Christmas, Cholera and Plato

Yesterday I received two very challenging emails. Each one touched my heart in a deeply significant way. So, this morning I set aside my regular devotional material (A guide to prayer for Ministers and other servants from the Upper Room) and reflected upon, and prayed about, these two emails.

I thought I would share them with you.

First, there is an email from one of my past students, Rev Paul Oosthuizen. It was deeply challenging in relation to Christmas and the cholera outbreak right on our Northern border in Zimbabwe.

"A Christ healed Africa for the Healing of the Nations"

I was rereading Sheldon's "In his Steps" and was struck by the poignant moment of a young man falling down in church of hunger an desperation. Are we those who speak of Christ but do not follow Christ. Do we adore Christ as a means of avoiding following him.

Pictures and stories of the crisis in Zim just do not make sense in the light of our Methodist call and vision- many have criticized Mbeki and others for their quiet diplomacy- but looking at the start of Advent and my own preparation for Christmas I have just wondered what kind of silent Diplomacy I practice- my own silent diplomacy with evil, my own selfish self-interest in food and pleasure whilst others climb border fences to access medication and food.

What will it mean to be Methodist this Christmas- can I stand in the pulpit and preach a sermon celebrating Jesus entering this world in human form whilst humanity has become so inhumane and indifferent? I don't know what I will preach maybe I must be silent.

I am a probationer at college about to enter station and there is a sense of impotence in being unable to shape and form a community into a response to this crisis. There is sense that the Mission Congress and Mission statement may well be rendered meaningless this Christmas for me. We have congregations with wallets loaded with Christmas bonus', calenders crammed with leave and I wonder if these resources will simply be used as if we are no different from those we do not proclaim Christ.

Can I ask that maybe each of us this Sunday at the start of Advent just take 5 minutes and open a conversation from the pulpit and wonder with our congregations what a Christian response might look like. Maybe invite our Bishops to co-ordinate a concerted response- rehydration packs cost cents, drips, medicine and doctors a bit more.

Merry Christmas
Second, was this reflection from Verse and Voice (the sojourners email daily thought).

Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.
- Ezekiel 34:2-4

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

- Plato