There is a cry deep inside many of us that says, “You don’t know me”. We hear it voiced on the Jeremy Kyle show by angry young men and women whose lives are being offered up in simplistic terms to an audience hungry to judge, as they realise that the bald facts presented have led to them being censured. I wonder how many MPS, who are being criticised over their expenses, are sitting at home feeling the same thing, “But if you were in my shoes you might understand why…” Sometimes it’s hard to know others.
We sometimes feel misunderstood or undervalued, and when it happens with people we care about it can be a very painful experience.
That desire to be known (and the parallel fear that if we are really known we might turn out to be not worth knowing), is deep seated and drives a lot of our behaviour. If we are not known, how do we connect with people? If we feel no connection, how can we have empathy, how can we feel any sense of responsibility to others, for others, to our society?
Garrick Stevens spoke on Wednesday night about some of the local issues that we can pray for and maybe get involved in. One of these was ‘social cohesion’ and I’ve been thinking more about that. We live in a beautiful part of the country, and the people around here are generally very pleasant and easy to like and yet there is still a sense of alienation that shows up in anti-social behaviour. Anti-social = against society.
Two headlines from the local paper this week caught my eye.
1. Sunnyside Rural Trust have planted flowers in various public places, as part of their programme of work with adults with learning difficulties. Over the past few weeks thieves have uprooted shrubs from flower beds along Berkhamsted High Street and spoiled their work. Previously their storage shed was broken into and the intruders not only stole equipment but also cut up electric cables.
2. In a similar incident people attending the Tring Canal Festival have had tools stolen from their shed, and cars broken into and vandalised.
We might shake our heads at such wanton destruction, but my question remains – why do people feel so alienated, disconnected (possibly rejected?) from our society that they do this? What happens to people that they can only assuage their own loneliness and negative feelings by damaging others – a kind of warped competitiveness where the one who can cause the most hurt wins? Actually I have known people who argue like that!
I don’t fully understand the problem, and I wouldn’t claim to know the answers either, but I have a suspicion that feeling part of a community relates to being known, recognised and valued. That is what we are, or should be, here.
As Christians we have the community and the cohesion that appeals to those deep needs in so many people. A warning: this absolutely isn’t about climbing closely into a holy huddle of niceness and excluding other people. We are not an exclusive faith; in fact we are commanded to be inclusive, to go out, to find people and welcome them in to join us. What is our USP? (Unique Selling Point)
It is the love of God. When I speak of love I don’t mean simply an emotional feeling that is warm and fuzzy and makes colours look brighter and birds sing sweeter, that blinds us to all ugliness… and tends to wear off after a while… and which, according to the Daily Mail, some men feel is a bit too cuddly for church. “Can we sing more macho hymns please and stop all this soppy stuff?”
I mean the love of God for us, the love of God in us, and the love of God that we can share with other people. I mean the tough love that holds us all when we fail, and forgives us when we repent, and still asks us to aim for the gold-standard. The tough love that meant Jesus actually went to the cross for us, and did it out of practical care and a heart that holds every one of us as dearly beloved.
Today’s reading relates to the prayer that Jesus prayed just before his arrest. It is sandwiched between Jesus’ prayer for himself, “I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do”, and his prayer for all of us who would come to faith after his death as a result of his work. His prayer is for his disciples, his beloved friends. Just look at what he prays,
v9 I pray for them
v11 protect them by the power of your name
v11 so that they may be one as we are one
v13 that they may have full measure of my joy within them
v15 that you protect them
Protection, unity, joy.
Keep them safe; give them joy, let them be one.
These are people that he loves, so much that he sees them as one in his relationship with God the Father. Look what he says he has done for them,
V12 I protected them and kept them safe
v14 I have given them your word
Jesus is entrusting his disciples to God’s care now that he can no longer be with them but he is doing it knowing that he has already taught them what they need to know to maintain joy and unity in their relationship, and that they are one with him. And they did, didn’t they? Every one of us here today is the result of the Church passing on that teaching through the generations and the centuries.
These disciples became the Church, the Church of the Living God, following Christ. Not as one man wrote, “a voluntary association of religiously inclined humans.” Jesus is praying for the Church, and his prayer is as true today as it was then. He asks God to take care of his beloved friends. The good news for us is that we are also one with Jesus through our faith in him; therefore we are one with God – Father Son and Holy Spirit. And God, who knows everything there is to know about us, good and bad, still loves us. We can ignore it or accept it, but we can’t change it. God knows us and God loves us; we are the beloved friends, and God cares for us.
One of the more moving songs that I found when I first became a Christian was “I’m accepted, I’m forgiven, I am loved by the true and living God.” Yes, even me. And you. And him. And her. All of us.
Sometimes though it doesn’t feel like that, does it? Don’t you sometimes find other people, even in the church community a bit, maybe just a bit, well, difficult? Especially when they don’t agree with everything we think, or want to do things differently. I wonder how much of that is that we haven’t processed the idea that we are all different because we are meant to be different – like tools in a toolbox – what is the point in having two hammers the same if you haven’t got a screwdriver? We have different abilities, gifts, talents, skills, and that’s the way it is supposed to be. We can do different things and we have been equipped for different purposes, but all, to work for the glory of God. Imagine the leaves on a tree. Each one is in a different place; each connected to a twig, each twig connected to a branch, but all are rooted in the same tree.
Our difficulties arise when we think that someone else is valued more than we are. Jesus’ disciples also had their differences, including an argument about who is most important, but yet Jesus asks, “that they may be one as we are one.” We know that there were disagreements after Jesus died; the Council of Jerusalem is a key example in Acts, and we know that there have been schisms and divisions and arguments about what is right throughout history. Even in this town the people of God meet in different buildings and worship in different ways, and have slightly different understandings of what it means to be an authentic Christian. So does this mean that we are not united? I don’t think so.
I would say we are united if we abide in Christ, just as the Church across the world is united in Christ. I think we are united in essence and recognise our differences in detail, some of which matter greatly, some less so.
This week I was fortunate enough to visit the Coptic Church in Stevenage, and to hear presentations from Bishop Angaelos, the head of the Coptic Church in the UK, (who then had to leave to attend the enthronement of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster - how’s that for an ecumenical meeting?); and also their vicar, Father Abraham Thomas, from the Indian Orthodox church in Kerala. The key message that came out of this visit was that we do have differences, but what unites us is far greater, and much more important. I won’t go into all the details, but I’d like to share one thing I learned. Some of you will already know this.
Father Abraham Thomas greeted us with ‘Namaste’, which he said means, ‘I honour the image of God in you’. The reply is, of course, ‘Namaste’.
Think about what that means; every one of us carries that image of God in us, and every one of us is known and loved by God. I wonder if that deep ‘knowing’, and the recognition of the divine in each person; the gift that Jesus gave to so many people that he met, is one of the major reasons people followed him? Imagine what it must have felt like to meet that gaze.
When we truly accept the prayer that Jesus prayed for us, “they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine” it puts everything else into a different perspective.
If we accept that, then we have no option but to look for ways to share it with others, in all the places that we inhabit – home, work, leisure, with family, friend and stranger. We can look for that image of God in everyone we meet, and we can help them to find that image of God in themselves. And each one of us will do it in a different way. I don’t think there is one-size-fits-all approach to evangelism. Some of us are predominantly talkers, some are listeners, some are servants and so on; all of us are all of these things in different degrees, and each one of us is unique. We are all, however, joined in lively, vibrant faith, in unity with Christ.
For better or worse, for all the minor irritations, for all the differences in interpretation of doctrine, we are brothers and sisters – we are the ones who are united, we are the cohesive group, and we can model that to others in our society, and invite them to come in. We can share that love and care for others. Jesus’ prayer is for us; we are loved by God and we are in God’s care.
We can’t say to God, “You don’t know me”. If God answered our Facebook quiz, the score would be 100%, every time, for every one of us. Which one of us, when we read the words, “I pray… for those you have given me, for they are yours” can feel anything but special, accepted, loved, known. And out of that, which one of us doesn’t want to share that with other?
