Third Sunday of Epiphany Sermon in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by David Lindsay, Canon of Honour
11am Sunday 21st January 2024
Let me take you back 60 years. It is January 1964, I am 17 years old, and in my capacity as the newly elected Chair of the Senior Youth Fellowship at the Church of St Luke, West Hartlepool, in the county and diocese of Durham, I receive a letter from my opposite number at the nearby Methodist Church. She asks whether, on the Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I and my fellow members might like to attend their evening service, followed by a time of fellowship. I gladly accept, and about 20 of us attend both service and fellowship meeting. If I tell you now that we did this in a spirit, not only of enthusiasm but excitement, you might conclude that we must have been leading singularly unexciting lives! Not so – this was after all the swinging 60s – flower power, mini-skirts, and the Beatles! But – and this is point I want to make – it was also a time when ecumenism was heady and exciting stuff. Just two decades earlier, in 1944, Archbishop William Temple had, in his Enthronement sermon, described the Ecumenical Movement as ‘The great new fact of our era’; 20 years later in 1964, so it still seemed to be.
Back to the present, and it all feels feel rather different. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – at the centre of which we stand today – is still honoured: but more, I suspect, in a spirit of duty than of excitement. Despite prayers, schemes, covenants, and discussions, our divisions remain for the most part firmly in place. And it may well be that it is in the sphere of behaviour – especially sexual behaviour - that the deepest divisions are now appearing and seem likely to persist. Thus it is that, in a broken and divided world, it can often appear that the Church mirrors the world more closely than it does the Kingdom.
And yet … there remains the clarion call of Scripture. From the Psalmist: ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is to dwell together in unity.’ From Ephesians: ‘Spare no effort to make fast with bonds of peace the unity which the Spirit gives’. And from the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: ‘May they all be one; as you Father are in me and I in you, so also may they be in us.’ And though today’s Bible readings may not appear at first sight to relate to the theme of unity, there are words in today’s Collect which do point us towards common theme - and offer at the same time, I suggest, some very real help as we seek to reinvigorate the hope of unity. The words are: ‘Renew your people with your heavenly grace’. Those words imply two things: first, it’s always possible to begin again; and second, it’s not all up to us, because grace – the unearned, undeserved love and mercy of God – can and does come to our aid, often when least expected or deserved. To quote Bishop Rowan Williams: ‘Our well-being is reconstructed by grace, precisely as the cracks appear.’
Each of our readings witnesses in its own way to the renewing power of grace. First, we heard about Melchizedek, priest and king of Salem, who blesses Abraham and offers bread and wine. Though nothing is known historically about this enigmatic and mysterious figure, his symbolic significance is emphasised in later tradition, both Jewish and Christian. The rabbis identified him with the Archangel Michael; and in the Letter to the Hebrews, he is seen as the archetype of true priesthood, pointing forward to the priesthood of Christ. The author of Hebrews says this of Melchizedek: ‘He has no father, no mother, no ancestors; his life has no beginning and no end. Bearing the likeness of Son of God, he remains priest for all time.’ So I think we might see Melchizedek as symbolising an eruption of heavenly grace into the everyday world.
In our second reading, from Revelation, came the sublime vision of John the Divine: a vision of a new age, nothing less than the coming together of heaven and earth - God’s final triumph, symbolised as a wedding feast. The wedding is the union of Christ, the Lamb that was slain but is now enthroned, with his bride the Church: a bride whose fine linen symbolises the goodness of a redeemed and purified people. It is a brave vision: written from exile, in times as dark and disturbing as ours. Yet through the gift of grace comes this wonderfully hopeful picture of a future world made new through the redeeming love of God in Christ.
Then in our gospel, we heard the story of the wedding feast at Cana. I know that the provision of so vast an amount of strong liquor has worried some tender souls, with its suggestion of gross intemperance; but if we can set aside anxieties about ‘what really happened’ and remember that in Judaism wine always symbolises joy, we shall hopefully get the point. And point is this: in the presence of Christ, grace abounds, joy is limitless, and Jesus manifests his glory – the splendour of the living God, which, paradoxically, will be fully manifested on the Cross as self-giving, self-emptying love.
Returning now to the theme of unity, I suggest that the same words, - renewal by grace - sum up very well what is needed today. And it may well be that our shortcomings and failures in ecumenism have the potential to humble us and make us more appreciative of the unobtrusive but persistent workings of grace. As the Church becomes less sure of itself, less confident that it has a monopoly on the truth, so it may become more open to the promptings of that spirit of unity that blows where it wills. And we must remember that this same spirit is at work in the world as well as – sometimes in spite of – the church; and if Christians were more willing to acknowledge that, and form better partnerships with other human enterprises of good will, they might become more attractive, more accessible, more persuasive.
It may perhaps help to think of unity with a small, rather than capital ‘u’. Whenever Christians learn to see beyond the boundaries of prejudice and fear, and discover that difference can be a cause for celebration and delight, not condemnation or hatred, the cause of unity – at least with small ‘u’ - is advanced. For a powerful demonstration of such unity in our present world, we might point to Taizé, the ecumenical religious community in Burgundy which Pope John 23rd once called ‘that little springtime’, and which, year by year, attracts pilgrims in tens of thousands from many nations and faiths. Or we might point to Neve Shalom – in Arabic Wahat al Salaam –‘Oasis of Peace’ -a village in Israel’s West Bank, founded by a Christian priest, where equal numbers of Jews and Muslims live together even at this present time, in peace and unity.
Finally, another vision, this time from a sermon preached by Elizabeth Templeton, lay theologian of the Church of Scotland and leading ecumenist of the 20th century: ‘We will be fruitful when people start saying, without irony, “Goodness, how these Christians love one another. How free they are. How welcoming. How unafraid. How able to bear truthfulness. How unself-preoccupied. How healed we feel in their company: not furtive or inferior, but wonderful, wanted, loved, human, allies.”’
Eternal God, ever three and ever one, renew us with your grace - and make us one in you, Amen.