Unity and Song
History was never my favourite subject at school, but that has not stopped me looking at history programmes on television. Often, the programme gives a time line of events. But for us, at this moment, our time line is all over the place. Here we are on the Sunday after the Ascension of Jesus, and before Pentecost, and the coming of the Spirit, listening to a reading about how the apostles chose someone from their midst to make their number up to twelve: the lot fell on Matthias. That was at a time when the Spirit had already come. Then, in the Gospel, we are taken back to before the Cross, to the upper room, at the Last Supper, and Jesus praying for the Twelve. He prays: may they be one as we are one - a prayer for unity that comes out of the heart of the unity the Father has with the Son, and the Son with the Father – a oneness of word, and oneness of work, a oneness of love. He prays for such oneness to be with his followers, in his followers.
In the early days of the church, there is a remarkable unity, where the disciples, and those who were added to their number, worshipped together, often in each other’s houses, broken bread together, and where they shared their resources so that provision could be made to everyone according to their need. They were united in prayer and the teaching of the apostles. It is a wonderful picture of unity. But it was not so long, in the midst of the unity, that arguments begin – about keeping the fledgling church Jewish, or making concessions to the Greeks, about what foods to eat, and who can be baptised, and so on. Unity, once broken, is so hard to regain.
Look at the church in England – not the church of England – we see one Christian church in the north, and in the west of England, the so-called Celtic Church. Then missionaries come from the one church centred on Rome, settling in Canterbury, and enforcing conformity to Rome practice, but still there was one church. But, centuries later, along comes Martin Luther and others, including Henry VIII, and the church divides, and divides and divides, like an amoeba, so that now, when we look in any town or city, we see Anglican, Methodist, Congregational, Baptist, United Reformed churches, and even more division with the newer churches. It is all a tragic division.
What is worse is to come. When we look within our own Church of England, there is brokenness – Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Forward in Faith, Reform, and whatever other labels there may be. Now, never shall the twain meet, or even talk to each other. It breaks the heart of Jesus. It ignores the prayer of Jesus. Even in one church we find disunity, demonstrated, say, at the sharing of the peace - a real act of unity, of making family, and yet people will say, when you go to share the peace, ‘I don’t.’ A little later, those same people will go up to make their communion – another great act of unity – and stand or kneel alongside those with whom they ‘don’t’ share the peace.
Look at what we do here. We have a meal: bread and wine is on the table. Whenever food is shared, it is an act of unity; it expresses, shows forth the unity, the oneness of those sitting round the table. A misbehaving child may be, used to be, sent upstairs without any supper, because the child’s action has broken the unity with other members of the family. To share the meal is an affront to its unity. So, here we are gathered around the table of bread and wine. Are we united? Are with with one heart and mind? No one has been sent up the tower to go without supper. But let the Gospel ring in our ears: So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Are we not obliged to make the oneness for which Jesus prays?
Who knows who Pete Seeger is? He is a singer of folk songs, protest songs. Can any one name a song he made famous? - ‘Where have all the flowers gone,’ ‘We shall overcome,’ ‘Little Boxes,’ ‘This land is your land.’ On 3 May, he celebrated his 90th birthday. In a programme to honour that occasion, he said, ‘Music is one of the reasons there will be a human race in a thousand years. Music brings people together, leaps across barriers of language, of politics, of religion and whatever else might divide us.’ Look at us: here we are, young and old, male and female, able and disabled, black and white, and we all stand up and sing the same words, the same tune, in harmony – mostly - with one each other. It is another great act of unity, and one we should cherish, along with the breaking of the bread, and the sharing of the peace.
May they be one as we are one. May we be one as they, Father and Son are one. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen (Sung). So be it.
The Reverend John Tearnan, 24 May, 2009
