Third Sunday of Epiphany 21st January 2007

"Earlier on today apparently a lady rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well don't worry if you're watching, there isn't." Those words came from BBC weatherman Michael Fish in a forecast the night before the hurricane that devasted parts of Britain on 15 October 1987. Before his retirement he commented “"Yes! I wish I had a penny for each time that clip had been broadcast, I'd be a millionaire!"

One of the perils of being in a position of leadership is the risk of unfulfilled expectation. Whether in the field of politics or business, the public sector or the church, leaders are elected or appointed with a remit to set out a vision for the future. Then they have to lead the process of fulfilling the vision. Jesus Christ knew that for people to understand who he was, and why he had come, he had to set out his vision.

In the dramatic opening to his public ministry in Luke’s gospel Jesus made an incredible claim for himself. That in him the prophecy of Isaiah was being fulfilled. This claim, effectively to be God’s anointed messenger, caused astonishment. Reading on from our gospel passage, the initial response of the congregation was joy and admiration – all spoke well of him and were amazed at the words that came from his mouth. But it was only a short while before the exciting new leader became a threat to the establishment. And just a few verses later in the same chapter we read that the people ‘drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.’ Jesus managed to escape this lynching and continued his teaching elsewhere.

Jesus required incredible courage to make the claims for himself that he did. But what was even more amazing was that, although fully human, he actually managed to live completely true to his stated purpose. Jesus was eventually silenced through his arrest and crucifixion. His downfall was not, as with so many leaders, because he failed to fulfil his promises. It was that he kept them so consistently and perfectly that he risked undermining the entire value system of his society.

We cannot, as Christians, read this extraordinary passage about Jesus with purely academic interest. We have to decide whether we believe the claims Jesus makes and, if we do, accept the challenge that means for us. Faith often begins as a deeply personal experience. Through prayer, through beginning to understand a little of Jesus’ gospel, through worship and through talking to other Christians we can relate to – in this way we can find a spiritual and moral direction for our life that otherwise is lacking. But there comes a time when our perspective needs to change. One commentator wrote ‘You can only get so far with personal private knowledge of God. The test of it will come in the way you interact with others’.

Jesus lived up to his amazing mission. There is, both within the church, and in society an expectation that the Church as a body, and its members as individuals, will at least behave in a way that reflects Jesus’ teaching. This would be hard enough if we all had a clear understanding of what the implications of that teaching were in any particular situation. The task is made much harder by the fact that there is considerable divergence of opinion on how we should reflect his teaching. We need only take as an example the demonstrations outside the House of Lords recently where conservative Christians were objecting to a bill that outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the grounds of human sexuality.

There were groups of Christians protesting both for and against the bill. The leader of Faithworks, a well respected charity, described the approach of some of the protesters as “virulent and aggressive”. He said “Vociferous opposition, a lack of constructive dialogue, and threats of civil disobedience mean that the Church is in danger of sounding homophobic, and is doing little to give itself a credible voice.”

It is inevitable, and right and proper, that there will be a divergence of opinions and priorities within the church. It is how we hold together as a body, whilst aware of our differences, that is often neglected when we are trying hard to do what we believe is right. Paul’s teaching, using this wonderful analogy of the human body, challenges us to examine how we relate to our fellow Christians, and most particularly, how we relate to those who are very different to us.

The most basic message for us to remember is that whilst we are a group of individuals, God is calling us to be a single entity – the body of Christ. A body that attempts to respect and love every single part of it, however hard that might be at times. The reason for the need for this Christian unity is that we have been given the responsibility for the vision that Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue. We bear the burden of leadership and have to live with the responsibilities and expectations leadership entails. Our vision is known by the whole of society, and as a consequence, society expects us to be active in delivering it, and in living by its values. Jane Williams comments on Paul’s letter – “The Christian body that Paul is pleading for will be recognizable by the way it treats others – to be the body of Christ we have to do as he did”.

We may not often regard ourselves as Christian leaders, seeing that as the province of others. But Paul said, the members of the body that seem weaker are indispensable. Each and every one of us is indispensable to God, and therefore to each other. If we try to remember this in all that we do in our Church, then not only will St Andrew’s be a place that reflects Paul’s teaching, it will be recognizable to our community and the wider world as a Church that honestly seeks to do as Christ did.

© Robert Jenkins January 2007