Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - Wedding at Cana
Sermon preached on Sunday 8am 21 January 2024
I remember hearing, when I was training for ordination 25 year ago, about a story which the then Archbishop of Canterbury had told at a Christian Unity service.
The city clergy were at an ecumenical meeting discussing which church Jesus might join if he were to come to Canterbury. The Catholic parish priest was sure that Jesus would attend his church. They were after all the true Church. The Baptist minister disagreed. Jesus believed in believers’ baptism and he would surely therefore join the Baptists. Her Methodist colleague pointed out that wherever Jesus went there was liveliness and enthusiasm, so he would undoubtedly want to worship with a congregation that worshipped with verve and joy, and where better than the local Methodist church. The Pentecostal minister thought that as Jesus was so Spirit-filled he would undoubtedly be a Pentecostal.
The Anglican vicar had remained silent throughout, which was unusual. So the assembled company turned to him and asked his opinion. He scratched his head, looked puzzled and said: ‘Frankly, I don’t see why he would want to change.’
It's a good story, one which makes us laugh at our own folly, for we all make Jesus in our own image, and we are all formed by the perceptions and presuppositions of the faith communities which have nurtured us.
The Week of Prayer for Christian unity started in 1908 when there had seemed to be some real hope of building towards unity between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Communions.
Since then there has been the Porvoo agreement, inspired at least in part by our own Bishop Kenneth Stevenson, bringing Anglicans into Communion with the Lutheran Churches. And also the Meissen declaration which brought recognition between the Church of England and German Evangelical Churches.
But, very sadly, at least two attempts at Anglican Methodist reconciliation have failed, and both it seems because the Anglicans chose to say no… Maybe this is something of our Anglican problem with Unity: we don’t like the idea of change!
Questions of Christian unity don’t seem quite politically correct in pluralist Britain. We are increasingly encouraged to accept the commercial, consumer version of religion: pick and mix rules. Borrow a pinch of Buddhist meditation, add a few granules of aromatherapy, spice them with the poems of Blake and if it works for you, then great! Any suggestions that truth might be important - or questions of ultimate destiny - have more than a whiff of cultural imperialism about them and are best avoided. Maybe this is why we are living in what some have termed as an ‘ecumenical winter.’
What is fascinating is that unity has not disappeared from other agendas. Inclusiveness and equality are key political watchwords; commercially there is still enormous pressure for globalisation; in information technology, teams are able to work on shared research across continents for helping to improve medicine and limit ecological harm.
And physicists continue to seek the holy grail of their discipline – searching for a grand unified theory that will unite the seemingly contradictory worlds of the inner working of the atom and the outer reaches of the Universe.
Before Christmas on the Portsmouth Cathedral Choir tour with the girl choristers to Antwerp, the Choir sang at the Saturday evening international mass at Antwerp Roman Catholic Cathedral. Canon Angela and I, as the two clergy accompanying the tour, went along and waited in the sacristy to hear if we were to be invited to robe, and join in the service in any way.
We were given albs to wear from the vestment cupboard, so we were dressed like the other Catholic clergy. We had brought stoles just in case, in case borrowing what is a sacramental item might cause offence – so we looked partly Anglican partly Catholic. But the surprise was at the start of the service to be placed either side of the priest – the Pastor or Dean - who was presiding and leading the service.
In his welcome to the congregation he said that, although for some it might be a surprise to see a woman priest at the altar there for the first time, he hoped it would before long be a normal thing to take place – and not just when there were Anglicans visitors. The warmth and genuine commitment were remarkable, and the spontaneous friendliness and appreciation of what we shared across the limitations that theoretically divided us. Angela and I were both given wine from the one chalice which usually only the priest celebrant receives from, and we both assisted at the distribution of Communion to the congregation and choir. The divisions of centuries were wiped out at a stroke with a simple gesture of unity.
Today’s Gospel of the miracle at Cana is a good commentary for us as we are called this week to reflect on Christian unity, and our Christian witness, and think about the message we are offering to others. The abundance of Jesus’ provision: vessels of water transformed into the wine of new life.
The overflowing generosity of God’s grace and glory is there for all whose lives Christ touches by his presence, and the abiding promise to us is that the best has been kept until last: there is more, beyond our expections, that God will open to us and invite us to delight in and enjoy.
The church of God is called to be a sign of what will be when God’s will is done; to begin to live now what the future will be when the love of God has accomplished all. We are called to become what all creation is destined for, when everything is gathered together, held together, redeemed together in Christ, that the world may see and believe and share in that future. Instead of lack and deprivation and need we are offered a future of plenty and fulfilment. And the way we begin to step into that future is through faith: as Mary was to say to the servants instructed by Christ to draw the water for that miracle: ‘do whatever he tells you’.
They were asked by Jesus to do what they could while unsure of the bigger picture: it didn’t seem to make sense perhaps. They couldn’t see the point to be busy with water when it was wine that was lacking. ‘Do whatever he tells you’. It is our faithfulness and response which may be exactly what God requires to make possible the miracles that are needed in our own day. When there is an abundant future of blessing and glory that Christ can make possible: then our response also can be, like Cana, to: ‘Do whatever he tells us’.
Amen.