Happenings 22 June 2018

"Welcome to our village, wee one." This was the instagram tweet sent out by Jacinda Adern at the birth of her little girl. I'm not sure exactly why our Prime Minister used the term 'village' - it may be a reference to the well-known African proverb: 'It takes a village to raise a child.' It may refer to the other well-known description of our modern world, 'Global Village'. Both references are worth pausing over. There is a greater richness that occurs when a group raises a child, and when multiple role-models and voices are filtered into a 'wee one's' life. In a world which has become increasingly individualistic and where true places of community are becoming increasingly scarce, this quote is a reminder that God has made us for interdependence. We not only need each other; we are tied together by bonds of mutual responsibility and have a duty of care to those around us, especially to the weak and vulnerable (anyone heard the phrase, 'Love your neighbour?") But the term 'Global Village' forces us to realise that our duty of care does not stop at our local borders. I applaud ministries that try to enrich the life of families. However, did you realise the New Testament actually critiques the practice of putting the nuclear family on a pedestal? In the gospels, Jesus changes the definition of what family is - it is no longer blood relatives but those who gather around Jesus and his kingdom. It is no longer just those we are related to who we care for, but the marginalised also. And in a global village where we hear about the marginalised on the other side of the world, perhaps God wants our definition of family to extend to them also. We have been reading and hearing stories through our season of 'Prayer and Self-Denial' of the lives of people ground down by need and oppression. May we also be to them those who invest in their lives in constructive ways. May we be also to them family, because they are in our village too.

In Him,
Murray