It's been a while. I've been busy. But I'm back... at least for the next wee while as a number of people have asked me to post a couple of things', beginning with some who asked for me to post the conclusion of my sermon today... so here it is in a slightly edited form, together with the Gospel passage that prompted it...
Jesus sat down opposite
the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their
money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth
only a few pence.
43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into
the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of
her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.’
Mark 12: 41-44 (NIVUK)
On Friday I was meeting Louise
Ferguson, the manager of the Larder foodbank in East Belfast, in preparation
for the 4 Corners Walk on Saturday 11th February which we hope will
finish up there… I will blog about it closer to the time…
For those who don’t know The Larder is
based in the old St. Christopher’s Parish Church on Mersey Street, in the
shadow of the Oval Football Ground… There is no traditional congregation there
any more… instead it houses the Larder Food Bank and a range of other
faith-based social outreaches seeking to make a practical difference in that particular corner of Belfast… As we
were talking we were interrupted a number of times for various reasons… And
during one interruption I was reading a series of quotes scribbled on the wall…
One of them particularly struck home
as I had been preparing for today’s Homelessness Sunday service, which had the
above Gospel reading as one of its recommended readings, but was also aware
that Saturday was Holocaust Memorial Day…
They were words attributed to Anne
Frank who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945:
“No-one
has ever become poor by giving.”
Anne Frank (attr.)
This seemed the perfect quote to tie
the themes together… But when I got home and checked them out I discovered that
like far too many popular quotations, there is no citation for Anne Frank ever
having said this… The closest I got to any sort of an attribution was the suggestion
that they occurred in a play about her life.
However, I also discovered that she
did write an essay called “Give!” on 26th
March 1944 whilst
in hiding, in which she said:
How wonderful it is that no one has to
wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it
is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by
giving of themselves!
You can always — always — give
something, even if it's a simple act of kindness!
Anne Frank "Give!" (26 March 1944)
And with those words I finished my sermon today…
Anything else seemed superfluous.
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