God has chosen each one of us. Here is a fingerprint to remind us as if we were in any doubt.
How much we are grateful for that is shown by our attitude to the others He has chosen too!
I have a story which reminds us of the importance of detachment when it comes to the faults of others.
A visitor to a psychiatric hospital found one of the residents rocking back and forth in a chair cooing repeatedly in a soft contented manner, "Lulu, Lulu...".
"What's this man's problem?" he asked the doctor.
"Lulu. She was the woman who jilted him," was the doctor's reply.
As they proceeded on the tour, they came to a padded cell whose occupant was banging his head repeatedly against the wall and moaning, "Lulu, Lulu..."
"Is Lulu this man's problem too?" asked the visitor.
"Yes," said the doctor. "He's the one Lulu finally married."
We all have our "Lulus" be they in families or in Churches. And we too, have you thought, we or rather, you, may be someone else's "Lulu". You may be an aid to the uprooting of self love in your husband or wife, your Churchwarden even!
As we approach an extended time with family, qualified by Covid, we will enjoy their company and may also be challenged out of our comfort zone. Families are generated biologically and so there is pressure to hang on together. Churches by contrast are voluntary associations whose strength of association depends utterly on how much of the love that came down at Christmas is actually among us, wanting the best for one another and prepared to give the benefit of the doubt.
Such love in both families and Churches provides cohesion with love covering a multitude of sins.
Loving our brother and sister Christians can be all the harder since we have not chosen them - the Lord has - and we have to run with his choices if we are to do what he says and build his kingdom in Haywards Heath. We all have our own thoughts about what it is to be the Church. We also need to complement those thoughts with some understanding and tolerance of how others see things.
For example there is the 'noble art of getting things done' in the church. There is also the noble art of leaving things undone. Here is an amusing story on that subject from Fr. Tony De Mello:
According to the newspapers, a heat wave was causing fainting spells, so a young lady was not surprised to see the middle-aged man next to her in Church slump down toward the floor. Quickly she knelt down beside him, placed a firm hand on his head, and pushed it between his knees.
"Keep your head down," she whispered urgently. "You'll feel better if you get the blood into your head."
The man's wife looked on convulsed with laughter and did nothing to help her husband or the young lady. She must be quite heartless the young lady decided.
Then, to her dismay, the man managed to break loose from her muscular hold and hissed, "What are you up to, you meddling fool? I'm trying to retrieve my hat from under the bench!"
We've all - if we were honest - been "meddling fools" on occasion, or we wouldn't be human. The fingerprint shows me a great truth (show) - I'm special. There is no one like me. God loves me with a special love unique to me. The other truth the Christian religion shows me is that I am an ass and we are all asses, if you will excuse me saying it. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" to use the biblical version.
We are precious to God but we are also asses. Holding to both truths is a receipe for constructive living and it is taught us supremely here at the eucharist.
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