Plenary, 10 Dec 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Official Report 435KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. As always, the first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Iain Gordon, from the Bethany Christian Trust.

Good afternoon. Christmas is coming, as you may have noticed. There are adverts for cut-price but still expensive Christmas gifts, music is playing in the shops, people are selling Christmas trees and children are rehearsing nativity plays.

For those of us working with homeless and vulnerable people, the nativity story in Luke's gospel is particularly significant. Christ, the light of the world, came to earth not as a king but as a vulnerable person, a baby, as part of a poor family on the margins of the community in Bethlehem. In homelessness terms, he was denied mainstream accommodation and was destined to spend the first of his nights sleeping rough, were it not for the charitable act of an innkeeper who provided shelter, or temporary accommodation, in his stable.

At the very beginning of his life, Christ was poor and vulnerable and marginalised, but he went on to spend all his life and ministry working with and transforming the lives of poor and vulnerable and marginalised people across society. That is why those of us who are Christians in Scotland today, who are charged with living out the teaching and example of Christ, also seek to serve the poor and the vulnerable and the marginalised in our society.

Later in the Bible, James in his letter to the Hebrews calls on us to be like Christ. He says:

"Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."

That is why we in Bethany, along with more than 100 churches, offer, among other things, winter shelter to rough sleepers in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. We treat them as we would hope to be treated if we were in their situation.

This Christmas, as in the first Christmas, there are those who find themselves vulnerable, outside the system and with nowhere to spend the night. As we remember the story of a baby born poor and vulnerable and marginalised in Israel 2,000 years ago, I pray that we think of those who find themselves similarly poor and vulnerable and marginalised in Scotland today, that we truly offer our love to those who are suffering and mistreated, and that we show our Scots hospitality to strangers. Who knows? We too may entertain angels in Scotland this Christmas.