Sometimes it's a nuisance having a month's timelag between my writing this letter and you reading it. But just now I should very much like to be out of date. If only, by this time next month, political and military crises in Gaza, Zimbabwe, Congo and elsewhere were to be completely solved, leaving their inhabitants only the normal problems of everyday life to cope with! But sadly, problems that have built up over generations will not be so easily resolved. So my question this month will still have relevance to you next month: how should we as Christians in Sheffield react to such terrible events in the world beyond our doors?
Should we decide that such crises, however horrible, are too far removed from our experience to have any connection with us and our lives? But that's not actually the case, for the world is an ever smaller place, and people from Zimbabwe and Congo regularly worship with us and use our building for their services.
Should we feel overwhelmed by both the magnitude and the complexity of these conflicts? I often feel tempted to do so, as radio and television, politicians and activists give us graphic pictures both of the suffering involved and the way in which all parties feel themselves aggrieved and in the right. What chance have we got to understand what's really going on? Yet in reality, the more we attend to what people on all sides of the dispute are saying, the better chance we will have both of taking an informed view and of empathising with their pain.
But what's the point of that? you may well ask. Isn't there enough pain in our own lives and the lives of our friends and family - illness, job insecurity, money worries, loss - without wallowing in more pain that we can do nothing about? If we really could do nothing about the world's pain, I'd agree with you - that would be misery for the sake of misery, which has nothing to do with God's good news.
Yet it's not true that we can do nothing about world crisis beyond agonising. When just before Christmas Priviledge Thulambo from Zimbabwe and her two daughters, who have worshipped at St Mark's Church for years, were suddenly taken from their lives in Sheffield to the Yarl's Wood detention centre to be deported, enough people in Sheffield - including members of St Andrew's and St Mark's - protested, that they have now been granted a judicial review of their cases. It's no happy ending - Priviledge has been admitted to hospital for a stress-related illness, and her daughters, still in detention, are not allowed to see her - but this example gives the lie to the insidious idea that we can do nothing to counter such injustice, so it's not worth our even trying.
Whether or not we're in a position to act in such situations, we can always learn more. That's true of any concerned citizen in Sheffield. But we can do more than many other concerned citizens: we can pray. For we believe - don't we? - that our God is concerned for all who suffer injustice, is against powerful people who misuse their power, is in the process of transforming our whole world into God's just and peaceable kingdom. So we can pray for Israelis living in fear of rocket bombardment, for Palestinians in Gaza, attacked and starved in their own country, for their leaders and those who lead the nations of the world; for all those caught up in conflict; and for ourselves, that we may find out how God wants us to react.