Sammy’s Weekly Column – 28th December
As I have done for quite a number of years now, I spent part of Christmas Day at the Salvation Army on the Cregagh Road. Every year the building is open on Christmas day and a large number of volunteers provide dinner for around 70 – 100 people who would otherwise be alone over Christmas or be unable to afford or cook themselves a Christmas dinner. For many of those who come, I suspect the attraction is the friendly company and the opportunity to escape from surroundings which hold painful memories or because the loneliness of the house gives another meaning to the words of the carol ‘Silent Night’.
To put on such an event takes enormous effort. The tables have to be laid, the room set up and the meal has to be prepared on Christmas Eve. On the day, transport for most of those attending has to be arranged, the meal cooked, the people who come made to feel welcome, the dinners served, the dishes washed, the programme of entertainment delivered and the place cleaned up afterwards. Amazingly there is no shortage of volunteers male and female, old and young and this year there were people from nearly every continent in the world. The one thing which united them was their desire to demonstrate in a practical way the outworking of their faith in the Christ of Christmas.
Many of those who attend I have known for years. Some I have known since I was a wee boy when my Dad was their minister. They are people who have played their part in their community, worked hard, raised their families, made their contribution but now age has left them vulnerable and in need of the support they once gave to others. Some I have known as constituents, having dealt with problems they brought to me when life dealt them a raw deal and they need more than just the support which the welfare state provides. There are those whose loved ones have died, families moved away and at this time appreciate the chance to have some company.
Amateurs like me are not trusted with the cooking so before the frenzy of activity in the kitchen starts I take the chance to go round and talk with them. It’s lovely to hear the noisy chatter in the room. However, my main job is usually to wash the dishes, though this year I was also given the role of dishing out the dinners on the rather flimsy basis that as Finance Minister responsible to dishing out the country’s money I should be able to make the food stretch.
I did get a chance to talk to the Head of the Salvation Army in Ireland who informed me that across N.I. at twenty two locations the same voluntary effort was going on to provide for the needy, the vulnerable and in some cases the outcasts and abandoned in our society. In churches across N.I. not just at Christmas but throughout the year there are thousands of people who give their time and money because their faith demands from them a practical expression of what they believe.
I think of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the church which I attend. There are scores of people there who give up their time to work as befrienders to the disabled, to support people who come out of prison, to provide shelter for women fleeing domestic violence, to provide for orphans in Africa, and to work with people whose lives have been destroyed by drugs.
Churches and people of faith who attend them provide a network of buildings and workers which is vital cement in our society, and yet increasingly government is turning its back on this important group on the basis that it sees church-based activities as part of the promotion of the Christian faith. Yet government bodies have no difficulty in handing out money to groups associated with terrorists or in some cases dubious community organisations all of which have their own agendas. The irony is, that churches because of their position in communities are more likely to stick at a job, will deliver on the objectives set out and will add value to any government help given because they bring their own physical, human and financial resources to the table.
However, it is not just a case of ignoring the Christian sector of our society there is a deliberate attempt to undermine it. Under the increasingly draconian equality laws, Christians find themselves marginalised and discriminated against. In the past year we have had numerous examples of how Labour’s equality obsession has become like a cancer in our society. Schools banning nativity plays, councils refusing to put up Christmas decorations, a Christian worker being sacked for wearing a cross around her neck, a registrar sacked because she asked to be excused from carrying out same sex marriages as it offended her faith, and a Christian teacher sacked because she offered to pray for a sick pupil, an act which her employers deemed to be bullying.
Unfortunately some of these decisions were made by Conservative councils proving that this politically correct, liberal left agenda is not just the obsession of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. Sadly the same trend is evident in public bodies in N.I. as well. I believe it is something N.I. politicians should root out before it takes hold because there is no group more intolerant of others than the liberal left.
In the meantime let us be thankful for the thousands of good honest people who daily obey the injunction in the letter which the apostle James wrote to the early Christian church to “be doers of the word and not hearers only”. On Christmas Day thousands across N.I. received real benefit from ‘ Christians doers’.
We should be so thankful for the people who give up part of their Christmas Holidays to help others. It is exactly what the apostle James was talking about!
As Christians we should all be challenged by this post.