Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 8 February 2015

Fr Robin Gibbons

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I must admit, I don’t often feel like Job, fed up with work, wondering if things will ever change, fretting over the unremitting problems of life. I do, as I get older, wonder where time goes, in some ways the days, months and years are like that swiftly moving weaver’s shuttle he mentions! But then I suspect I am lucky, the black dog days, though they happen, are more than compensated for by the enjoyment, fun and delight of being alive and with others. Something I am very thankful for.

But life isn’t like that for everybody. A huge number of people across our planet feel more like Job than I do, their focus on simply existing, wondering where the next meal or pay-packet will come from. We who live in the first world are privileged people; we take so much for granted!

Just look at the list of our complaints in local and national media, it’s not about survival but often about our rights, our needs, our discomfort with situations we want changed. Unlike so many we have people to help, whose time and imagination can lift us out of our ruts! I am not offering a utopian vision of life here in the UK, in all places there are the dark places of human suffering, but in contrast to many we have it good!

Job’s words are terribly poignant, he speaks from that place all who suffer know, but we need to remember his words are part of a dialogue in which another voice is heard, that of God.

I wonder what Simon’s mother-in-law thought of being healed by Jesus. Was she glad to get back to serving him and the disciples? Mark doesn’t say, but understanding Jesus as we do, I suspect she felt appreciated and cared for by him, possibly healing altered her existence in ways we can’t appreciate. One thing she speaks to me about is my concern for all those who serve us, who remain largely unappreciated until we remember what they do. Can you think of them? Jesus preaches about equality in the Kingdom and is unequivocal in serving others. Are we?

The old adage puts it that ‘the best things in life are free’, but they aren’t always accessible, especially to those who are truly poor, stuck in a rut! Let’s try to lighten somebodies load with a little more hope and joy!

 Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.