This morning, following the first service, I dashed over to St Mark’s who was celebrating their 120th Anniversary. It was a truly moving two hours of testimonies, worship and unity with fellow religious leaders.
Yet the most moving moment came afterwards: while people were queuing for lunch a little girl called Zara, who I baptized at the beginning of the year, asked if she could sit on the chair next to me. Somehow she inveigled me into ‘reading’ to her a story. As I made up a narrative about a brave bunny this little four year old leant with her chin on the table transfixed.
Jesus was so present in a little girl with pink bows and Minnie Mouse type pig tails feeling at home going to ask the quirky minister from a completely different background to read her a ‘stowry’.
In no way purporting to be Jesus, it is my hope that we all identify with Jesus so easily and freely that we feel totally comfortable and can go and sit with him and talk.
Guilt
Most evenings I go bed with a deep sense of guilt about the folk I haven’t got to during the day. There are so many responsibilities, visits and messages that just can’t fit into the hours available.
Tonight I was annoyed with myself at the hospital patients who I have not yet got to, when I was reminded that sometimes we need to focus not on what we have not yet done but rather on that which we have.
If Jesus only saw the sick, marginalized and exploited without hope or the possibility of them experiencing God differently – there would have been no miracles, transformations or insight.
It will be a long time before I am able to shift my perspective but we all need to celebrate the blessing before we focus on the bad.
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