From the minister.
Living on the edge.
I spent the last
weekend of November in Sedgley, Ruth’s home town in the West
Midlands. I had been invited to lead worship at Ruth’s parents
church on the occasion of their church anniversary. Like our church,
theirs also is called St. Andrew’s, and they always have their
church anniversary on the Sunday nearest to St. Andrew’s Day
(30th November).
My theme for the
service was ‘Living on the edge’ – about how at a
church anniversary we are on the edge between a year that is finishing
and one that is just beginning. As well as church anniversaries, we
could say the same about each New Year. As we stay awake until midnight
on the 31st December (if that is our custom) we say farewell to the old
and welcome in the new. At church we no longer have Watchnight Services
in the way we di in years gone by, and we have let the New Year
celebration slip into an essentially secular event. But that should not
stop us from reflecting on new beginnings, which is after all a central
theme of the Christian faith.
The other aspect of living on the edge that I developed at the anniversary service at Sedgley was
reminds us that Jesus was born as a stranger away from his parents’ home town, he was born in a stable because there was no room at the inn, and his family were forced to flee for their lives and to live as refugees in a foreign land. In adulthood, Jesus took time to be with those whom nobody else seemed bothered about – the outcasts and the poor; he lived an itinerant life belonging to no one particular place, and he died outside the city wall.
The example of Jesus of being on the edge might lead us to consider our extended families, those on the fringe of church life or those on the margins of society. Within these categories, who might these people be for you?
Year, as we find ourselves on the edge of the old that is passing and the new that is yet to be, let us consider what new ways might we wish to take as we seek to follow in the steps of Christ in being a people on the edge.
May you have a blessed Christmas and New Year.
Phil.