One of the persistent side effects of the treatment I have been receiving has been fatigue. For some reason it is at its worst at the weekend so attendance at worship has been limited. That’s why it was so good to have members of the St Paul’s Choir gather in the Manse the other night to sing some favourite Christmas Carols. The singing was lovely but just as important was seeing friends again and enjoying a time of fellowship. One of the problems of being ill over a period of time is that you can get used to being on your own and there can be a drift towards an unhealthy isolation. You need opportunities to look beyond yourself and engage with others. But even in days of health and strength we are only fully ourselves when we are in community.
Think of the vision of God that is set before us in Scripture. The concept of the Trinity is baffling to many but there is little doubt that the earliest Christians experienced God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So within the Godhead there is community, dynamic relationships that together express the Divine to humankind. It is in those relationships that God is fully Himself. Created as we are in the image of God we are fully ourselves when we live and work and recreate in relationship to others.
A favourite passage for preachers is Acts 2: 42-47 which deals with the quality of life experienced by the first followers of Jesus:
‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’
The key words are: ‘All the believers were together.’ And thereafter the word ‘together’ is repeated twice. Everything else that marked the Church, the miracles, the powerful preaching, all flowed from this experience of community, the heart of Christian living created by the Holy Spirit. This is why it was so important to the Apostle Paul that anything that threatened the unity of the Church had to be dealt with. Whether it was conflict over the the Gospel or a breakdown in personal relationships there had to be a call to reconcile. This is why the letters were written.
There has sometimes been a tendency to look at the life of the first followers of Jesus, to recognise that there were disagreements and to take comfort from that. Why get too upset about fractures in the Church when they have been with us since the beginning? But it should never be forgotten that Paul and other apostles worked hard to hold the line with regard to the cardinal truths of the Gospel and also to reconcile those who found themselves at odds with other Christians. In his letter to the Philippians Paul makes an appeal to two women, Euodia and Syntyche, to resolve their differences. (Philippians 4: 2) If Christians were faithfully to reflect the being of God to the society in which they bore their witness then there had be be a strong commitment to be ‘together’.
The story of the shepherds in Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus can take us further along this road. The angels came to them as a community. It was as a community that they decided to go to Bethlehem. They discovered Jesus as a community and as a consequence ‘they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.’ (Luke 2: 17) Whatever else you pray for this Christmas find some room for every congregation in the land that they will know a deeper sense of being together and more surely committed to spreading the Word and drawing others into that togetherness that only the Spirit can create. The night before His crucifixion Jesus prayed for the Church:
‘I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.‘ (John 17: 22-23)
