Rivertown United Reformed Church

DEESIDE PASTORATE

Minister’s Letter for September 2011
“Love never gives up”

Have you ever considered how amazing it is that this world continues to exist? Given the old Indian proverb, “when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled”, isn’t it almost a miracle that some parts of the world have survived the effects of mortars, shells, semi-nuclear attack? Why was the poppy was chosen for remembrance? Because on the battlefields of Flanders, after fighting had ceased, the poppy was the first thing to spring up into life and blossom. A sign of love from a source beyond time?

And what of “Weed-Power?” No – not a mild version of “Day of the Triffids” (for those who remember the film in which super growing trees seemed to threaten to take over the world). I’m thinking of the way a single weed can, given time, break through solid concrete up to a foot thick. At Harvest time we tend to think of flowers, fruit and vegetables, grown in specially prepared ways and places. But isn’t the whole earth constantly sprouting new growth, wherever there’s half a square inch of ground? Sprouting as if to say “I’m here, I’m powerful but gentle – and I’m not going away…look at me…notice me…for it’s me you are constantly fighting over…look to me, and see the love that flows through me, reminding you of where you came from.”

Think for a moment? The whole, terrible banking crisis was about housing, about land. The Middle East – a symbol for the umpteen unresolved territorial disputes. And climate change – that’s about how we have raped, polluted, ill-treated the earth, so that remote tribes’ ancient homelands are being flooded out of existence – and we in the western world are starting to fear the power of the rain. And in Africa and elsewhere, whole areas – and peoples – are literally dying out because of drought. Have we already forgotten the almost millions at death’s door in the Horn of Africa?

Yet with each disaster, earth’s (God’s?) people fight back. Each disaster reminds us that we need each other – right across the globe. Just like the broomstick waving heroes and heroines of Clapham, of every age, colour, background and belief – who came out on to the streets to clean up after riots. Love that cannot be destroyed, for it is part of God’s very making of us. Love that holds families together, against the odds. Love that, silently, holds this world and its people together, even former hardened enemies in time, in an embrace of the heart - that says, to quote St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians “if I have no love, I am nothing”. Without love, we do not grow, but become more like animals, fighting for survival, seeing all others as threatening enemies. Was that one of the reasons for 9/11, whose bereaved still mourn, whose living victims still gasp to breathe – and go on dying? Have the past ten years taught us to love each other more?

Gardening has become fashionable – the tender nurturing of living things. Gardening reveals a beautiful, yet fragile world requiring the tenderest of touches. God touches us daily, gently, with the beauty that we see around us, and yearn for in our hearts. The beauty we see in Jesus – his life, his willingness to embrace death, to “love us to the very end”. Love did not die on the cross – it was reborn into the world.

I hope to meet you at our Bolognese and Barn Dance on Saturday 24th September – I am no dancer, but I enjoy a Barn Dance! I would also invite you to consider joining me in a Climate Change Lobby in Manchester on Saturday 1st October. Organised by CAFOD, Christian Aid & Tearfund, it will run from 12 – 7.30pm. Coach seats can be booked from Sr Vianney in Shotton (830692) or Christian Aid Bangor (01248 353574 or email aevans@christian-aid.org).Action by the G20, and the UN Climate Change Summit, suppoted by our Government (Tory Party Conference starts soon after) to help the world’s poorest cope with climate change.

And – when you look at the displays of flowers, fruit, and veg – remember – they are an expression of God’s love. For you, and all God’s children.

Your friend and minister, Colin