Yesterday the gospel reading was the whole of John 9, the story of the man born blind who is given sight by Jesus. Appropriately Amazing Grace was one of the hymns we sung:
"I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see".
But in my mind as we look at the world around us are these lines from this famous hymn:
"Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come:'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home"
Our world is in turmoil, with war faraway in the Middle East, affecting costs of life here in NZ as the price of petrol zooms above $3 a litre. I see many dangers, toils and snares ahead for us as a nation and for the church within our nation: this increase, if sustained because the war does not end, or, worse, goes much higher, affects not only whether we use our cars or not, it will flow through to every aspect of costs of life. For our parishes, already stretched with costs of ministry, there are significant challenges ahead.
We must double down on praying for peace - first and foremost for the sake of the lives of others: those in Iran, Gaza, the West Bank [some very worrying reports of Christians being massacred there by the IDF in recent days], Ukraine, Sudan and South Sudan.
But John Newton also reminds us in the verse cited above, that "grace" - God's unlimited kindness, mercy and generosity - will lead us home.
We also must double down on being a people of faith, not of sight.
Thanks +Peter.
ReplyDeleteThe faith/sight thing is interesting to think about.. both are so important! Thinking about sight in particular.. there's how we see the world "out there" and how we see ourselves. My line of thinking is prompted by a fascinating essay I read this morning discussing a song from Ireland in the 1990s called "Zombie". There's a line from the essay in the context of political polarisation and "moral battles" that reads, "Followers are encouraged to see themselves as defenders of a cause rather than participants in a shared society."
I think it's profoundly important when *seeing* "the world" we work hard at discerning truth from lies; and for ourselves, that we *see* ourselves as "participants in a shared society".
[My focus has been on "sight" but finding hope is so hard for a lot of people right now - and *our* hope is rooted in faith - so I'm not in any way diminishing the massive importance of faith!]
Link: https://www.pasturepolitics.com/p/zombie