The Rector Writes – January 2010
Dear Friends
This month includes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which runs from 18th to 25th. Local churches have organised a service to launch the Week on the preceding Sunday evening – 17th January – at 6 pm at St Francis’ Catholic Church in Llay, which always offers a warm welcome on such occasions.
Unity between Christians is a powerful witness for the Gospel. It was one of Jesus’ concerns in his prayer recorded in St John chapter 17, but we should distinguish between unity and uniformity. People will differ in their preferences for how they worship and how they serve, because of their temperaments and the traditions by which they were introduced to the Christian faith. A prime example of this is the Evangelical and Catholic branches of the Anglican Church, which appear to differ radically in their outward forms of worship but which agree on the essentials of faith.
If unity is a powerful sign of the reconciling power of the Gospel then disunity is a denial of it, such as when members of the same denomination disagree on fundamental matters. The issue which has recently proved divisive for the world-wide Anglican Church has been the blessing of same-sex partnerships and the ordination and consecration of people in such unions. After centuries of the Church’s teaching and tradition being opposed to these practices there now seems a reaction in some quarters, which wants to express the same values as in wider society.
We may observe an attitude on the part of those who commend these views, which may be summarised, ‘I know what I am and how I feel, so all matters of belief and practice have got to fit round that’. Actually we all tend to think this way, and it recalls for me Someone else saying something similar, and it suggests possible grounds for reconciliation.
In the days of the early Church there was division between the Jews, who saw themselves as the descendants of Abraham and the heirs of God’s promises to him, and everyone else, whom the Jews dismissed as the Gentiles, literally – the nations. In St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians chapter 2 he sets out a basis for mutual acceptance. Whereas the Jews claimed to have been entrusted with the Law of Moses they weren’t able to abide by it so that they were as much in need of the atoning Cross of Christ as everyone else, who had only the imperfect light of their conscience to guide them. Paul needed to show all concerned that their situation could be addressed by considering a more basic issue than that of race. Is there an equivalent where people of different sexual orientation are concerned? I would suggest that there is, and that it depends not so much on our nature as on the nature of God, which is principally holy.
When Moses had failed in his first attempt to rescue the people of Israel from their cruel slavery in Egypt he took refuge in the desert. There God appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush and told him to take off his sandals and come no nearer for the place where he stood was holy ground. Later, when Moses was trying to negotiate the people’s liberation, he asked God his name, and was given the mysterious sentence ‘I am who I am’, which may have been pronounced Yahweh in Hebrew. This name suggests that God is sovereign, and that he won’t be bound by rules. Belief and practice really must fit around him, not around any man or woman, despite the summary of some people’s attitudes which I offered earlier.
God’s holiness includes his refusal to countenance evil, although this is tempered by his merciful loving-kindness towards the frail and vulnerable. He commands holiness in his people, ‘You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy’. Holiness in things and people involves their being set apart for him. When anything or anyone holy was defiled by contact with something impure it too was considered ritually unclean. Jesus demonstrated a new kind of holiness which overcame the power of evil and was not defeated by it, but allowed him to touch and heal diseased people.
God’s sovereign nature must come first. This means he may deal with two similar people in different ways. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel about how God’s promise of the birth of Jesus or John the Baptist respectively would come about – one was treated with favour the other was deprived of speech for an interval. Similarly some people may be granted an intimate relationship whilst others are denied it in this life. We all face limitations to our fulfilment and need to rely on God’s grace to do so.
Yours sincerely
Martin Snellgrove