“A time for sharing”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, February 14, 2022
1 John 1:1-10 (Forward, p. 16) CEV p. 1286
I guess that I’m something of a fossil, totally out of touch or out of sync with the times. When I had a chance to look in at Brownies or Sparks meeting—I can’t remember just which one it was—I was impressed with one of their mottos or chants. It simply repeated the word, “Sharing”, three times. At the time, I thought that it was a very good thing to teach these youngsters.
But then, today, in trying to find the origin of this motto, I discovered an online post that suggested that forcing youngsters to share was a very bad thing, something that is rather detrimental to the proper development of a child. The article suggested that forcing a child to share blunts his or her ability to look after his or her needs, which should be primary. Likewise, it interferes with that child’s necessary self-assertion and self-advocacy and prevents the child from learning self-regulation. It sets up a scenario where someone else is in control, like a parent or teacher, and actually rewards negative behaviour, such as pouting or whining or complaining, on the part of the other children. The authors of the article suggested that it is far better to teach the child to be aware of the other children and their needs and then share on their own volition. I must say that I am more than a little sceptical about all this advice, as I notice that far too many people are quite unable to be aware of other people and their needs and more than able to assert what they want for themselves. I guess that I am rather old-school, rather old-fashioned
Our letter writer, John, appears to be of this ilk. The entire emphasis of today’s portion of his letter is about sharing. First off, he tells his readers what he himself has experienced in Jesus Christ, and about how this brings about a new life in us. He wants his readers to share this same new life, to enjoy it for themselves. To him, it is something far too precious to keep to himself.
But then, neither are his readers to keep it to themselves either. They are to share it with each other, and more specifically, to live it! They are to live in the light that is Jesus Christ, and furthermore, to allow Him to cleanse and free them from their sins and forgive them. Again, as far as John is concerned, this is something so very good, that it simply cannot be kept to oneself. It simply has to be shared.
This is something that applies to us as well. John may not be ‘forcing’ us to share, but he certainly is strongly advocating it. And why, because it is good both for us individually, and for everyone else. And, isn’t that true of all sharing. Amen.
Forward notes: “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (verse 4).
Commemoration: Cyril and Methodius
“We all know that today is the feast of Saint Valentine, but it is also the feast of two amazing Eastern saints. Cyril and Methodius were brothers and celebrated missionaries who lived in the ninth-century Byzantine Empire. In the course of their ministry to Slavic communities, they translated the Bible into Old Church Slavonic, invented what we now know as the Cyrillic alphabet, and secured the pope’s permission to use Slavonic rather than Latin in the liturgy. All this happened five hundred years before the first efforts to translate the Bible into English and 1,100 years before the Second Vatican Council authorized the use of ‘the language of the people’ in the Roman Catholic Mass.
“Cyril and Methodius were brilliant linguists and extraordinarily forward-thinking ministers of the gospel, unafraid to challenge structures of power in order to do what they felt was right. Like the writer of 1 John, they wrote (and translated) to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others, knowing that only sharing the joy could make their own joy complete.”
MOVING FORWARD: “Research the lives of Cyril and Methodius. What can their witness and ministry teach us today?”
