Whose Company Are We Ashamed To Be Seen In?
A Palestinian boy in the Balata refugee camp outside Nablus in the West Bank.
Here are excerpts from Dr. Rowan Williams, in his Christmas message to the Anglican Communion.
“When God’s people have been faithful in keeping on moving onwards in faith rather than settling down in self-satisfaction, when they are true pilgrims, then God is content to be known as their God. He declares himself to be the God of pilgrims, of people who know that their lives are incomplete and that they are still journeying towards the fullness of God’s promises. Visiting refugee camps in the Middle East, as I did this October, brings home so powerfully what it is to be literally and absolutely homeless, not able to be confident in any resources, inner or outer…God is at home with the homeless. But it is also an image of God’s relationship with all those who are homeless or wandering in other ways.”
“He is the God who blesses the poor - not only those who are materially poor, but those who are without the ‘riches’ of self-satisfaction and complacency, those who know all too well how far they fall short of real and full humanity. And so we are to pass on that blessing to the poor of every sort, those who are without material resources and those who are ‘poor in spirit’ because they know their hunger and need. Let us ask ourselves honestly whose company we are ashamed to be seen in - and then ask where God would be. If he has embraced the failing and fragile world of human beings who know their needs, then we must be there with him.”
