Where do you look for security in times of challenge and change?
Where do you feel most at home?
It might be with family and friends
It might be in familiar places, or familiar routines
It might even be in a gathered community, coming together to offer worship. Something like this, perhaps.
In our first reading tonight we encounter God’s people struggling to maintain their identity on their return from exile. They’re back in Jerusalem, which ought to be something to celebrate, but nothing is really as it should be, since the Temple has been destroyed. Worse, they are mortally afraid of their neighbours and determined to keep them at a distance in every way, underlining the differences between them as they cling to familiar routines, marking the seasons of their liturgical year, celebrating the festivals as best they can.
And, little by little in practicing those rituals they gain confidence in themselves, remembering who they are as God’s people once again, living out the days until foundations can be laid and work on the new Temple finally began. And then, of course, there is great rejoicing from some – equaled by great lament by others. Things have changed. The new building is not going to be quite what it was. Things have been lost that cannot be recovered. Is this new start a day of joy or of regret? Can they, can we, embrace a new kind of future that looks very different from all that went before? Change is HARD.
I’m sure questions like these were bubbling just beneath the surface in the weeks and months leading up to the consecration of our new cathedral here in Coventry, 63 years ago. I know that many regretted the decision not to simply rebuild, covering over the wounds of history by denying that they had ever been, even as others rejoiced at the new vision that was taking shape before their eyes.
But, you know, even the most special, most beloved place of worship is only ever a means to an end, a signpost to a way of being with God. Were every cathedral, every church and chapel, razed to the ground tomorrow, THE CHURCH would be just fine.
That’s what our second reading is about, as it introduces a new way of being community, in startling contrast to that presented in the Ezra text. This is where WE come in, you and I. We are here because, in one way or another, we have responded to the invitation to come closer, as Christ abolishes all divisions, uniting all humanity in one body, even as his own body is broken on the cross. Those neighbours whom the Israelites saw as a threat in Ezra’s day, the strangers, aliens, outsiders (people rather like us) are suddenly transformed into family – citizens with an equal right to belong to the new reality founded on Christ. And of course that includes you and me.
Suddenly, scandalously, we are ALL insiders, all members of the household with as much right to be there as the prophets who looked towards God’s kingdom and the apostles who shared its good news. I wonder, is that cause for rejoicing , or would you just as soon God was a bit more inclined to discriminate? Making room for ME is fine – but does God really have to be quite as generous in welcoming those people over there? The ones who don’t seem to want to behave as we think they should? The ones who look different, sound different…THEM
A long time ago, before ever I imagined I might work here one day, Dean John and I were sitting on the grass at Greenbelt festival when he said very firmly that reconciliation was not an aspect of the gospel, but absolutely and incontrovertibly reconciliation WAS the gospel.
Over the years since then, I’ve come to understand more and more what he means. And yes, I have come to agree with him.
It’s all about bringing together those who were divided…nation and nation, race and race, class and class. (Perhaps this is sounding familiar?)
More importantly, it is about reuniting broken humanity with the God who holds us steady no matter what…
There are to be no divisions
Here is a new humanity and we belong, not because of where or how we worship, nor because of who our friends and family might be, but because of Jesus. As he speaks peace to us, whether we are close by or need to strain our ears to hear his invitation, he draws us to him – and there in him we find our true community
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