PostScript: Parenting the global community
God urges us to care for people as loving parents care for their children (1 Thessalonians 2.11-12).
Context
The Bible is full of comparisons between God’s care for us and the care of loving parents for their children. Unsurprisingly, given the patriarchal ordering of most ancient societies, most of these are masculine, ‘father’ images (for example: Deuteronomy 32.6, Psalm 68.5, Isaiah 63.16, Luke 12.32, Galatians 4.5-7, 1 John 3.1 – and many more). What is more surprising, perhaps, is the number of feminine, ‘mother’ images that found their way into the Bible too – such as Deuteronomy 32.18, Isaiah 66.13, Hosea 13.8 and Matthew 23.37, among others.
In this week’s reading from 1 Thessalonians, Paul adopts this imagery of parenthood to describe the relationship he and his companions had with the new Christian community in Thessalonica. It is a caring, nurturing, encouraging model of parenthood, which implicitly derives from, and tries – however imperfectly – to emulate God’s parenting of the human race.
In doing so, Paul extends the idea of parenthood from a role undertaken by an individual, to one undertaken by a group of people.
Reflection
A well-known African (Igbo and Yoruba) proverb asserts that ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, acknowledging that communities depend on their children for their future wellbeing.
The rise in international travel and internet-based communications has brought us unprecedented, up-to-the-minute knowledge of the lives and experiences of people all over the world, to the extent that the idea of ‘the global village’ has gained currency, and we are all now each other’s neighbours in ways the people we read about in the Bible could never have imagined.
The foundation of the United Nations 75 years ago was a profound, almost prophetic, acknowledgement that we can no longer put traditional, local boundaries around our responsibilities, but must recognise that these now extend beyond our own local community or ‘village’, even beyond our own nation, to the human race as a whole. More recently still, we are compelled to recognise that we have even wider responsibilities, to the global environment and all the living creatures we share it with.
There has been much celebration in the past week as the 50th nation ratified the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, thereby authorising it to come into force in January 2021 and adding nuclear weapons to the list of other munitions (landmines, cluster bombs and others) now prohibited by international law. As a human institution, the UN is inevitably less than perfect, but there is no denying its central role in mitigating many of the dangers that face God’s children and God’s world.
There is a very real sense in which we may perceive God’s parental activity in any and all groups whose work includes caring for, nurturing and protecting God’s children, from teams of pastors and evangelists like Paul and his companions, to the African village and our own local community groups, to national and international charities and development agencies, to the United Nations and its global initiatives.
Prayer
A prayer for the United Nations
O loving and gracious Creator
Your love embraces all members of the human family,
Your care extends to the least of those among us,
To all our brothers and sisters in every part of the earth.
You call us to mature love and concern for the entire human community,
You call us as individuals, as a nation, as a united community of nations.
Let us hear this prayer in our hearts and respond with faith and good will.
God of compassion,
Walk alongside all of your global stewards,
who work to create a more just and peaceful world.
Equip the United Nations community with a sense of urgency and humility
That lets your will be done.
Teach the world’s leaders to forgive,
To extend welcome across borders.
Show the world a new path beyond greed, oppression and division.
Bless all our efforts toward uniting peoples and nations.
Bless the United Nations
As it strives to be an authentic community,
As it witnesses to the needs of all, to the rights of all, including mother Earth.
Grant us the wisdom and grace
To become a true global family
And witness your Reign on this earth.
Amen.
From UN75: 2020 and beyond - A prayer for the United Nations
Questions
- How do human parents and organisations reflect the parenting of God?
- How might we and our organisations do this better: locally, nationally or globally?
An activity for young people and all-ages
This is a list of the UN’s achievements since its foundation 75 years ago. Discuss which you think are the most important, and why.
The UN:
- works with 195 nations
- promotes Human Rights
- has eradicated many communicable diseases, especially smallpox
- supplies vaccines for 40% of the world’s children
- provides food assistance to 90 million in 80 countries
- has averted another world war and promotes arms control
- co-ordinates peacekeeping with 110,000 peacekeepers in 13 operations around the world
- works with 26 million refugees
- provides humanitarian response and assistance during disasters
- established the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
- brokered the Paris Climate Agreement
Robert Beard is a Church of England priest and freelance writer.
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