Dear Friends,
Each year the 18th – 25th January is the ‘Week of Prayer for Christian Unity’. Next Sunday, 24th, we were due to hold a joint service with our Anglican friends from St Jude’s, and maybe representatives from St Edwards Roman Catholic Church, and Friends Meeting House. In the present situation that will not be possible. But that should not stop us from taking time out during this week to think about and to pray for ‘Unity’ amongst ‘Christians.’ From the very beginning, differences have existed within the Church. Paul bemoaned the fact that at Corinth there were ‘followers’ of Cephas (Peter), of Apollos, even of Paul himself. Over the centuries, differences have led to separation, division, even schism. Today the so-called ‘Christian’ Church is as divided as ever. Yet, does that mean it is the poorer or weaker as a result? Perhaps the slogan for this week ought to be, ‘Vive la Difference!’ Then again, the peculiar circumstances surrounding this year’s devotion invite us to consider it from a different perspective. Instead of ‘Unity’, thinking more in terms of ‘Togetherness’. Whatever our differences, we are all in this, ‘together’. When we begin to think in this way, we realise it is not just about how we relate to Christians in other churches, or from other traditions, it is as much to do with fostering a sense of ‘togetherness’ within individual congregations such as our own. When we are not able to meet ‘together’ on Sunday it becomes far more difficult to maintain any sense of being ‘together’. I am acutely conscious that as time has gone on, I have found myself, the minister, becoming increasingly remote from numbers of you in the congregation. And while we are all trying as hard as we can to foster a continuing sense of being ‘together’, the longer ‘lockdown’ goes on, the harder it is bound to be for all of us…
And so, during this week, rather than praying for ‘Unity’ – a vacuous concept anyway – pray for ‘Togetherness’ and begin with our own church family. Its easy to do. Take your church handbook and just read everybody’s name to yourself. Some you will know very well, and you may want to pause for a moment to remember them in a particular way, others we will know less well, we may well even struggle to put a face to a name, but that doesn’t matter. If prayer is anything at all, it is the means by which we are brought ‘together’ – the one who prays, and the one who is prayed for – even if it is just by name. And don’t forget to include those we describe as ‘living out of district’, or ‘living overseas’. That way we all be in this ‘together’
But as Jesus said, ‘other sheep I have which are not of this fold’, and so we reach out beyond ourselves and pray for the continuing faithful witness of all God’s people everywhere: within the family of the Church, we are all sisters and brothers in Christ, all together, all one in Christ Jesus…