Upcycled in safe hands

It’s ‘Pass it on week’ from 7th-15th March. Organised by Zero Waste Scotland the campaign aims to change our thinking about the stuff we own. We’re urged to re-use and recycle rather than to bin, to buy wisely, no longer regarding ‘second hand’ as ‘second best.’ We’re encouraged to share, swop, repair and (a new one on me) ‘upcycle’ which involves giving new life to something - for example an old garment – by jazzing it up.

 ‘Pass it on week’ is an event Christians can enthusiastically support. We believe that the planet has been entrusted to the human race. The wise use of resources, the simplicity of de-cluttered lives, the challenge to share with others – these fundamental principles spring from our faith, though we don’t always find it easy to put them into practice! The ‘Pass it on week’ web-site has lots of suggestions to help us get involved.

In another sense too we as Christians pass things on: we share what’s important to us. Before we even open our mouths we’re already sharing through our lifestyles, our actions, our demeanour. But we will also be ready to pass on, in words appropriate to us, the experiences and wisdom we’ve acquired; the lessons we’ve learned; our beliefs; the things we’re passionate about; the story which shapes our lives centred on the God who came among us in Jesus.

It’s the story of a God who draws near in our pain and sadness, when our superficial efforts to change have failed, the God who upcycles our lives from the inside. We’ll tell it like it us, tell it honestly. We will be real!

And in yet another way we ‘pass it on.’ Recently Oliver Sacks the 81-year-old New York-based neurologist and author published a moving article reflecting on his focus and thinking as he approaches death from a recently-diagnosed, untreatable liver cancer.

Sacks is not a religious man – or perhaps science is his religion. But he writes of ‘the privilege of being a thinking animal on this beautiful planet.’ He shows a gratitude for life which, though not consciously addressed to God is surely heard, and welcomed by God.

What struck me most was Sacks’ sense that the time for him to be actively engaged in the world’s burning issues has passed. He mentions the Middle East, growing inequality, climate change and the care of our planet.  These are no longer his business, he says. ‘They belong to the future.’ They can be passed on to the next generation.

‘I rejoice when I meet gifted young people – even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.’

Responsibilities are passed on from generation to generation. We do not own the planet – it is our privilege to live here, curating earth for the future. Each generation takes the story forward.

The same principle applies to Christian church and faith. Each generation must find God for themselves, discern what God is doing in their time, rethinking as appropriate old beliefs and practices in the light of new learning.

Our role as older Christians is not to seek for our own comfort to preserve things the way they have always been, but to pass on the challenge to those who are younger, encouraging them to prepare themselves to be God’s people on earth in a future we will not live to see.

Let’s make the coming week a time when we ‘pass it on’ in all these ways.

But if we’re all to practice ‘passing it on’, then equally we must each be willing to receive. To accept we don’t need to buy everything new; to be humble enough to receive stuff from others; to make space in our hearts to listen as people share what’s meaningful to them, especially when, like Oliver Sacks, their lives are shaped by a different story; to receive the challenges which are passed down to us by our elders or to welcome the new challenges which old age brings.

‘The world is in safe hands,’ wrote Sacks, looking at the upcoming generation. But will the safe hands be enough to contend with the malicious hands of those who spread terror and seek to grasp wealth and privilege at all costs?

As  Christians, we believe that at the end of all things the ‘bonnie broukit bairn’ which is our world will be upcycled by God and that in the resulting new earth there will be no hands but safe hands.

But in the meantime, as custodians of God’s world may our hands be safe hands, sustained by the settled conviction that no matter what shadows fall across the earth, in God’s safe hands the future is secure.

If you believe this – please pass it on!

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 5th March 2015)