The love at the heart of all being

When we were going into Hilton Church in Inverness last Sunday, they gave us each a bauble to put on the church Christmas tree. I thought this was a lovely idea, giving everyone a sense of togetherness, a sense of the church as family.

That morning, my wife was teaching young children at the church she attends about the birth of Jesus. She gave each child photos of the people in their family. The children pasted these pictures on a sheet of card Lorna gave each of them, at the top of which a prayer was printed: ‘Just like you gave Jesus a family to be born into, thank you God that you gave me a lovely family.’

I was moved at the Hilton service by a prayer led by the Rev Hector Morrison. He prayed, among other things, for people in the church and in the community who were parents of still-born children, or of babies who died in the days immediately after their birth. And he prayed for those who lost children in this way many years ago when hospital staff were less aware of the needs of people in their situation, so that they weren’t permitted to hold, or even to see their dead child.

Hector prayed for peace and closure for those who were desperately wounded in this way. I am sure that God brought healing and hope through the very saying of these words, the very acknowledgement of hidden pain.

This is church at its best – not hiding from people’s pain, but through actions and words embracing those in pain with the love of God.

74-year-old Dr Anne Townsend – medic, missionary, Church of England minister and psychotherapist - is a lady who has been influential in my life, mainly through her books but also in one or two letters and a couple of phone calls. This week, I read addresses she and her husband Dr John Townsend gave at a conference on Christian attitudes to ageing.

Anne spoke about her mum, a redoubtable lady who lived beyond the age of 100 and who, despite having been deprived of speech by a stroke, loved life. Anne told both horror stories about Christian attitudes to her mum – the clergy who couldn’t be bothered to visit the old lady in her care home, giving the impression that they had more important things to do – and stories of grace and acceptance – the Christian who engaged with, and welcomed her mum, took her to church in her wheelchair, and made her at home at family events where she often had the healing joy of holding and cuddling babies.

John Townsend spoke of his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease, and the reaction of his friends when he told them. He found that some people were afraid of losing the John they had known for so long, and that rather than being the one supported, he had to help others cope with his diagnosis.

Some people abruptly changed the subject, some refused to accept he actually had the condition. Only a few really listened as he shared his fear of losing his identity, of being marginalised, and above all of losing in the grey mist the sense of God which daily sustains him.

By the time the service at Hilton Church began on Sunday, the Christmas tree was festooned with a motley assortment of baubles – big and small, plain and embellished, shiny and matt. Just as, in the church family, we are all different, with different stories and different needs. Young, old and in-between. Healthy or unwell. Strong or weak in faith. Joyful or depressed. Heterosexual or gay. Struggling – with finance, with addictions, with relationships, with life.

All the kids Lorna worked with on Sunday were indeed born into lovely families, but the fact is that some of the people in any church on any Sunday will come from families where not everything is lovely. How important that, as a church, we are family to everyone who comes through the door. We all belong on that tree.

We need to listen to one another, to empathise, to be aware of our own fears and agendas and set them on one side. The Christmas message is that in that baby, God came among us. God is with us. God knows us. God cares for us. God’s agenda involves us. God is not afraid or indifferent. God loves us.

The church family is not always as ‘lovely’ as it should be, but ultimately it is not something we struggle to create, but something God is at work on, a community where we can encounter more deeply what a speaker at the conference John and Anne Townsend addressed described as ‘the Love that is at the heart of all being.’

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 13th December 2012)