Being Prepared …

by Liz Young

(Based on Mark 13:32-37; I Cor 1:3-9)
Take heed, watch for you do not know when the time will come so be prepared.

One of the things I like about ‘Local Shared Ministry’, and being one of seven different preachers, is that we all bring our different experiences to our sermons. So today you will have to listen to a homily with a paediatric perspective. 🙂

In the Old Testament, the watchmen were on the lookout for an attack from the inevitable foe. Here in New Zealand the dangers we and our children face are very different.
Most children, except the autistic, are inherently aware of danger and can read evil people’s body language. Even the subterfuges of sexual predators. If we make a point of trusting their judgement in little things, then they will have the self confidence to trust their own judgement when they face false blandishments. [Why do you think predators approach those children who feel unloved?]
Of course, there are real dangers we have to protect our children from: for example, before the age of eight they’re not able to accurately assess the speed of oncoming cars, and can easily be distracted, so adults need to supervise them crossing the road.
We need to alert them to real dangers, but not pass our anxieties on to them.

We all need to be prepared for the inevitable trials in life. Many of us dislike the over-protectiveness of the current educational system. If every little thing we do is praised, then praise becomes meaningless. If we fail at a Maths test, but get over it, then we start to build resilience and the ability to cope with other future failures.

Now, as many of us approach our deaths or dementia, we need to summon up the courage to be prepared. I want to thank Pam and Lyndsay for their recent ‘Dying Matters’ workshops. If we act on the advice we’ve been given there we should be prepared for the inevitable future.
I find I’m being prepared to say “Goodbye” as my body stiffens up and my brain starts to let me down. I have to shorten my walks, and allow others to help me when I become confused. Part of our preparation is acceptance, taking joy in the things we can still do, giving thanks, and not becoming irritable with our increasing failures and limitations.

In the epistle for today Paul gives thanks for the grace of God, enabling him to enrich the Corinthians’ lives with the knowledge of Jesus and His teachings. Today, we can give thanks for living in a peaceful country, far away from the wars in the Middle East, an area that has been fought over for thousands of years. But we mustn’t be smug: when I read about how much land was taken from Maori by the church in the nineteenth century, I can understand and accept that we need to redress that wrong; and be clear when we’re talking to others, that we of European descent were invited to share the riches of this land, and take care of it – not to grab it and potentially despoil it. 

We should also give thanks for the ways our life has been enriched by living here in the Coromandel. I give thanks for walking up the Kauaeranga, and for a tramp from Coroglen to the Pinnacles Hut, where we overnighted, and woke early, to climb to the top of the Pinnacles, where we saw the view from the Aldermens to Raglan. Unforgettable. I give thanks for being able to sail in the Louisiade Archipelago, islands south-west of Papua New Guinea, where we saw a five-year-old school classroom with not a single desk marked, because the furniture was valued. And a whole village had worked to provide the finance to send one of the children to secondary school . We were lucky to meet the Islanders before cell phones arrived, and people needed ready cash to top them up.
We did experience a petty theft of a purse, and when we told the local councillor, the purse was returned within two hours.
Such experiences make you think. Finding out that the local teacher had not been paid for a year; realizing that these children who had worked so hard at school had very little chance of paid employment …

These experiences made us value the opportunities we’d had. My mother died of breast cancer when I was 29, and I was horrified when I felt a lump in my left breast in the identical place that I’d felt her lump thirty years earlier.
But time had passed, treatment had improved, and forty years later I worry more about my vague brain than my surgical scars.

So, be prepared to enjoy each little moment of happiness to the full and share that joy with others when you can … as we look towards Christmas.