Unity in Christ (21 Jan).

Father, by Your Spirit present with us now, open our eyes that we may see Jesus; open our ears to His Word; open our hearts to His love; our lives to His transforming power. Amen.

'Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread… He taught the people, and everyone praised Him' (Lk 4:14-15) Do you remember where Jesus returned to Galilee from ? Luke's Gospel tells us that Jesus came back from the desert where He had spent 40 days being tempted by the devil. Several weeks of fasting and praying and wrestling with conflicting thoughts about the shape of His future ministry. A time when He prayed through decisions about what kind of Messiah, what sort of Saviour, He would be. And then He came back to Galilee to begin His public ministry, filled with the power of God's Spirit and proclaiming the message of Good News - which has become the Christian Gospel.

In the extract from Luke chapter 4 that we heard just now, Luke reports that initially people responded favourably to Jesus; 'everyone praised Him' (v.15). Later in this same chapter, Luke goes on to say that people became furious with Jesus; they drove Him out of their town and even wanted throw Him over a cliff (v. 28f). And so it has been ever since. The message of the Gospel continues to meet with a mixed response. Some folk welcome Jesus into their lives; others, often after initial warmth and enthusiasm, become apathetic or even hostile in their reaction to Christianity.

Perhaps one reason for this stems from a misunderstanding of who Jesus is and what Christianity is actually about. Those of us meeting at the Vicarage for the Monday evening Reading Group, and those of you who've read the book Simply Christian in other contexts, will recall that Bishop Tom Wright addresses some of these misunderstandings. Such as the idea that Jesus came into this world just to start a new religion, with a new moral teaching of which He, Jesus, offers a great moral example. Certainly, some people's lives have been changed simply by contemplating and imitating the example of Jesus. But it could equally well make us depressed, just as, says Tom Wright, 'watching Tiger Woods hit a golf ball doesn't inspire me to go out and copy him. It makes me realize I can't, and never will' (p.78).

So what was Jesus' main purpose? What is Christianity all about? After years of prayerful preparation and study of scripture, Jesus launched His public ministry with a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour".

Many people today, unfamiliar with the Hebrew Scriptures that we call the Old Testament, find this a bit cryptic and open to misinterpretation. Perhaps the most common mistake people make is to reduce it to a political mantra. But it's much more radical than that. Jesus is saying that in Him, the living God is bringing the story of Israel to a climax and fulfilling His promises. In Jesus, the finding, the saving, the giving of new life is accomplished. Not just for those who are literally blind or in prison - but for every human being. For without the healing and the rescue that Jesus brings, we are all blind to the light of God's love, all imprisoned by our selfishness and sin.

Tom Wright puts it like this: "With Jesus, God's rescue operation has been put into effect once for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It is the door to the prison where we have been kept chained up. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God's rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access. In particular, we are all invited - summoned actually - to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work to bring it to birth on earth as in heaven." (p. 79)

Tom Wright's book, Simply Christian, is a contemporary successor to the popular books about Christianity written by C. S. Lewis - maybe better known now as the author of the Narnia Chronicles. Lewis himself was quite clear that just regarding Jesus as 'a great moral teacher' is not an option. For, as Lewis put it, "the things Jesus says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, 'This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go,' but He says, 'I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.'… He says, 'If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and Me, whatever it is, throw it away… Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe'." (God in the Dock, 1950)

Christianity then, is about having a life-saving and life-changing long-term relationship with Jesus Christ, the One through whom the grace of God has come into this world. Without that relationship of love and commitment with Christ, a person is not a Christian. Once that relationship has begun, it needs to grow. And the context in which it grows, as the whole New Testament makes clear, is the church. For, as St Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth in words that we heard earlier: "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it". (1 Cor. 12:27)

When the Spirit of God begins His work within us and we are baptised, we are baptised into the body of Christ, the church. And within that body, just as in our human body, there are many different limbs and organs, each with a distinctive part to play, enabling the whole body to function. Just as we don't see a hand or a foot, a heart or a lung, hopping around all by itself without the rest of the body to which it belongs - so there should be no such thing as a solitary Christian, no one who says "I can be a Christian without belonging to a church". From the biblical perspective, a churchless Christian is as gruesome a concept as a disembodied eyeball or liver.

Christ's people need each other. Here at the Priory, we are called to use our different God-given gifts to work together to live out our Vision Statement: to be a community which responds to God's love in worship, welcomes all in the name of Jesus Christ and reaches out in the power of the Spirit. Members of the PCC will be spending time away together next Saturday to think and pray on all our behalves about how to take this forward in the coming year and beyond. Please keep your PCC in your prayers.

We also need to pray for each other in all the issues that we face in living the Christian life day by day in challenging times and places. That's why we are starting a new monthly hour of prayer here in the Priory this Wednesday evening at 7.30 - please make it a priority to be here. And for the same reason members of the Prayer Ministry Team are available during Communion today; do feel free to use this opportunity to share your sorrows and joys in confidence with others because, as Paul puts it, "if one part of Christ's body suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it" (1Cor. 12:26).

But what about all the well-publicised divisions in God's Church? What about the disunity in the Body of Christ? In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, my prayer is that every Christian in every church will refocus our sights upon Jesus and reorder our priorities according those of the Christian Gospel. For if we seek unity as an end in itself, that search is doomed to failure. But if we seek Jesus, then we will find ourselves journeying together with countless others. If our heart's desire is to live for Jesus and to work for His kingdom come on earth as in heaven, we will be united with millions of people the world over who have the same purpose. As you and I grow closer to Christ, so we will also grow closer to each other. "All for Jesus". Amen.

Mary Barr