21st Jan 20073rd Sunday After the Epiphany
Fr David Cherry
Nehemiah 8 : 1 – 3 & 5 – 6 & 8 – 10 ; I Corinthians 12 : 12 – 31a ; Luke 4 : 14 - 21
O thou who at thy Eucharist didst pray
That all thy Church may be for ever One.…words from today’s offertory hymn.
Others may, but our gracious God has not given up on us in disgust.
Today is the Sunday in the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. So I thought I might mull over what lies behind it.
The God of all eternity – as St Thomas Aquinas says:
“that thing than which nothing greater can be conceived” -
the God from outside time has entered into our time; and made himself
known, has shown forth, has made manifest what he is like.
We see it in Jesus, the one who lives in perfect communion, at one with
His Father in the power of the Spirit ‘full of grace and
truth’; that still centre which we are invited to witness in the
gospels as they are read to us through the year; that still centre of
unity which many are drawn to and against whom is pitted the disunity
of a divided and violent society.
Jesus shows us what it is like to live in unity with the Father and
what God is like – a Trinity of Persons in communion with one
another. And it is also a revelation of what it means to be one
created in his image, a discovery of what we are like at the most
profound anthropological level: designed for relationships of unity and
mutual love.
“My life and my death is with my neighbour” wrote one of
the Desert Fathers. We were not created to be individuals, but
for interdependent relational love.
We don’t need to look too far to find evidence that we find this difficult.
JOKE : A woman finds an old glass bottle.
She wonders: if I rub this perhaps a Genie will appear. She rubs it and behold a Genie DOES appear.
What is your wish.
Well, she says rather grandly, the Middle East problem. I would love for everyone to live in peace and harmony.
I’m afraid that’s a bit of a tall order, says the Genie. Try another.
Well, actually, she says, coming a bit nearer to earth: I would
really like a new man who’s romantic and attentive, wealthy (but
not overtly) someone who will want to spend time with me.
Run that Middle East problem by me again!
One can have unrealistic expectations, unrealistic fantasies. The
God who has become one with us in our flesh is not interested in am
idealised version of who we are, but is in love with who we actually
are. For God has chosen to reveal himself in the ordinary stuff of
human life.
Fantasies, idealised versions of ourselves, unrealistic expectations
mean that we fail to realise the raw material that God has to deal
with:
In our own lives the hurts and wounds of broken relationships and
patterns repeating – the sheer desperation to be loved and the
fear of being over-taken.
In the church the history of division and defended identities, fortified by polemics.
Christianity’s critics have plenty of evidence to scapegoat the
Church: They see the difficulty humans find living at unity with God
and one another. They see a disunited Christian people, sometimes
learning painfully to get along, sometimes rejoicing in their
diversity; sadly too – they see the vociferous disagreements that
we battle to contain in patient forbearance and charity.
Nevertheless, the Christian community is called to demonstrate, to show
forth the life of God in human flesh, and – like the rest of
humanity, the sin of wilfulness and arrogance has meant further
division.
Humanity is shipwrecked and the Church with it. So we find
ourselves not over against the world, but know ourselves in solidarity
with the world, broken, afflicted by sin as much as anyone else. We are
beginning to own that we are part of God’s problem AND part of
God’s solution.
So we hear the Jesus’ manifesto this morning in the gospel, his mission statement:
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And NOW is the acceptable time because He, God, is here in our midst.
How do you feel when you hear those words? Is it not something like: yes, I want this. …?
That wonderful image in the first lesson of the people weeping when
they hear the words of the Law. Weeping in the knowledge of
themselves as sinful, weeping in knowledge that God has reached out to
them, has addressed them, wants them; weeping in the knowledge that
they are being saved.
This is God’s project that you and I are invited to find
ourselves in – as members of the Body which St Paul talks about;
each with a unique purpose and function for the better working of the
whole. Others may, but our gracious God has not given up on us in
disgust.
For we are those who have received the word of God, who have allowed it
to come near, who are finding the Spirit of the Lord upon us. We
are those brought near, being reconciled and inviting others to join us
in the pilgrimage of reconciliation towards perfect unity.
Here in Holy Communion we open our hearts to receive who we are, to
find we are reconciled in Holy Communion with God and with one
another. We pray for the unity of God’s Church throughout
the world, and that we as a community may show forth more and more what
is being shown to us so that others may have courage to draw near to
the God who has drawn so close to his Creation in Jesus.
So we pray:
That all thy Church may be for ever One
Grant us at every Eucharist to say
With longing heart and soul, ‘Thy will be done’
Oh, may we all one Bread, one Body be,
One through this Sacrament of unity. Amen