Skip to main content

Love on a Bicycle


Love on a bicycle



The Greek word for Love most often used in the New Testament is the word Agape.  This means a selfless love that is passionately committed to the well-being of others and is modelled on the example Christ set us.   It is the highest kind of love and is sometimes called charity in our older versions of the bible.   Agape has something very important to say to modern times, something that addresses the fragility of what all of us, believer and unbeliever alike, most value in these times, overstepping the limits of mutuality and fairness. (Charles Taylor)  In this season of lockdown we are discovering again the importance of this generous love that looks to help the fragile and needy, no questions asked.


There have been other times when such self-sacrificing love is needed and people give themselves for others in times of crisis or injustice.   I’d like to talk about my friend Shelton as a great example.  

My first memory of Shelton was on a bicycle on a very warm late morning in a small market town on the east coast of Sri Lanka which had just been devastated by the tsunami.   We had arrived with a truckload of supplies for devastated communities in the Tamil Tiger zone nearby.   He was training to become an Anglican priest at the time but like all the students was sent to where the people were suffering.   There were added complications in this town as at night time the streets were controlled by the Tamil Tigers and in the daytime by the army.  Being a Tamil Shelton had to walk a careful line between both sides as he assisted the local minister to help the community.  It was tiring, hot and sometimes dangerous work.  
16 years on and Shelton is now the Vicar of the church I used to work in and I received this email a couple of days ago from a church member:.

The "lock-down" appears to be an opportunity to rekindle family values. Fr. Shelton and the Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, have done a tremendous job distributing food and money to the needy. This included so many not on our regular list. Many parishioners contributed, aware that sharing is a part of Christianity. This, I think, enhanced their belief that as a parishioner of St. Paul's, they too must contribute towards helping the needy.    These unfortunate families, often have no income whatsoever. Fr. Shelton, at much risk to himself, went to each house on his motorcycle, from morning till late evening, often without lunch.



Love in action has move from a bike onto a motorbike but the selfless giving continues.   It is good to be reminded how our church family around the world is serving the needy in the communities in which they are set, no questions asked, all are welcome.   
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  John 12:24

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Curiosity in Lent

  Lent starts on Wednesday and I've decided this year to cultivate  curiosity. I'm not sure where this will lead me but it came off the back of a school assembly I led yesterday for 200 17 year olds.  I was referencing Jesus' famous saying ' you will know the truth and the truth will set you free'. ( John 8:32). Amidst all the revising for exams and the importance of learning facts and answers I was hoping to inspire them with the sense of wonder they had as children and the curiosity that led them to ask questions.   Good questions sometimes are even more important than good answers. After a day today walking with Ina in the Trossachs and hanging out in our van afterwards reading and chatting and snoozing  I  felt the challenge of my own words the previous morning.    Lent is so often seen as a period of contraction, a narrowing of appetites, restricting of habits, scrutiny of motivations etc.  It is hard to get excited about Lent the w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Re-enchantment

  The magical wonder of snow can be lost by a couple of degrees warming turning the white falling flakes into dismal rain.    It is precisely the same elements of moisture and air, humidity and wind, yet the shifting of the one variant of temperature creates a totally different outcome.  I have only managed three snow days in the mountains this winter, due to a combination of mostly busy diaries and a very unpredictable weather which meant days set aside for a climb would sometimes be literally a washout.  Ina and I did have a good summitting of the Cobbler with the spikes on our boots giving us the grip we needed in the the last snow of the season, and I felt again the sheer wonder of walking in crisp, hard snow as the world fell away around us. It looks like it's gone for the year now though and we have to wait 9 months probably to get out onto the white stuff again.  The hills just look wet and sodden now and most uninspiring... and yet...they are exactl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lambing Snows and Holy Week

  (photo courtesy of Abi Bull, Isle of Skye) Lambing snow is the name given to an early spring snowfall that can catch some of the wee lambs out who are born at the start of the season.   Farmers have to watch out for this and, given care and shelter, the lambs are usually able to survive.   It coincides too with the images of daffodils emerging through a covering of late snow,   a similar sign of hope and new life in a forbidding and even hostile environment. Nevertheless there is something beautiful of this setting of fragile life against the rawness of nature, something that speaks to the heart of the human condition and the poignancy of it all.   I write this on a Good Friday which is set in a global context of much uncertainty and even fear and desperation.    The centuries old story that we are taken back to again and again by the turning of the season, of a God who died for a suffering and broken world, seems to have more resonance than ever. ...
Post a Comment
Read more