REFLECTION

'Who's to blame?' is a frequently asked question. It's asked of children playing when something is accidentally broken. It's asked within organisations when something goes wrong or customers don't get the service they expect. It's a question asked to ascertain responsibility, apportion blame, mete out punishment or pass the buck. Perhaps that's what the people of Israel addressed by Ezekiel were doing when they quoted the parable, 'The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge' - passing the buck, blaming their forebears for their present predicament being taken away into exile. But God will have nothing to do with this - all are responsible for their own actions.
Yet we cannot so easily reject this parable. At least we must recognise that our actions or inaction, good or bad, often have consequences not only for ourselves but for others too. Our demand for cheap products affects the wages paid to producers and the conditions in which they work. Our desire for ease and convenience fuels the 'throw away' society with all its consequences for biodiversity being so highlighted in recent days. Our heavy use of fossil fuels is impacting the world's climate with repercussions not only for ourselves here but also people all around the globe. And these things affect not only us today, but also have implications for future generations. The sweatshop worker or producer paid less than the cost to produce cannot afford the cost of educating their children. Species of flora and fauna are becoming extinct or so rare it's as if they were extinct and people will no longer be able to wonder at the magnificence of creation. Great tracts of land are laid waste by wildfires or hurricanes and tornadoes, large areas of the icecaps are melting and islands in the Pacific are under threat of being submerged under rising sea levels. Yes, all are responsible for their own actions, but those actions have consequences for others too.
Amid the debates about Covid-19 there is a blame game being carried out, a blame game to pass the buck. Donald Trump is blaming the Chinese Government either for deliberately unleashing the virus onto the world or for being slow to warn about it. For the recent rise in cases in the UK, young people are widely being blamed for it by not maintaining social distancing when it is not only the young who are a bit casual about it all. The government is being blamed, accused of releasing lockdown too quickly and for inept administration leading to U-turns and failures to deliver. Where responsibility properly lies blame is appropriate, but as with the proverb, blame should not be used to deflect attention from one's own responsibility. We are each responsible for our own actions.
Yet, as Paul points out, responsibility is not simply about the negative things - wrong-doing, mistakes, omissions - but also about the positive things - doing right, building community, faithful living. As Paul implores the church in Philippi, 'be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus....' Paul goes on to outline the example of Jesus we are to follow: not exploiting his own advantages for selfish ends, 'humbling' himself to live as one of us, and giving all including his own life for the life of the world in obedience to the way of God.
This is about taking charge of our life and moulding it not for our own self-centred ends but living more and more by the standards of the loving God. It's about not seeking to impose our own will or ideas on others in the arrogant assumption that we know best or that our way is the only way but engaging with others, even with different ideas, to build together a life-enriching community. Above all, it's about being open to the leading of God, which may at times take us out of our comfort zones - sometimes necessarily so - but which leads to life in all its fulness.
In these days of Covid we need to consider not only our own wishes but the needs of others and the whole community around us. In these days of Covid and in the coming days of change for the churches of the Pastorate, there needs to be humility. Humility to listen to one another, to strive together for the good of all, and to rejoice together over the new life to which God is leading. Above all, listen to that leading and follow in the ways that God enables you to do, both individually and as churches.
In this way, as Paul concluded in that reading from his letter, 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.' (vv. 12-13). Work out what is the right way, the caring way, the responsible way, always letting 'the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...' (v.5). In this way you will not be like the second son in the parable who promises one thing but does another - or like the Pharisees who pay lip-service to obedience to God, picking and choosing what elements they like. Be like the first son, who at first refused but then changed his mind: be obedient, even if at first it is hard or challenging to do so because God's is the way of life for you and for the world.