Tag Archives: Love

Who is my Neighbour?

4th Sunday after Trinity

Bonfire night in July. And then there was the Moygashel bonfire with its life-sized effigy of a boat, containing life size refugees in orange life jackets. Eerily lifelike in silhouette. And hellish when it was lit – like humans on fire. A hate crime.

In Sri Lanka, during the worst ethnic riots, the country burned. Buildings and cars were set alight, with people put inside them. Burning refugees, even in effigy, is hellish – I have seen where such dehumanising hatred leads.

Continue reading →

The Elder Son

As part of my placement with St Clements and the Dock Café, I sat in on the Mission planning meeting with the bishop some weeks ago. It was exciting and thought-provoking to be with a congregation thinking about the future, and I was inspired by the presentations about a vision for reaching the community with God’s love. (And, because I am training for ordination, I took down a lot of notes and ideas – which I hope you won’t mind me using someday). So thank you to Chris and all of you for inviting me to sit in on the meeting.

The mission meeting at St Clements also set me thinking. About how easy or difficult it is for us in the church to welcome people in? To associate with people from various backgrounds, with various histories, with those that our society considers outcasts and sinners? Continue reading →

Love one another as I have loved you

28 April 2013, 5th Sunday of Easter

Many years ago, as a student in Nottingham, I experienced something that continues to remind me of Jesus’ words that we read this evening. “Love one another as I have loved you. By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you have love, one for another.”

A vicar and his wife offered me accommodation in the rectory flat. I accepted the offer, because I took an instant liking to David, the vicar, and Pixie, his wife and their four children. I discovered that the flat was rent free but it was also semi-derelict, and completely bare. Its walls needed stripping, and it had no kitchen and no furniture. I returned to Sri Lanka for three months due to family illness and began to worry about how I would sort the flat. Then Pixie emailed me: the church would take care of it. Continue reading →

Love your Neighbour

28 April 2013, 5th Sunday of Easter

The news this week was dominated by the tragic collapse of a clothing factory in the Savar district of Bangladesh. Three hundred and fifty people have died– so far. Six months ago, a fire gutted another factory, killing hundred workers. In the past decade seven hundred have died in forty similar disasters in the clothing factories of Savar. The sad truth is that thousands of workers return, day after day, to dangerous factories, to produce clothes for high street brands – for us!

All these things happen in faraway countries, to people of whom we know little. Apart from compassion and pity, how should we respond?
Continue reading →