On the 16th March 2020 I hugged some of my team as I put the old cardboard box in the boot of the car. After close to 24 years of spending my days and the occasional nights in St Paul’s Church in Crewe it was time for a new adventure. At the time some words of Paul the apostle to his mate Timothy floated just out of reach of my mind – like a cloud, big enough to see but too high to touch. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”.
Actually it was not that dramatic and I’m far too young to be prefixing fight, race and faith with the word have. It would be more appropriate for most of us to use a current tense – we are fighting a good fight, we are running a good race, we are keeping the faith.
That language of fighting for something good is spot on for a place like St Paul’s. A community focused on good, both the doing of it and the forging of it as a principle in a world where fighting for the good of others is a real challenge.
Of course Paul was reflecting back and anticipating his departure from his bodily life when he thought of his race as finished. But we know as a community of people until every woman, child and man is safe, until the language of acceptable poverty is eradicated, until food banks and free furniture are no longer needed, the fight and the race continues. Yes, Paul was talking about the spread of the Christian faith but even he saw that the kingdom of God is an expression of justice, fairness, equality and love. This is the race and the fight – to see the overwhelming, disarming creative love of God penetrate our world.
Keeping the faith does not mean tightly closed eyes and cleverly articulated requests flung skyward. Keeping the faith is often precarious, fraught with problems, opposition, and misunderstanding. In keeping the faith we are often called to balance spending our energy and time pushing back the tide of indifference or inequality to create a safe space to explore and encounter the love and life of God.
During this past year woven in amongst the many challenges we have all faced was for me a chance to reflect and write. I set out to write a book and I have, I set out to produce 52 reflections, one for each week of my first year away from St Paul’s, and I have. Yet whatever challenges we set and complete for ourselves they must never overshadow our continued commitment to remain faithful to God and fight for those less well off than ourselves. It may sound strange but when we put food in a food bank trolley it is a reminder that in some way equality, justice or fairness has died for some people. What we want is for those receiving food bank parcels to have the ability to buy food. Yes put food in the trolley but don’t let the story end there. When we celebrate at Easter we won’t celebrate that Jesus died for humanity, the celebration is that he rose from the dead for humanity.
I’m glad that Paul felt his race was over but that didn’t mean the race was over. I wonder how you and I are doing, keeping the faith, still in the race, fighting for others?
Rob Wykes 