Who are you protecting?

There is something instinctive about protecting the people we love.

You don't have to teach a parent to worry when their child is ill. You don't need a manual for the feeling you get when your child is walking home later than expected. And when someone threatens the people we love, something inside us says, stand between them and whatever is coming.

We protect.

Sometimes badly. Sometimes imperfectly. Sometimes we get it completely wrong.

But we protect.

If we stop and reflect for a few moments, we realise that this instinct tells us something important about who we are.

Protection isn't only about stopping someone getting hurt. Sometimes it is having the difficult conversation. Sometimes it is saying no. Sometimes it is defending someone who isn't in the room. Sometimes it is noticing that someone is struggling and refusing to walk past.

Sometimes protection means telling the truth when a lie would be easier. And sometimes it simply means staying.

The readings on the assumption of Mary are so striking that we can get caught up in the vivid imagery and miss the point.

There is this extraordinary image in Revelation of a woman and her child, with a dragon waiting to destroy them. It is dramatic, symbolic and unmistakably biblical. But underneath all the imagery is something remarkably ordinary:

life is vulnerable, and vulnerable things need protecting.

Mary knew something about that.

She carried a child before anyone else understood who He was. She protected Him. She trusted God when she couldn't see how things would work out. And eventually she stood at the foot of the Cross when there was nothing left to protect Jesus from.

She stayed.

Perhaps that is one of the quiet lessons behind the Assumption. Mary isn't simply someone God ultimately protects. She is someone who spent her life faithfully caring for what God had entrusted to her.

And that brings the whole thing rather uncomfortably close to home.

Our children need protecting from things they aren't yet equipped to understand.

Our marriages need protecting from resentment, neglect and the gradual decision to put everything else first.

Our friendships need protecting from gossip and betrayal.

Our workplaces need protecting from cultures where people are quietly humiliated or pushed aside.

And our communities need protecting from the idea that some people simply don't matter.

The Gospel gives us another beautiful picture of Mary: she doesn't retreat into herself after receiving God's call. She goes to Elizabeth.

She carries Christ into someone else's life.

There is something here for us.

• We all want God's protection.

• Keep my family safe.

• Look after my children.

• Get me through this.

• Protect me from what is coming.

Of course we should pray those things.

But perhaps there is another question we should be asking:

Who has God placed in my care?

Because the Christian life isn't simply about being protected.

It is about becoming someone who protects.

Not in some macho, superhero sense. Not by controlling people or deciding that we know what is best for everyone else.

But by taking responsibility.

For the child who needs a parent who will stand firm.

For the husband or wife who needs to know that their marriage is worth fighting for.

For the colleague who is being picked on.

For the stranger who is being treated without dignity.

Even for the person we don't particularly like.

That's where faith becomes uncomfortable.

It is easy to ask God to protect the people we love.

It is harder to ask:

"What am I doing to protect them?"

And perhaps even harder:

"Who else am I responsible for?"

Because our faith tells us that every human life carries a dignity that doesn't depend on whether we like the person, agree with them, or get anything back from them.

The vulnerable person doesn't become valuable because they are useful to us.

They are valuable because they are loved by God.

That changes how we live.

• We protect the unborn.

• We protect the elderly.

• We protect the sick and the vulnerable.

• We protect children.

• We protect the lonely.

• We protect the person being pushed to the margins.

And sometimes protecting life simply means refusing to accept that another human being is disposable.

There is something deeply Christian about that.

And perhaps there is something deeply Everyman about it too.

We often talk about wanting someone to have our back.

But faith asks a more demanding question:

Whose back have you got?

Who would be safer, stronger, more confident or more loved because you are in their life?

Who would know that someone will stand up for them because you are there?

And perhaps this is where the Assumption of Mary points us.

Mary's story begins with God asking her to trust Him with a life she could not fully understand.

She said yes.

She carried that life.

She protected it.

She stayed faithful to it.

And ultimately, God brought her safely home.

Maybe our own lives aren't so different.

We don't know everything that is coming.

We don't know what our children will face.

We don't know what our marriages will demand of us.

We don't know who will walk into our lives needing our help.

But we do know this:

God has placed people in our care.

So this week, perhaps don't just ask God to protect the people you love.

Ask Him:

"Lord, who are you asking me to protect?"

Then look around.

You probably won't have to look very far.

Because faith isn't just about asking God to stand between us and the storm.

Sometimes it is about becoming the person who stands beside someone else when the storm arrives.