麻豆社

Good morning.

When I was a boy I went through a phase of yearning to be a long-distance lorry driver. The romance of the road, the freedom of the journey, the cosiness of having a bed in the cab and the glamour of foreign travel seemed to make it so attractive and alluring. In my childish mind it appeared a thrilling contrast to a suburban boyhood.

But as the nation continues to endure a supply line crisis with Nestle one of the latest reporting problems, the reality has been brought home. There is in fact very little glamour in spending night after night away from your family, especially when facilities here in the UK for truckers are so poor and the pay for many still so low. Lorry drivers are incredibly skilled workers. Yet there has been a chronic failure to notice the damage that has been done to their lives by the expectations that people have for cheap goods and instant delivery.

But it鈥檚 not just lorry drivers. The covid pandemic has been a bit like a spotlight shining into every corner of a room. It鈥檚 brought to the fore a whole army of people who too often have been invisible but on whose skill and dedication the nation completely depends. Dare anyone ever in future take for granted care workers, warehouse staff, waiters, fruit and vegetable pickers, abattoir workers, laboratory staff and so on?

A distinctive feature of the ministry of Jesus was that he noticed the people who were invisible in his day and having done so, placed them right at the centre of the community. The poorest and least educated were called to be the leaders. He listened to disabled people and gave them a voice. Little children were held up as role models of faith. The sinful and unrespectable became his trusted apostles.

Jesus did all this to point out the damage that people had done to the world by denying the value and the dignity of each other. And in the eyes of a Christian, the ministry and teaching of Jesus is intended to put that right. By bringing people who were overlooked to the centre, Jesus was modelling a far better way to be human.

Many churches and schools are keeping harvest festival at the moment and giving thanks for the goodness of God who provides for his people from the abundance of creation. It seems to me to be a perfect opportunity to place back at the centre of the community those people on whom the nation depends but who too often get taken for granted. For when we make the invisible visible, we uncover something of the gift of life.

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