Hebrews 13:1 says quite simply: “Let brotherly love continue.”
It is verses like this that give me a lot of trouble in life. Sunday we had a Brechin City FC V Ayr United football match as the final playoff match... I woke to the rain and the wind and knew in light of my sermon on this particular passage of scripture I was in trouble. As a minister it is sometimes even for me a challenge to love everyone I come in contact with, let alone an Ayr fan at the final Brechin City match...
I must confess I wanted a nice warm sunny day... for me but that nasty rain was just what I wanted for those Ayr fans. I knew they were bringing a load of supporters up and that they wouldn’t all fit in the David Will stand. I also kind of figured that our folk could squeeze together in a brotherly love sort of way in the Cemetery End coo shed... so it was a mixed emotion of how do I pray—did I really want to love my fellow football fans or did I want to wish them ill will? Well as you may or may not know I can’t control the weather, we get what God allows or sends our way and in the end it was really a lovely, if a bit blustery, day. A fitting day to meet and battle it out on the pitch.
It ended up one of those days of bitter sweet emotions, the 2400 plus folk at the Glebe gave a warm round of applause for our departed fellow football fan and avid BCFC supporter Steve Mitchell. Yet we lost by one goal. A hard day to celebrate and show love to the other team. Our friend is no longer among us, my beloved City is still in second division and the rapture predicted for last Saturday didn’t happen... and still the sun came up and life will gradually get back to whatever it is we consider ‘normal’.
So forgive me today for my rather disjointed thought and give to me as well a wee bit of the brotherly love as I need to receive it as much some days as I do to continue to learn to give it to the world in which I live. I keep being reminded of love and the difference it makes to each of us. We all need it but somehow it is one of those gifts that the more we give the more comes back as well... so let a brotherly love kind of thing keep going and going in our community and let’s see if it changes something. I know 2000+ years ago God’s love made itself known and all these years later we still ken that God/Man Jesus Christ. So love does make a difference day by day, may it long continue.
Learning to love more,
Rev. Jon Bergen
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