Back to School

When I was preparing to return to work following maternity leave two weeks ago, I found myself going through a very familiar set of motions. Finding the right clothes, scrumpled up from too long spent at the back of the drawer. Locating a lunch box. I didn’t actually go so far as to polish my shoes, though perhaps I should have done.

 

The new beginning represented by the new academic year can bring with it plenty of excitement and joy. It’s certainly been a huge pleasure to return to church, to worship once again among this wonderful community; while the University term is still a few weeks off, it feels like there is renewed energy and a sense of anticipation for all that this year will bring. But it can also bring anxiety, and a fear of the unknown. A few Sundays ago we acknowledged this when blessing the backpacks of our wonderful church children, asking God’s protection upon them through all that this year will bring.

 

The other danger at the beginning of the new academic year is that of false expectations. I have certainly been guilty of this, assuming that a new pencil case and a new notebook would bring about a miraculous new personality and transform me into someone perfectly organised. Happily, however, as Christians we know that our reliance can never be on ourselves. Renewal comes, when it comes, from God. As the collect for the Second Sunday of Epiphany puts it, ‘in Christ you make all things new:  transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory’. Renewal is God’s work, and it happens whether or not we ever get around to polishing our shoes