G'Day Mate MkII

+ In the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost
Amen

A man dies and goes to heaven. All his life he has been a churchgoer and has observed all the rituals, all the commandments (although he's broken a few along the way) and has tried, in the main to lead a Christian Life. Finding himself in a vast foyer through which a stream of people is passing he reports to reception and is directed to an interview room by the Receiving Angel. After a brief interview with another angel who has checked all the records and pointed out all the man's sins, he is directed out of the room and told to find a door with a particular number. "Welcome to heaven," says the angel, but please be very quiet as you pass door Number 1 on your way.”
"Why?" asks the man, curious.
"Because that's where all the Fundamentalists are, and they think they have the place to themselves!"

Today is Christian Unity Sunday and we are asked to pray for the unity of the Christian Church and the reconciliation of Christians everywhere. The story I have just told is often heard in various guises and frequently singles out a particular denomination as "the only occupants". It is an indictment of us all that we can do so.

It is a sad fact that no matter how far back we look in the history of the church we seem to find schism and division. Even in the first century the Apostles themselves where far from a unified body. St Paul was not a favourite among many of the original twelve and he was certainly not welcome among the Jerusalem congregation led by James the brother of Christ. While we frequently find St Peter's name linked to St Paul's in dedications, the two men seem to have spent a large portion of their ministries not on speaking terms with each other. Even when Paul arranged help for the impoverished Jerusalem congregation and delivered it himself - the help was refused because he was the bearer.

When we look at the church today, we see a church divided not so much on what it believes - although there are differences there too - but on how things ought or ought not to be done. How we worship, when and where we worship must always be a matter of personal choice. Not everyone is comfortable with the rich magnificence of a high mass in which they feel they have no active role and others are not comfortable in a less formal celebration of the act of communion. As one priest recently put it to a group discussing worship patterns - some of his congregation don't think it's legitimate worship unless the "Ritual Notes" have been observed to the letter. Accompanied, of course, with yards of lace and choked with incense. Some think it isn't worship unless they are sat around a coffee table singing Taze chants and holding hands, and the rest swing between the two according to the mood.

Of course it is important to have our worship right. It is, after all, in honour of God that we are here today. And so, I would hope, are all our other Christian communities. But worship is not the only thing a Christian does. St Paul reminds us that it is by the fruits of our spirituality that we will be recognised as Christians and not by our observance of rules, rituals or any other measurement of adherence to dogma or detail.

The heart of Christianity is the Gospel and it is the Gospel that compels us to work with our fellow Christians to seek to reconcile our differences. Yet, frequently, it is our interpretation of scripture that divides us. A house divided against itself cannot prevail said our Lord to the Pharisees when they accused him of casting out demons by invoking the chief of demons. Today, as never before, Christianity is under threat as the bastion of hope and redemption. On all sides it is assailed by mockers and by those who challenge its tenets, its structures and its leaders. Can we therefore continue to be divided against ourselves?

On this Sunday of prayer for Christian unity let us consider instead what we have to offer each other in our diversity. There is much to admire in the way lay leadership of worship and ministry is practised and embraced by many of our fellow travellers. Are we making best use of the gifts this congregation is graced with to that end? St Paul reminds us that each of us is blessed with some gift of the spirit. Have we provided the right environment for that gift to be developed and put to use for God's Church and the Gospel of Christ? Let us look at the gifts other Christian denominations have which could assist our spiritual growth and perhaps help our branch of the church to grow.

In today’s Epistle, St Paul lists all the gifts of the Spirit. We may be very sure that we have not been given exclusive access to these, our fellow travellers share them too. The measure of our unity must surely lie in how we deploy them for the spread of the Gospel, for the work we can do together to bring people to Christ and to help others find the spiritual grace to grow in Christ.

As I prepared these notes, I was reminded of my late father-in-law whose father had become a Baptist Minister, both parents having been Officers in the Salvation Army. He was raised a Baptist, steeped in their tradition and even helped to found new Churches in his native State in Australia. Yet, having embraced Evangelical Anglicanism, he felt perfectly at ease here in the Abbey at a Good Friday Solemn Liturgy, joining in the veneration the Cross with worshippers from the opposite end of the Anglican spectrum. He believed in meeting God wherever God wanted to meet him and refused to be constrained by dogma. Gil, on being told by the angel to be quiet going past the door for the exclusive set, would have hammered hard on it and enjoyed the consternation of the inmates.

For all of us, the imperative must be the spread of Gods message to the world. As I have travelled and worshipped wherever I found myself I have found a huge diversity of beliefs, rituals and welcome, but I have only ever felt truly uncomfortable in those places where I could not find God in the congregation. Let us then celebrate our diversity rather than our differences, let us pray for unity of our message and rejoice in each others growth and exploration of the faith to which we are all called, and will, at the last, be held to account for.

Let us pray: