of research I’d done before I set out made it clear there weren’t many facilities on the route. In fact, there weren’t any at all. Of course there’s the road, a little single track one in good condition; so there was no need to navigate and there was no danger of getting lost.

In the entire day, though (and I walked pretty much continually from about eight in the morning to just after six at night), not more than a dozen vehicles passed me. For hour after hour there was no-one around. There was also no phone signal for much of the route.

I walked this route in the summer of 2018, which you might remember was a long and warm season. The weather that day was perfect. It was sunny, dry and the temperature was the high teens – ideal for the outing.

The scenery was outstanding, too. After the fairly steep climb out of Barrhill, the view opened out across a wide moorland. There were three main signs of human activity: the wind farm at Arecleoch with the white turbines turning leisurely in the light breeze that day, the railway line running through Glenwhilly on the way to Stranraer, and a few farms dotted around the countryside, though few of them lay near the road.

Apart from that, it was deserted. I saw the trains, some distance away, make their regular trips back and forth past the fields of sheep. The farmhouses dotted here and there reminded me that I wasn’t wholly without help if I had needed it. In the main, there was moorland which must have looked like this for centuries.

I was walking here in one of the driest summers in recent years. I don’t think it’s always to inviting and pleasant. It’s the west of Scotland, after all, so I suspect that, most of the time, it’s raining and windy right across the moor. There are no shops, and no services. There are no signs to tell you where you are, or how far you have to go. There are no benches or interpretation boards. Part of the attraction of it is that it is wild and unspoilt. You really are on your own.

Or are you? The area is quiet, but is not uninhabited, and it has never been empty. When I was preparing for walking this section of the Whithorn Way, I came across a little of the history of the Glenwhilly area, and I’d seen there was a memorial to the Covenanter Martyrs in Barrhill at one end of the walk, and also the Peden Memorial church in New Luce village, near the other end.

It turns out the church is named after an Alexander Peden who was inducted as minister there in 1559. Only three years later Peden was one of around three hundred ministers forced to leave the church after the restoration of Charles II to the throne. That’s because Alexander Peden was among the Covenanters who struggled to maintain presbyterianism in south west Scotland in the face of government opposition.

Peden, having been forced out of his church in New Luce, began preaching the fields and moorland round about. It struck me as I ambled along like a tourist, that 350 or so years before, a minister had travelled much the same route, but probably in the rain and wind – and the snow. He would have hoped for a deserted moorland because the alternative might have been to come across Royalist troops, ready to arrest him – or worse.

He took to wearing a mask and wig as a disguise – a frightening and, to my mind, rough – mixture of leather and fabric and, probably, human hair which he wore as he travelled so that he wouldn’t be recognised. You can see that mask today in the National Museum of Scotland, and it’s hard both to imagine something rather frightening being used by someone whose calling was to preach a gospel of grace, and something so home-spun playing a part in keeping him from being killed.

The road is easy to walk, but away from the tarmac surface the ground is uneven and boggy, patches of grass and moss mingling to make progress difficult. I suspect the route of the present road has been used for centuries, but back then it’s likely to have been a muddy, stone strewn track. While that’s better than toiling across open moorland, it’s also where the greatest danger would lie, for that’s the route the Royalist forces would also have used.

Knowing just this little bit of background as I walked along, I was struck that life can be precarious. There was a tiny element of risk for me. Had I gone over on my ankle, or stumbled and fallen, I might have had either to wait for a few hours for someone to pass, or make it another mile or two to the next farmhouse. If I had been lucky, I might have been in an area with a mobile phone signal. If not, I could, with some effort, have got to one. Yet out there on the moor, a good handful of miles from any of the things I take for granted and with no way of catching a bus, calling a taxi or getting a train, I felt of that slight sense of risk which is, I think, part of pilgrimage.

For Alexander Peden, the level of risk was altogether different. He would have travelled secretly across these moors, seeking shelter and support in little farmhouses and, perhaps, hiding in a hollow in the ground if someone thought to be less sympathetic were passing. I’m less interested in his political or theological preferences, which I think are quire different from mine. It’s his courage in the face of possible danger and his commitment to the cause which he understood to come from God that challenges me.

These verses come from Luke’s Gospel, the first nine verses of chapter 13:

At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”’

It’s unclear what the Galileans had done, but it sounds as though they had travelled down from the north to sacrifice at the Temple. In other words, they were pilgrims who, sadly, found that pilgrimage can, indeed, be a risky business.

Pilate, who was no stranger to cruelty, apparently not only had them killed but mixed their blood with that of the animals they had like bought to sacrifice. It seems a wicked act and you may be forgiven for thinking their fate was awful because these Galileans were wicked people. ‘Don’t believe it’, Jesus seems to say. They aren’t worse sinners than any other Galileans. (I’m not sure what that says about Galileans in general but, given Jesus was one, he can’t have thought they were all bad.) The building collapse at the tower of Siloam didn’t kill eighteen especially bad people, either. It’s just that, well, bad things happen.

The parable which follows suggests that, with the resources which we find to our hand and in the time we have available, we should be fruitful. A fig tree with no figs is next to useless, but the gardener plans that it should get all the help it can this year, in the hope that bearing fruit next year may stop it getting the chop.

There are plenty people across the world right now whose journeys and whose lives are at least as precarious as Alexander Peden’s. That’s not because they are promoting the cause of presbyterianism. It’s because the chaos which is the bitter fruit of conflict in their home areas has left them no alternative but to start walking towards a hopefully better life. In other places it’s because the year on year drought and the failure of yet another harvest means there is no hope for them if they stay put; and they have to get going. In yet more, the unseasonable flooding caused by a changing climate means that the old ways which sustained generations are being washed away in the rain and river waters. All this means people trek thousands of miles, often westwards, in the hope of security or some prosperity, not infrequently in Europe.

Some of them pay to be put in flimsy inflatables which try to get across the English Channel. In the past five years, more than 150 people have died trying to do that. These people are not more wicked than me – or you. It’s just that the luck of their location, their birth and upbringing, places them at greater threat than those who, by living as nationals in a European or American nation, have it pretty easy. They are, because of their situation, more desperate – and so they take greater risks. In turn, that opens them in their vulnerability to greater exploitation.

Others, though, stay where they are. They try to till soil which has turned to dust because the rains have failed for a fourth, or fifth year in a row. There is no water, nothing grows, and food becomes ever scarcer and, so, more expensive. Others remain in the chaos of the town where they have perhaps lived, dodging sniper attacks or fearing that, like Peden three and a half centuries ago, they might run into a military force unprepared to let them live as they wish. And so their daughters are not schooled, work dries up and with it almost all hope of anything that resembles normal life to them.

None of this can be right.

The answer is not to trade places; Jesus doesn’t suggest anything of the sort. He does, though, challenge perspectives. He encourages, too, a type of fruitfulness in life which is prepared to pay some price and accept some level of discomfort or risk to contribute to a better, fairer, safer planet for more of the Earth’s inhabitants.

That could mean lots of things, from political campaigning to climate activism, and from giving practical help to changing our lifestyles to reduce carbon consumption.

It’s fine for me to wander into the countryside for a day and tell you I’m taking a risk. The real truth is that life is, for many, too precarious. I only begin to sense that, and only in a most limited way, on a long walk far from the ordinary structures which make up my safe society. What is unusual for me is commonplace for many millions.

And for millions more, the thought that there might be someone passing in a few hours who would be prepared to help and not rob or kill makes south-west Scotland sound like paradise.

It may be that, in reminding me of the fragility of much human life this passage also helps me see the value of all human life. Those who are well resourced bear a responsibility to be fruitful so that risk and danger might be reduced for those who find themselves in all sorts of peril. We have a long way to walk, though, until everyone reaches a place of safety like that. Yet a walk of whatever length starts with the first step, and the destination is reached by keeping going and not giving up.

And now, a prayer:

God of the wild moorland and the comfortable living room;
present beside the warm hearth and on the rain-sodden road:
in you we see the worth of each fragile, human life
and recognise a planet supporting us, and entrusted to us.
In a world of violence and discrimination, exploitation and suffering
and on this planet where
the lives of those who are poorest are the most precarious
do not let us sit back in judgement.
Instead, inspire us to get up, walk further and give more
that peace and security might prosper
and the fruit of the Earth grow well
for the good of all;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

There are two principles which apply whenever we read the scriptures with a view to learning how to live as God guides. The first is that no passage can mean to us what it didn’t mean to those who first read it. God’s Word to us is, first, God’s word to them. The second is that our application of its principles has to be set in the situation we live in. No passage should mean to us only what it meant to those who first read it.

These two ideas, that interpretation is historical (it takes seriously the world in which it was produced) and that it is contextual (we take seriously our world in which we read it) are principles which matter in considering this passage in light of the Presbytery Mission Plan.

Let’s think first about what happened back then in Nazareth (read through the lens of understanding this after the resurrection, for that’s when it would first have been composed). Only after that can we think about what might happen across Glasgow Presbytery. Finally, there are some suggestions for what you might think about in the coming weeks and months.

First then to Nazareth. It’s a reasonably small community where people know each other. They’re probably not wealthy, but they are skilled and they are getting by. They’re not city-dwellers but are a bit on the edge of things and they may quite like that.

It might be rural and primitive by our standards, but it is still functional and faithful. There is a synagogue and worship goes hand in hand with teaching and learning. Boys – though not girls – are taught to read and write. Men – and to a lesser extent women – know and discuss the scriptures. There is a strong God-sense among the people.

Jesus has probably spent a deal of his childhood years in and around the village. He may have been away for some time more recently and so there’s a sense of a local hero returning as he comes to preach in the synagogue. He’s recognised not only as one of them but as a prophet. More than that, gossip in Galilee is that he has done wonderful things down at Capernaum – which you could walk to in less than a day but isn’t somewhere you’d visit regularly.

When he speaks, everyone is amazed. They understand he speaks with grace as he speaks of God They’re surprised and perhaps delighted that ‘one of theirs’ is so articulate and wise. It’s all good.

But what a difference half a dozen verses can make. By the end of the passage, the same folk who were singing Jesus’ praises at the start are now enraged. They not only tell him to get lost but manhandle him out of the town. What has caused this huge difference in their attitude?

I suspect this passage, written after some reflection, has shortened what may have been a longer period of Jesus speaking the same sorts of things. We have a summary of that message in these middle half dozen verses. And it’s the message with its significance that I want to explore.

The message is a brief retelling of two narratives which Jesus shares with the crowd, and they are the cause of the change. The stories are about the widow in Sidon, and Namaan from Syria. The teaching is that God doesn’t only focus on one particular place or people and not even on the special place where Jesus grew up – or the people who live there.

The passage cited in the title didn’t include the verses from Isaiah which Jesus read, the verses he said had been fulfilled in the people’s hearing that day. They were words about good news preached to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind and release for those who were oppressed, not least by the occupying Roman force. All this is wrapped up in the phrase ‘proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

It’s all great stuff. So why would you not lap it up and applaud this young, inspiring preacher?

Well, because he is saying in the stories about Namaan and the widow: this Good News isn’t only for you. This is a word for the world, and not just for the people of Jesus’ home town. Everywhere is special and therefore nowhere can claim an advantage over others.

It’s no accident that Jesus tells his listeners – who would have known these stories – that the widow Elijah was sent to wasn’t in Israel. Namaan is a Syrian, not one of the Jewish people. It seems that the point which tips people from praising Jesus to pushing him out is his insistence that the gospel – the good news of God – is for everyone.

As soon as you think mainly about yourself, or your own interests, or your community while not thinking more broadly, you’re pushing Jesus out. And he goes out, for there are many more towns where he needs to preach and declare the invitation of a holy God to turn round, believe, and live.

If this is written in the light of resurrection, it may be influenced by the instruction to make disciples ‘to the ends if the earth’. The early church understood the global reach of Christ. Perhaps this passage is one dealing with the tension between what’s for us, and what’s for the world.

I hope you can see where these ideas are rooted in today’s passage. I need to go on and suggest what that message might be saying to us today, at a time of significant reductions in ministry.

If everywhere matters to Jesus then the place where you meet, worship and serve matters to Jesus. Your fellowship and your area have a place in the heart of God. Even in the face of reduction in paid ministry the Presbytery – which is simply the gathering of the people of God in the Church of Scotland in this area – cannot and does not wish to ignore you. That doesn’t mean things will stay the same. It means you, and your work, has value.

Almost everywhere is changing. But it does mean that you matter. Your service here matters. Sharing faith in community, helping people understand and experience God’s life in Christ through faith and discipleship all matter. Helping people live better, get by, raise children and care for parents all matter, too. Presbytery is not walking away from you.
However we all need to walk and I would like that to be to walk together into a more challenging future with fewer paid resources and where serious questions are asked about buildings.

The General Assembly has told us that we are losing around half the number of ministers we presently have across the Presbytery. That’s partly because there isn’t the money to pay for more ministry and also because fewer people through the years past have responded to God’s call to enter ministry. There aren’t ministers around and there isn’t the money to pay for them if they were there. That distresses me – but it’s how it is.

We need to make best use of the reduced allocation of 84 paid posts across the Presbytery where we currently have just over 140. No church will be able to stay the same and have the same full time ministry input. We will need to be creative and think differently. But this also means we leave nowhere on their own.

Presbytery has been told we have 12 extra posts because of our Priority Areas and it’s been decided to use all these 12 posts to serve as additional ministry across the 28 or so Priority Areas. Presbytery is not reducing its proportion of priority for those who are poorest just because resources are being cut. Around 67 posts will, then, be available for all ministers and parish Ministry Development Staff workers to cover the city which runs from Cardonald to Cumbernauld, from the Fenwick Moor to the Campsie Hills.

It means for you that you will need to engage in talks with other congregations round about to see how best the reduced ministry resource can encourage and support you and urge you on to greater service. Either ministry will be shared with others or congregations will come together.

Presbytery is, I think, keen that these difficult decisions aren’t imposed but are worked out in each place guided by what local people believe is best. I encourage you to be involved in this as fully as you can.

This means you’ll need to talk openly and courageously with neighbours and others to see how paid-for ministry might be spread out, and how many more might be encouraged to make themselves available to God for works of service through learning to do the sorts of things ministers presently do. These are challenging days, but they are also ones of real potential and opportunity.

The other challenge is that Presbytery need to say which buildings are to be kept, and which disposed of, in the next five years. We want to keep a presence in communities across Presbytery. But we also know some buildings aren’t fit for purpose. Or they’re in the wrong place. Some are too expensive for the local congregation to heat, light, insure and maintain. It’s hard to see how these can be kept.

But the buildings which are well suited to their work, which are well maintained, aren’t too costly to keep open and are in the places where the people are ought to be retained and used as fully as possible to be an asset for the community and the church. It will be challenging to work out which buildings are which and the Presbytery Property committee along with the General Trustees will give some help in this.

We need to make all these difficult and demanding decisions no later than the end of the summer so that this can all go to Presbytery, the Faith Nurture Forum and the General Trustees in time to be fully and finally approved by the end of the year. It’s a very demanding schedule. It’s one imposed by the General Assembly, the people if God across the nation who met last May.

It’s so demanding you could be tempted to give up. I want you to think again if that’s how you feel.

I wonder if the problem which caused the conflict in Nazareth was that its residents thought Jesus’ programme threatened to diminish them? They may have thought he would have focused on them, but his perspective is always larger. Yet it was because Jesus had that wider vision that Nazareth became such a familiar place name to countless millions.

Had he kept himself within Nazareth, the rest of Israel, far less the world, may never have heard the gospel. Jesus always had to go further.
He called his disciple to do the same, though their initial focus was Jerusalem. For them, being witnesses in Galilee was a step towards the whole of the Earth.

None of this was new in the working of God, as the widow in Elijah’s time and Namaan when Elisha was prophesying already knew. Men and women, younger and older, people of high rank and those more likely to be overlooked – all these are in Jesus’ mind as he speaks with his townsfolk, endures their anger, and walks on.

Where is Jesus walking today? And where are we walking in relation to him? It does feel as though we are at a cliff edge, and ministry numbers are about to fall off the edge.

Yet the cliff edge is also the place where they stand beneath their hang gliders. It’s only when there is no earth beneath their feet that these pilot can fly. Thermals and wind and skill all work together to keep the hang glider in the air. But without the first steps beyond the security of the cliff, none of that becomes possible.

It takes, I imagine, great courage to take those first steps. It will take us here in Glasgow, and you here in Wallacewell, courage to work out the future and walk towards it. But we do so together, and primarily in the presence and company of the Christ who walks on, to the next town and the one after that…

The Christ who calls to follow him wherever you are, and not to stop following.

It looks as though the restrictions on meeting for worship shall continue for some time. That means there’s a need for material to use in on-line worship.

I’ve put together a collection of the hymns kindly prepared over the past ten months by David Fisher and Connor Going and which we used in worship every week from Orchardhill. You’re welcome to use these in your own worship setting, and if you do we’d be delighted if you’d credit David and Connor, and let us know where you’re using this material.

You can find the complete list of hymns here.

I concluded my ministry at Orchardhill Church on the first Sunday of 2021. At that time I demitted, or stepped down, from parish ministry to take up a post as Clerk to Glasgow Presbytery for a time.

I think I’ll miss the joys and challenges of parish ministry, not least the task of producing, each week, a sermon which takes an ancient text and makes connections with contemporary life, and in all of that recognising some complex but nonetheless real influence of the the eternally present Spirit of God in human activity.

Over past weeks I’ve pulled together the sermons I preached during the four and a half years I ministered here. They’re available to download and, if you do – and read some of them – I’d be interested to know what you make of any of them in your own life and faith experience.

I’m grateful for the encouragement I received as people engaged, from time to time, with some of the material I posted here.

I’ve tried to draw together some sources of advice, assistance and funding focused on the East Renfrewshire Council area in case this is help to local people.

Business and employment

Citizens Advice Scotland has this section of its website dedicated to a range of Covid support facilities. Note this is reasonably extensive and takes you to a number of further sites.

East Renfrewshire Council has a website dedicated to Covid issues, including the impact on Council services, support for local businesses and third-sector organisations, and advice for those who are self-employed or who are seeking employment. This includes a range of business and sector-specific support, with late-breaking information also available here.

Support is available directly by email, for businesses and for personal debt or money advice.

More generally, the Scottish Government has a Business Support website, while Business Gateway Renfrewshire has links to a number of business-related support services.

Likewise, the Federation of Small Businesses has a set of pages addressing a range of issues connected with Covid while the Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce has a fairly lengthy list of sources of advice and possible assistance.

Health and wellbeing

The NHS has produced a series of articles on mental wellbeing while staying at home, with a similar collection of tips and insight from the Mental Health Foundation. RAHM – Recovery Across Mental Health – offers techniques for coping at this time along with classes and opportunities to speak about concerns.

To find out about the incidence of Covid in your area, visit the Public Health Scotland website.

Finally, advice and help from the Church of Scotland can be found on the church’s national website.

As I think on these past eight months, I feel a bit like an autumn leaf swept down the river. Just as the leaf has no control over where it travels, so there is a sense of not being quite the master of my diary or my destinations as was the case, well, just this time last year. Like you, I’m told that I cannot see friends or even family. Restrictions are imposed only to be relaxed and tightened again. And none of this is the government’s fault, for the number of cases seems so quickly to spiral out of anyone’s control.

One thing I am sure is that these events will change us – not just in the immediate present, but for a long time to come. The ways we engage with one another, the entertainment we enjoy and the employment the younger generation shall – or shall not – have is likely to be affected over, perhaps, the next decade.

What might we make of these changes, and what might faith say to us as we anticipate the changed lives we are likely to live? Here are some thoughts.

These changes might tend to take us more towards things which are individual than those things we do together, and more towards personalisation (in the sense that we first think about what’s in it for me) than conversation (when the priority is the larger group, or at least includes you and not only me).

Of course, it needn’t be like this, for we are not like the leaves in the river and we can swim against the flow. But going against that current won’t be easy. And in all of this, life in church is likely to change, too.

We are more individual. We’ve not only been forced to isolate – we have learned how to live more apart than before. It’s not always pleasant, but we have found out we can frequently work miles from colleagues, if we are connected sufficiently – if not ideally – by the firm’s data network. Banned from theatres, people have streamed to streaming video. Large, high-definition and generally affordable TV sets bring the cinema experience to your lounge, and we might be tempted not to return to Cineworld (which, in any event, is now closed until spring).

I used to enjoy going to Waterstone’s for a coffee and a browse round the bookshelves, but in these weeks I’ve discovered how to brew my own espresso in my own home, and from there to order books which arrive in a few days, or in a few hours if I piggy-back on my family’s Prime account.

This may be fuelled partly by my personality type, but months of restriction are habituating me to a more insular life. Is it doing the same to you? This may be fine, until we remember last week’s sermon in which Gillian reminded us that loneliness and isolation is becoming a significant factor in ill-health.

There was much more to the Orchard Cafe here in church than coffee and cakes. Yet all the interaction, the chat and laughter, and the looking out for each other was only possible because someone put the soup-pot on. Are we at all able to do that again soon, even to a limited extent, and do it safely? We need to get together again, even as we are carried down a stream of doing our own thing.

Things have become more personalised: individualisation is replacing conversation. Just a year ago, my church-going friends worshipped once a Sunday, perhaps twice if they were keen. I now speak to people who consume three or more services each Sunday. They sit at home, drop in on their favourite worship leaders, watch for a bit, then head elsewhere. I heard of a friend in Prestwick who has discovered Mass led by a priest somewhere outside Inverness. He has a winsome way on Youtube and a wicked sense of humour. Taking the elements used to matter to her, but now she’s not sure she wants to return to the local, boring fare when she can enjoy the holy humour from near Huntly.

That, too, can be taken further. As more people become more interested in watching material at home or on their own, so more of that type is produced, and systems develop to enable easy distribution to a willing market. Social media, advertising and suggestion algorithms – and the way we naturally gravitate to what’s familiar and enjoyable for us – means there is a real danger we narrow, rather than extend, our field of view. Our devices pump similar pages and comments to those we’ve viewed or liked. In any event, we all like to have our views affirmed rather than challenged.

We can live in an echo-chamber not entirely of our own making but fuelled, too, by technology and selfish tendencies. Conversation with those whose view differs can become, then, an unnecessarily laborious effort, one we decreasingly need to make. We’re in danger of driving ourselves apart, driven by technology which wants to turn a profit from what we like.

This long Covid time means that much has been imposed on us, but that doesn’t mean we cannot use this time to advantage. It may demand significant change, and it might cost us a bit. But it has the potential to enable us to serve God differently, and better. So let’s turn to the Bible for some inspiration.

In today’s passage, Jesus and Peter share breakfast on Galilee’s shore. We often leave the last paragraph of this conversation alone. We like the idea that Jesus restores Peter and gives him the task of feeding Christ’s sheep, but we’re uncomfortable that when Peter is old, he will stretch out his hands and someone else will dress him and lead him where he does not want to go. It’s uncomfortable to think that Peter will become a prisoner, will be taken under someone’s the authority and won’t be the master of his own destiny.

This is likely to have happened. Peter may well have suffered imprisonment and death as a martyr in Rome. As a prisoner there, he may have felt prevented from being the disciple of Christ he would have wished. How could such a constraint be within the will of God? How can Peter follow Jesus when he can’t take more than a dozen steps without someone giving him permission? Or, is it in such weakness and powerlessness, in the requirement to serve obediently elsewhere even if that means doing apparently very little, that the purposes of God are realised? It’s all quite awkward and unclear, and so you can see why we often leave it alone.

Except that the awkward parts of scripture have a habit of speaking to awkward times in our lives. I think we’re a bit like Peter at the moment. We’re told whom we may meet (and not many at that). We’re prevented from getting together with friends, or to celebrate joyful times, and even to say goodbye to those we love. We’re prevented from going where we would always have gone, and doing what we have always done.

Perhaps that’s the key. Maybe part of our response to this situation is to accept that thinking merely in terms of returning to ‘business as usual’ is not, at this time, to think as God intends.

Back in the middle of May, when most of us were still trying to work out how we might keep things as similar as possible, the United Reformed Church was going further. Their national offices produced a booklet called ‘Ready for the new normal’. You see what they are thinking in the title of the last part of the booklet: ‘Taking stock, reviewing principles, doing things differently.’ That’s what we shall all be required to do.

We know that business as usual is not an option for the Kirk, either. In 2019 the General Assembly embarked on a Radical Action Plan, but this was overtaken by events less than twelve months later and we are, now, heading down a route charted by what’s called the Faith Action Plan. At its heart, this Plan aims to inspire the whole church – individuals, congregations, presbyteries – to make known that Christ came so that every person may have life in all its fullness. This includes a particular concern – a bias – for the least in our world, especially for those who are poor and oppressed.

This Plan aims to support the development of the Church’s life of worship, prayer and study to help individuals and congregations explore and discover faith, and deepen their understanding of God’s mission in the world so they can get more involved.

The Plan pushes us to build and maintain partnerships with other churches, civic society and faith groups in ways that enrich and enliven our congregations; and to develop relationships with local and global partners to share stories, pray together, and walk alongside one another to achieve solutions to our shared and individual challenges.

In this Plan, we are challenged to promote action on issues of need, marginalisation and exclusion for people living in Scotland and around the world. It’s our job, along with others, to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, healing to the sick, and freedom to the oppressed.

What is being asked of us is nothing less than, as people of Christian faith, we enable others to see and know the love of God through the witness and actions of the Church as body of those believing in and following Jesus Christ. This isn’t for someone else. The whole Church as individuals, congregations, and presbyteries are to respond to all this – and to the climate crisis – with prayer, advocacy and action.

This doesn’t sound like business as usual. It sounds to me like a commitment to connected activity which stands counter-culture to a more self-serving society such as we have become in the past six months. It requires us to work more closely with each other even as that is harder than ever to achieve at the moment, and to recognise as partners those beyond the close friendships we have in any one congregation or social media bubble.

It may be that we are being led where we might rather not go. It is daunting, and it shall be costly, and we will need to do new things, and do old things in new ways. But the possibility held out to us that by being involved in this work, which we trust is part of the developing kingdom of God in our time and situation, is that God will be glorified.

I encourage you, then, to step up and play your part, and do so in the belief that God is calling us to a changed, and increased, discipleship in 2021. The hope is that, just like Peter, a time of constraint and restraint might enable us to focus on what really matters.

In doing that, we may be better able to glorify God. That has been the key task of the Church throughout the generations. It remains unchanged even in changing times. As God’s grace does not alter, we can trust that we shall be led in ways that are good and right; and which lead to life not only for us, but for all.

This will not come as a surprise to you: sometimes, our motives are mixed. We do things for a variety of reasons, and discover that even our best intentions aren’t always as clear – even to ourselves – as we thought. This is different from saying that there are unexpected consequences to the things we do: there are, and frequently we can’t tell the whole extent of our activity. Even our motives, though, can be not entirely clear to us unless we look closely.

Let me talk about Christmas present planning to give a brief illustration (and this is not too early – advent candles are already sold out online at John Lewis and we haven’t reached October). I once came close to the cliff-edge of gifting. It was early in our marriage, I was naive and we were making our little house into a home. I verbalised my possible intentions in those heady, romantic days of newly-wedded delight.

I told Karen I was thinking of getting her a new vacuum for her Christmas. I thought it would make the housework more fun, and easier for her. She didn’t get that for her Christmas, and I have got to do most of the weekly vacuuming for the past thirty years; an outcome much less serious than being pushed off that cliff.

Sometimes we just don’t think about what we’re doing – or, at least, we don’t think sufficiently deeply or fully. I wonder if there is something of that going on in the passage from Micah which we read today.

It is prophecy in two senses: it speaks about God, and it tells of what may happen in the days to come. It sounds positive, at least initially, with the prospect of large building projects. They will be so impressive that nearby nations will come on tourist visits, and that will be a sign of riches and success, along with territorial expansion across much of the then-known world, from Egypt all the way east to the Euphrates. Who wouldn’t look forward to such days of prosperity and delight? You can almost hear the people saying, ‘Bring it on!’

And then, in the next verse, there is a note of caution and concern. ‘The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the result of their deeds.’ That desire to conquer, and construct, leads not only to structures which dazzle but to desolation. There’s no doubt in the prophet’s mind that the two are connected. I’m not reading into this a twenty-first century understanding of over-use of natural resources. I am thinking that now, as then, motives can be mixed and unclear. Not only are we uncertain where we might be going, but we don’t even know what our actions in the present time are achieving.

There would have been a large and significant conference in Glasgow next month where high-level negotiations among all the developed and developing countries would have sought to limit the negative effects of climate change to manageable levels. This would have been a big deal, but it has all been put on hold because of Covid-19. Last month saw Earth Overshoot Day, which came slightly later in the year due to the same virus-induced shutdown of much industrial activity and travel worldwide.

Since we are currently sitting in the middle of these two events I met up with Jaime Toney, Professor in Environmental and Climate Science at Glasgow University. Jaime is a geoscientist whose expertise and research focuses on understanding how climate, environmental and ecosystem changes in the past can inform us about the changes we are experiencing today and what we might expect in the future. I wanted to ask her how high climate change issues should be on our agenda, and what this has to do with us and with Earth Overshoot Day.

I was intrigued by the whole idea of Earth Overshoot Day and came across the little online quiz where you can calculate your own overshoot date. I’ll be honest, and say that I thought it was pretty scandalous that humankind used a year’s resources a little into the eighth month. So I typed my details about travel and my modest car use, the little flying I had done over the past twelve months and so on into the calculator.

I thought my overshoot day would be around mid-November. I was shocked to discover it was in fact mid-April. To sustain my lifestyle, the Earth’s resources would need to be 3.4 times greater than presently exists. I encourage you to try it for yourself, because awareness often precedes action.

Let me finish, though, on a positive note for that’s what Micah does in today’s passage. Of course the motives of the people are mixed and the outcomes are unclear. Development and desolation go hand in hand, and we see that across the world today.

Yet there is more. There is the image of God as the Shepherd of God’s people, caring for them as they enjoy rich pasture. I’m less taken by the exclusivity of the image, that this little tribe apart from all others will be the focus of God’s care, but I read this in the light of Jesus’ teaching that God is for the world world and God loves all people.

There’s a clear distinction between the din of construction machinery and the quiet of the pastureland, a difference between people’s headlong rush to develop, build and consume; and the gentle grazing of the flock on the grassy hillside.

Perhaps it is too poetic, too optimistic, unrealistic and ideal. Or, perhaps this passage invites us to look more deeply into our motives, and those things which fire and energise what we actually do. This is not so much about knowing the end from the beginning, but recognising that we are complex and we live in a complex world of mixed motives, possibilities and challenges all around.

We need someone to lead us. Someone to set the biggest of principles which will help us set our motives in positive directions. Someone who will inspire hope, and aspiration, and effort and direct it in ways which are, on the whole, more for good than ill and for the benefit of more and not fewer.

We need a Shepherd, but not one who commands and rules but who, instead, lays down his life for his sheep. For it is the example of self-giving leadership, of refusing the lure of excessive consumption but denying self that others may have a fairer share, which lies at the heart of the hope for our planet.

It will not surprise you who fits that bill for me. I therefore encourage you in this area of our common life as in others, to look to Jesus who is the pioneer and finisher of our faith. It may well be that his principles of generosity, devotion and contentment, grounded in the holy and just love of God, have the potential to lead us well in the difficult days which lie ahead.

As Christians, we would have no quibble with the priority given to the two commandments to love God wholeheartedly (whole-mindedly, too) and to love our neighbour as ourselves. We might even remember that the difficulty of definition has been dealt with to some extent, as well. Our ‘neighbour’, to answer the lawyer’s question, is anyone we come across who is in need. We are to be like the culture-crossing, danger-facing Samaritan who helped the Jewish victim on the steep and lonely road down to Jericho.

Yet that story might trip us up. We might think that neighbours are only those whom we come across, perhaps those we literally fall over, who need our help. Those who knew their Old Testaments, and not only the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, would have a broader idea. It is one which is particularly relevant for us in this period of reflecting on climate issues in this year’s creation time.

Leviticus isn’t a go-to book if you want fast-paced action and adventure. It’s filled with all sorts of rules and regulations, some of them quite far removed from the world we know. Yet there are also deep insights and matters of principle we do well to pay attention to. One such section is in chapter 19.

This chapter reads a little like the Ten Commandments. The people are to ‘be holy, because the Lord is holy’; they are not to make idols and they are to respect their father and mother. They must not steal, deceive one another or rob their neighbour.

But this chapter goes further than the Ten Commandments in a number of areas. one of these is the passage we read today. When a foreigner lives in the land, the people of God are duty-bound not to ill-treat him. Indeed, there’s to be no distinction between those born there and those living here, or born elsewhere and now living among God’s people. The commandment is: Love your foreign neighbour. You do that in quite practical ways by not using false measures to short-change those who buy from you, and by leaving the edges of your field so that those who are poor may go in and help themselves to what you have left.

There is an obligation of some generosity, and it is owed to those who share the same space. The fields from which you eat are to be the fields from which they eat, too.

On this understanding, your neighbour is not someone culturally different and in desperate need whom you come across on the way. It is the person from another culture – and there is a common theme in Leviticus and the parable – who shares the same resources as you. In a world where transport was by walking, you can see the limits of neighbourliness might only stretch a dozen or two miles. In a world which you can fly around on commercial airlines in just over fifty-two hours you can see that we need to treat the whole world as our neighbours.

That’s also because our food and clothing, our cars and tech is sourced from all across the globe. We may have little ideas whose hands made the things we will hold in our hands today as we drive home, prepare meals or send a message to a friend. These are our neighbours, too, because the total impact of human activity on Earth is felt across the globe. We are making a contribution to global warming whose effects may be felt far from here, and in the same way we can take steps here to lessen temperature rise which will have benefit much further away. Almost as never before, we are as a human race aware that we are in this together.

Yet some are in, in deeper ways, than others. The sea is rising and for them the effects are already being felt. Generally these are the poorest people, for those with resources get up onto higher ground. For the facts, have a look at this animated infographic from the independent European news source, Euractiv:

Graphs don’t tell the story in the necessary graphic detail. All these figures are folk – people who lives and families are affected as the world warms. The story isn’t wholly negative, as this piece from The Economist shows. It is possible, with investment and adaptation, for those on the margins to profit from some climate change:

Yet for many, climate change poses a threat to life. If we are to take the ancient commandment to love our neighbour seriously today, how might we go about doing that? This video from Christian Aid offers a way of thinking theologically, and responding practically, to support our fragile friends.

Now, which of these suggestions might you take up? What is today’s equivalent of not going over our vines a second time, or reaping to the corners of our fields? When foreigners reside in our world with us, how do we prevent our way of life from ill-treating them? However it happened, it is clearly not good enough that a young mum seeking asylum in Scotland was found starved to death with her emaciated son by her side – and that up the road in Govan just a month ago.

There’s much to think about here, and much to do. As people of faith, we are called to love not merely with words but in action. And so, this is the time for us to consider not only the style of our living, but the contribution we may make, as God’s people, to the welfare of the world.

My colleague, Gillian Rooney, offers this reflection on the second Sunday in Creation Time.

My girls are particularly fond of the book and film franchise A Series of Unfortunate Events. To encourage readers, the author writes this on the back of the first book:

Dear Reader,
I’m sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book, when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.
In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.
It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

Like the Baudelaire children, Job is a very unfortunate man. Terrible things occur in the story of his life and he is left begging the question, ‘Why?’ ‘God, Why?’

Job would be forgiven for believing that all things are random and that there is no plan or design at the root of the world.

At the start of this book, Job would have been like many of us. He would have been happy to sing along with ‘all things bright and beautiful’; now, though, toward the end of the work, he is all too aware of the dark side of creation, the stuff that we don’t want – or like – to talk about. Now, Job has to ask why is this happening.

The Book of Job is not, of course, focussed only on creation; rather it poses the question of justice and how God can be understood to be just in the face of suffering and tragedy.

This is a question that will surface for us all at some point in our lives. Now, in these Covid times, it is one that we hear often. ‘Why, is this happening to me, to us?’ The world we live in is both wonderful and terrible. It is a place in which we live alongside the fullness of nature’s diversity.

I want to take a moment or two to think about our place and perspective in this world as highlighted in these passages at the end of the Book of Job. In the story Job, as we know, has experienced tragedy after tragedy. His friends come to give him comfort and counsel (although I am not sure if they would be invited to join a pastoral care team).

Job has questions that he asks of God about the way his life has gone, and wonders what he has done to deserve this. He feels that creation has run amok, and that God has potentially abandoned it. Job feels that he could probably manage it better. This is again, perhaps, a charge that Christian people are no strangers to hearing and maybe wondering about themselves after natural disasters, or personal tragedies – and maybe, too, in these recent difficult times.

The scriptures in chapter 38 are the beginning of God’s reply to Job. Finally, God has turned up and responds to this wretched man. However, rather than giving him a straight answer, God starts to interrogate him. This is not how Job might have hoped this confrontation would pan out! In the course of God’s speech to Job the ways in which the world has been ordered and structured are pointed out. The world Job lives in is not random.

God tells Job, asking him rhetorical questions such as, ‘Were you there when I laid the foundations?’

In the next chapters, God goes all David Attenborough on Job and introduces him to a series of wild and wonderful animals. In the long roll call of animals that are mentioned, the only potentially domesticated beast is the horse. All others are volatile and sometimes dangerous, and even the horse is a war horse. Job, and we, too, are reminded that the world is not safe and predictable, that it cannot be controlled completely by us. Psalm 104 v 24, in The Message translation, affirms this by speaking of a wildly wonderful world God has created.

Despite the conspicuous absence of humanity in this creation story, Job (and through him the readers of the book) are the audience for the speeches made by God. The only nod to humanity in this story is this presence of Job as the Creator takes him on a whirlwind tour of His creation. Just as Jesus invited us to consider the splendour of the lilies, God invites Job on a walk around His garden. We are helped, then, to understand that humanity does have a place in God’s creation – yet we are not the centre of the cosmos. It is not all about us!

Job is invited to see the world from God’s point of view and to reorient himself to his own place in that. The story of Job and also in Psalm 104 encourage us to put God at the centre of creation. Then we may all, the plants, the animals, the rivers, live in trustful dependence on God.

In these divine speeches of which we have only heard a part, God paints a picture of the world that is wild, beautiful and free. The wild donkey laughs at the noise of the city (where the humans are), the wild ox will not plough the field or bring in the harvest, and the sea creature – the Leviathan – mocks the attempts of humans to capture or tame it.

The freedoms these creatures have are out-with the control of humans, but this freedom does not mean that there is chaos. Rather, there are boundaries – and they are set by God. He places bounds on the sea. The universe is a vast and complex place, but we are reassured that God has His eye on all of it, down to the smallest of details.

This is surprising to Job as, in his previously limited world, he was at the centre of his universe. This, too, may strike a chord with our contemporary world when our view of creation can be more than ever restricted to the view from our windows.

During lockdown I joined a Facebook group called ‘the view from my window’, and the rules were simple – a picture from your window and no people allowed in it! This was great and interesting daily viewing for me, seeing sights from across the world: snow scenes in North America to beaches in Rio, alleyways in India and small gardens in Bali. This is a hugely popular Facebook group with literally millions of photographs shared on it. Why do people love these simple photographs of exotic lands and scenes, these snippets of another place? For me it expanded my understanding and vision of our planet and my own place within it. It gave me perspective about my life and the lives of others.

Our wonderful world, one that harbours so many untamed areas such as the sea, that ancient symbol for chaos that will never be fully explored. Yey that, too, has a place in the order of creation.

The world is full of mystery and beauty and we have a place within it. The more we can learn about how other people experience the world, the richer our own lives will be. In this biblical book, humanity’s place in the world is not one of dominion, but one of humility and of wonder.

It’s a wonderful world and it is not fully controllable by us; we have a part to play within it, to do our part to bring order out of disorder and be good stewards of the planet and its resources. But as God reminds Job, He, the Creator, is ultimately bigger than the creation

Part of our role as people who follow Jesus is to become aware of the diversity of the world and where we stand within it. One of our tasks is learn more about what changes we can make in our lives to preserve the beauty and the freedom that exists within it. Looking further than our own window, trying to understand the world from the perspectives of others will enrich our lives and understanding of the creation in which we live.

We shall never fully understand this world that we live in, and like Job we may never get a straight answer to the questions that we have. Yet God reassures us that God loves us and asks in return that we trust in His wisdom and character. To be sure that He is present with us through the Holy Spirit and that, even in times of disorder and uncertainty, God’s presence is a truth that we can hold on to firmly.