Christian Unity

Tracy Niven
Monday 23 January 2023

Preacher: Revd Samantha Ferguson, Assistant Chaplain
Readings: 1 Corintians 1:10-17; Matthew 4:12-23

 

In the name of the father, and of the son and of the Holy Spirit Amen.

Good morning.  May I extend my welcome to you all here in person and online.

For those who are new to the University, well done you have survived your first week in January in the North East of Scotland.

I promise that your days are only going to get brighter, longer and warmer!

To those returning for their next semester, well done and, remember, you have been here before. Again, I promise that your days are only going to get brighter, longer and warmer.

It is all good!

I pray this semester will be an exciting one, full of laughter, joy, hard work and satisfaction at that work being done.

And, if life hands you some lemons, in the coming weeks and months, let us at the Chaplaincy, Student Services and your Advisors, help you turn it into lemonade by supporting you through it.  Or if needs be we can crack open the gin!

I hope that what does help, as we face what is to come this year, is to remember, and is a salient reminder, that it is a privilege that we can gather together in person.

And, although I have much that I disagree about with the writer of our first reading this morning, Paul of Tarsus, I am in unity with him that it is an unexpected joy that I am here this morning to proclaim the gospel although perhaps, like him, not with any eloquent wisdom!

And unity finds itself at the very heart of this morning’s sermon, preached in the midst of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

As an born and bred Church of England low Anglican living north of the border, walking alongside my fellow Christians of all shapes, shades and beliefs for the last 25 years has been a journey of discovery and discipleship.  A pilgrimage that I feel a privilege to be a part of and one that continues to this day.

Before I began as your Assistant Chaplain four years ago, I worked as one of Christ’s minions up and down the North East Coast of Scotland.  Running various Scottish Episcopal Anglican churches and being a chaplain in universities, schools and hospitals.

Working in the communities where I lived to help those in need and those in distress.  Working in unity with other churches and denominations, and indeed faiths, to support and love our communities any way we could.  Providing and maintaining a rhythm of sacramental ministry in ancient and historical Scottish churches.

Hatching Matching and Dispatching the good folk of Aberdeen, Montrose, Inverbervie, Pittenweem and Elie.

For that was my calling and that is what I took vows 15 years ago to uphold.

And then I came here, again called as I was by God, Donald and this university, to once again to live out the Christian vows of my ministry.

That sense of being called by God and being given the strength found through my faith in God, are the primary reasons I am here.  This calling along with unity in Christ, lie at the heart of what we have heard read to us this morning in our readings and sung to us in our psalm.

However, I must confess, and the pulpit is always an excellent place to confess things especially as we are still in the opening play of a new year, a big draw to becoming your Assistant Chaplain was that I would be working with students and staff at my alumni university, alongside Donald and his team of Honorary Chaplains, within and without this university, in unity, to further the common good.

It is in this key area of my ministry – ecumenical and interfaith work – that has underpinned, sustained and given me the greatest joy over the many years I have had Jesus as my boss.

And now we are bang in the middle of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and so, aptly, this is the title of this sermon. Christian Unity.  This year its theme is ‘Do Good, Seek Justice’ reflecting in the light of the 30 years since Stephen Lawrence’s horrific murder, the effect that racial injustice has had upon our churches and our national life.

Facing together the challenges our responses to the questions racism and inequality have raised in our lives as people of prayer and within our churches as places of prayer.  We do this over a single week, meeting daily in individual churches throughout the town, reading, praying and reflecting on what is it to be made in the image of god,

what it is to be different,

how we can be one and how we lament the times when we have not been,

when it is time to be angry,

when it is time to restore hope

and how we can be one of the agencies used to restore equality, peace and hope to our national consciousness.

The week of services will conclude with a joint Evensong here in Chapel this coming Wednesday at 5.30pm to which you are all warmly invited.

Christian Unity and equality have been at the heart of every church I have ever had the privilege to lead.  Working together with other Christians alongside people of other faiths has been a huge priority in my ministry.

This continues today with me preaching here in an ancient medieval chapel full of people from all walks of life, from all denominations, from all faiths and none, across the world globally online where anyone anywhere can access its eloquent wisdom!

And now after four years I guess my honeymoon period has ended and the real graft begins, whereas in our lectionary, (in our list of what we read each week from the Bible,) Jesus’ honeymoon period has just begun…

Last week we heard about how Jesus poached two disciples from John and this week we hear about the crucial decision two other of Jesus disciples made and how.  Jesus is walking beside a lake one afternoon when he sees two men in a rowboat waiting for unsuspecting fish to wander into their nets.

It’s hard to believe what happens next. Jesus offers them a job with no pay, and they accept:

“Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” (Matthew 4:19).

If Jesus asked you that question today, how would you have responded I wonder? One to ponder.

However to those men, on that day in that moment it seemed to make perfect sense. They were about to make the most crucial decision of their lives.  They drop what they are doing and head off to God-knows-where, to lives they can’t imagine.  The disciples’ instant acceptance of Jesus’ peculiar invitation is as dramatic as any moment we will ever encounter.

As you move forward through the rest of this year and your life, you will learn that the vital moments in which we choose directions for our lives aren’t usually marked with caution signs, bright red flags, or even the feeling that we are about to make a big decision.

We don’t drop everything to start a new life very often. But every now and then we have to take a big risk, maybe some of you took one by being here with us today.  My life doesn’t feel as adventurous as that of the disciples, leaving their nets and following Jesus into the unknown although I came close four years ago when I gave up being a parish priest to become your university assistant chaplain.  But because the sacred is always present in the ordinary and our lives are a gift, every moment matters.  So we take a risk.

This was the day the disciples took a chance on Jesus, but for most of us we are feel called to less-dramatic discipleship.  But you and I know that there are women and men who live each day in danger because of their faith, because of their beliefs, because of who they are, what they look like and who they love.

These are people who do astonishing, heroic works by simply getting out of bed and going out in public.   Maybe someday we will do something spectacular.  Joining together as Christians to pray for unity, for righteousness and justice for all, is pretty spectacular.

And if our prayers extend into actions, direct and indirect, to deal with societies challenges of oppression, imbalance of power and racial injustice.  That would be transformational and dramatic.

For God is in the details.

God calls us every hour of every day.

God invites us to be friends, practice kindness, and pray for our daily bread.

As Christians and people of faith we are called to live out that faithfulness in worship, work, and study. Love is present in every way that grace is shared, hope is proclaimed, and healing comes.  Love spreads word by word in order that wrongs are righted one by one.

Our unified calling in Christ is to be faithful, to live God’s grace on routine days in ordinary ways.  There is no event so commonplace that God is not there. Every moment and every word have possibilities.

On the day they first followed Jesus, the disciples were brash, impulsive, stubborn, and they smelled of fish.  They had to learn day by day how to be the church.  And so do we.

This week of Prayer for Christian Unity gives us the chance to reflect and, yes to lament the times we have not been the force for love, change and equality that Christ would want us to be.

To recognise that and to have the courage to change because we have to.  The right thing is rarely the easy thing to do.  That is why we need the prayers of our fellow Christians alongside trusting in the strength of God to not be afraid in going forward in the light.  For we are given by God, in every moment, another opportunity to take a step in the direction of Christ, to begin anew to live with purpose, hope, and love.

May you all be blessed as you take that step into the light this week, and may your lives be full of grace as we pray and walk together towards righteousness, justice and unity. Amen

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