Week of prayer for Christian Unity Psalm 27:1,4-9 Isaiah 9:1-4 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Matthew 4:18-22

It`s astonishing how ideas sometimes get a life of their own .....

We begin to do things in our churches, and because we have done them, we do them again...... and again, and again - at least we do in the URC. Sometimes we completely forget why we did the things that we still do... and yet, even though it makes little sense to us now we still want to do them. The reason we do them now is because we have always done them.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity used to make more sense than it does now.

I don`t mean to say that we are doing it wrong, or that there is anything reprehensible about Christians of different traditions praying together when they find that they are able to do so. Nor is a bad idea to occasionally exchange pulpits - the saints at St Andrew`s URC and Linthorpe URC will this morning discover the face of Methodism, whilst you get to have a taste of the Reformers.

No, I`m not commenting on all that when I say that the Week of prayer for Christian Unity used to make sense... I`m not even saying that ecumenism used to be a much more confident flag to wave in bygone days than it seems to have been for most of this decade. The longed-for institutional union between traditions (well, longed-for by some ecu-maniacs) has not taken shape; and the ecu-sceptics still wonder if all the time and energy ecumenism takes is truly worth while...

No, I`m not even talking about that, when I say that the Week of prayer for Christian Unity used to make sense.

It used to make sense because at one time the Roman Catholic Church celebrated the feast of St Peter at one end of the 8 days which make up the elongated week, and, the feast of St Paul at the other end. Pope Paul VIs Vatican 2 reforms saw the demise of the feast of St Peter on January the 18th, with nothing to replace it. The Anglicans attempted to salvage this situation in their Bible readings pattern, but the point of the week between the two celebrations was largely lost, and in truth it has never recovered.

Why is it important? Because, on the main ecumenical playing-field there are two threads of churchmanship - Pauline and Petrine (those who look to Paul and those who look to Peter) - and as everyone used to know this, it seemed that this week was the most significant time to hold the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - in other words during the intervening days between the feasts of these two influential giants. The week was an opportunity to observe and reflect on the contrasts of the vision of Church which both of these two men have come to represent - and through such reflection to seek a means of `being church`, `being Pauline` & `being Petrine` all at once.

It used to make sense. (There again, in times gone by, you could scratch a man and beneath the surface would be things like the Apostles Creed. These days you scratch and you get `I don`t know......!`)

Why the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity? Because the battle-lines between the church traditions have largely been drawn up by the vision of church which grew around these two men. The essence of our differences in churchmanship lies in the conflict of views which these two saints have come to represent....

The Petrine view of the church - the view that Peter was the founder - has fed largely into the Roman Church, and much of Anglicanism, in terms of its prizing of tradition and reason. Peter the Rock, appointed by Christ, the founder of the Church, and his successor appointed his successor, and so it went on down the passage of time. And through each generation a body of knowledge and reason grew around to form the magisterium - the teaching of the church.

The other church - the church for which Paul was the artificer - values the activity of Holy Spirit alive amongst those people called anew by God to be `church` in every age and circumstance. In the Pauline view, the witness of scripture is interrogated under the influence of Holy Spirit and church is re-invented on a contingent - almost moment-to-moment - basis. Reason and Tradition have little to say to such a view of churchmanship, and it is the brand of church with which we normally associate the work of Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, and to a lesser extent Cranmer (who very nearly delivered us a Reformed Church of England - but got found out!).

The whole point of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was that it celebrated these contrasting views of Church: The one steeped in the succession of ideas and reason, the other contingent and temporality - these two views were held up and allowed to enter into dialogue in the prayers of the faithful for a little over a week in the hope and expectation that there may be at least co-existence, if not a synthesis.

But now, I suspect even fewer people know about all that than the fact that it is in these ideas we discover the main confrontation between Rome and Geneva - the two players on this field - more than anything else perhaps. (Luther? Well, the Luther-inspired church is a third player, but if you reconcile the Reformers with Rome, the Lutheran Churches can be more easily accommodated because it is a much more pragmatic).

So, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity used to make sense. Does it still? As a signed-up ecu-sceptic - that is, a person who is sceptical that traditional ecumenism will take us very much further - I have to say that despite all things seeming to be against it, it very probably does make sense, and on three grounds: 1) Spirituality and Prayer 2) The Witness of Scripture 3) The times we find ourselves in.

We might look to Isaiah for the first. That is, we celebrate Christian Unity on the grounds of Spirituality and Prayer amidst a hopeless situation.

Isaiah`s book can be divided into two (and possibly three) parts. Chapters 1 to 39 were written before the exile. These were difficult times for the southern kingdom, Judah: a disastrous war was fought with Syria; the Assyrians conquered Israel, the northern kingdom, in 723 BC, and threatened Judah. Isaiah saw the cause of these events as social injustice, which he condemned, and against which he fought valiantly. He (9:1-4) says that a time will come - a latter time - when God `will make glorious`, show his power. The current `anguish` inflicted by God through the Assyrian king upon the Israelites will end. (The tense of the verbs is mixed, so when the `latter time` will be is hard to tell; perhaps it is in the distant future.) In biblical times, northern Israel never regained its freedom. The Isaiah passage is an example of spirituality and hope triumphing over adversity.

Prayer often divides people - those who think it makes a difference, and those who don`t. My view is that it doesn`t matter whether or not you or I think it will make any difference, because prayer is something you are driven to do - prayer is something you do for no reason, but you do because you can do none other. (I happen to think that things change when people pray - I`m not sure how the cause-and-effect operates: I`m not sure that whether prayers are `answered` in that kind of way - but sometimes it seems as if that happens, Most importantly, people change and situations change because of prayer.) Isaiah`s situation was an impossible one - yet prayer and hope expressed to God is at the heart of these prophecies. Whilst the Northern Kingdom remained a subject nation the prayers were answered in the emancipation of will and belief. Without prayers, the people with a genius for religion would have been unready for its ultimate destiny. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is therefore worth doing, because though the situation may seem hopeless at present, we never know where our own genius for religion will lead. Let`s do it then, not becuase of any benefits we think will accrue, because we are driven to do it.

2. The Witness of Scripture If I can divert you from the texts we heard earlier, one of my personal nearby favourites is at 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17. Paul is writing to the troublesome Corinthian Church and telling them (and Oh, how I identify with it!) `....your meetings do more harm than good.....`

In this epistle Paul answers two letters he has received, concerning lack of harmony and internal strife in the Corinthian church, a church he had founded. Paul appeals that there may be commonality in their thinking about the faith and in their vision for the church. He has heard from `Chloe's people` that their factiousness has reach the level of recrimination. We don`t know what the three or four factions believed; perhaps those who `belong to Christ` give allegiance to him without the mediation and participation of the church. `Cephas`, of course, is Peter. Then Paul (the sarcasm is biting!) presents three matters, to which he knows there is no answer. (i) To put loyalty to a leader above fidelity to Christ is unacceptable. While Paul probably baptised the first converts in Corinth his prime mission is to teach the faith. (ii) Claims of `belonging to Paul` are unfounded. (iii) All are baptised in the name of Christ, so all `belong` to him.

He teaches straight-forwardly, relying on the message: the `power` of the `cross of Christ` to convince people. He does not appeal to reason with clever arguments and rhetorical prowess. For those who hear the message and do not accept and trust in it, it is `foolishness` about a man who died an ignominious death. Well, those folks, he says, are `perishing` both now and when Christ comes again. But to the faithful the Gospel speaks how powerful God is.

Now, in the light of what I said about the Pauline and Petrine Church earlier on, this should ring a bell, if not a warning siren. It`s true! We`ve been here before, a long time ago, and things haven`t improved. I hear people say..... `Well I go to this or that particular church because I like the way they do things there` `I don`t want to go to that place, because they believe this or that or the other` `I could never.....` and so on.....

This in essence is what Paul has heard about not amongst different churches, but within one fellowship. Whilst a church which is divided and full of cliques is different from divisions between church traditions built on consciencious and noble justifications, there is never-the-less a ring of recognition, and a sense of shame in the clarity of Paul`s assessment of us all.

We must defend the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on biblical ground. So, how do we use the Bible?

Well, yes, the Bible does tell us stories like the ones we hear from that ancient Corinthian house-church. But `go thou and do like-wise` is in essence a worship of the Bible rather than seeking the mind of Christ which Paul and (to a lesser extent) Mark want us to do. If we regard the Bible as a witness, and the church as a court (all good Reformed ecclesiology), then we can see that preaching is the key. Preaching interrogates the witness of the Bible and lays open the case for the courts of the church to decide on what action to take. I have to suggest to you (or to use the language of a barrister, `I put it to you, good Christian folks`) that Paul is a convincing witness:

`Your meetings do more harm than good....` `Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptised in the name of Paul?`

The witness of Scripture makes us consider our differences and place them in a clear and easily recognised context - the context of Christ himself. The Week of prayer for Christian Unity drives us to re-examine tribalist religion and pour scorn on all which detracts from the unity of Christ.

3). Lastly, Christian Unity in Context....

Many academics believe that the times we live in are significantly different form the past. That our days, in our time, are different from the times of the European Enlightenment and the beginnings of modern rational philosophy, scientific discovery and the development of technology. From its inception there has always been opposition to rationality because of the frightening places it can take us; and in the last two centuries it was called `romanticism`. We see in romanticism the arts and literature almost become an alternative and subversive agenda to industry, science and political development.

`The agenda of this world` is hard to escape unless you capitulate to the (romantic) absence of reason - and in effect this was what the whole wilderness thing was about. Jesus was, `tempted by the devil in the wilderness`. His responses show his complete dedication to the will and purpose of God. He has refused to use his divine power to his own human ends. Then he withdraws from Nazareth to Capernaum, so he can begin his mission safe from government interference. What the wilderness episode was about was to establish a convincing way of dealing with the situation without appealing to the corrupt standards of this world (this situation); nor in the other extreme capitulate to a romantic dreamy vision of hopes and aspirations which would never be fulfilled.

The time we live in - our situation - is called by some to be `post-modern`. That is, following the modern era of the European enlightenment whose prowess in reason brought us so much material gain. In so many ways, the temptation story reveals Jesus to be the first post-modernist in that he rejects the received wisdom of earthly politics and materialism, and also dreamy self-deception. Jesus understands that there is more than one way to bake bread, and he will achieve his objectives by doing his theology `on the hoof`, without pre-conceptions.

I draw you to this because, once again, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a good time to do the same, both in our own churches and together with others.

I observe that the Church is in dire straights when measured by the yardsticks of the past - that when we measure churches by the rubrics of numerical membership, average age profile, dwindling resources, and lack of confidence, then it is clear the church will not last long into the next millennium. Many estimate that the mainstream churches (Methodism, Anglicanism, Reformed, Roman, etc.) will all be gone well before the first century of the third millennium closes.

Many will retort that whilst this may be true, other forms of churchmanship (like evangelical house-churches) are thriving. Sadly, there is no evidence to suggest that this is any more true of them than of `mainstream` churches at the moment. The fact of the matter is that generally-speaking it is urbanisation that destroys churches, and in places where there is no `folk church` (like Irish Roman Catholicism), the process is rapid. The UK church is suffering the same fate that all urban-located churches face throughout Europe, and the process began well over 150 years ago.

This brings us to consider what Jesus decided in the wilderness: He was offered solutions to problems in a pictorial way by the devil - in other words he was being offered solutions and methods which he knew were in essence failures. Christ took the bold step of interrogating the situation by a new set of questions, and developing his ministry to the world likewise. This is an important symbol to us in our days. Could it possibly be that we don`t succeed under the old expectations of `church` simply because those days and methods and measurements are going of have gone? Could it be that we fail simply because we misunderstand our situation? Is it open to us to interrogate the church by another framework, as Christ interrogated his circumstances?

If we did, we may well be drawn to asking `Where in the world is the church?`

So often our churches are living in a tension between the demands of the worlds needs, and the tension of an ecclesiastical tradition asking us why we are not successful in the old terms of numerical size, wealth, spirituality and all the other stuff.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity could unite us through the sharing of those tensions, because all of our church traditions are pressed to conform their own denominational criterion and also meet the local and individual context of their mission. It is rare to find that these two forces are not pulling in different directions -

`We can`t put a full-time stipendiary minister of priest into a church of 20 members.....!` `But, if you did, you might transform this community...!`

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is potentially an opportunity to unpack and present the local stuff to our respective traditions and to have the temerity to suggest that the balance, at present, between local and wider-church interests, may be wrong. The example of people who can change their life-priorities is illustrated by the calling of Peter and Andrew - a policy of openness and spaciousness, and a determination to celebrate God`s Kingdom in terms of the realities we meet (rather than stitching-up the churchmanship in advance and expecting folks to come flocking in....)

`Come and I will make you fishers of men.` At once they left their nets (their old priorities and methods for judging their lives), and (they) followed him.

In the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, do the churches in Marton and Nunthorpe have the bottle for that sort of thing? Amen