As Christians, our faith focuses on Jesus, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. Sunday by Sunday we listen to the Gospel being read to us and we learn about Jesus and his disciples and how Jesus is trying to teach them about God. We also hear how the religious leaders of the day try to challenge him. We are the outsiders trying to look in and we ask ourselves how all of this affects us in the twenty first century.
John 17 vv20-21
“ I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.“
Jesus knows that people will believe in him if we hand on the faith from person to person and generation to generation. How do we hand on the faith, sometimes by words but I would suggest that most of us receive the gift of faith by watching how Christians live. In other words it is by their example. I learn to love God by being loved by another human being who is living their faith in Jesus for me to see; by allowing me to ask questions particularly those difficult questions which always seem to start with ‘why?’. Why do you forgive? Why are you trying to be generous and compassionate? The ‘why’ questions are endless but so important and we need the answers.
Each one of us here today is a saint, we are all Saints and we touch people by being loving, compassionate, generous, kind - just as Jesus was with his disciples. Back to John’s Gospel, “ As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,“. By living our faith for all to see then we are living in and with the Father and the Son, because when we receive that gift of faith we are given the Spirit to live in us. It is the Spirit who prays in us and brings us together with one another making us into the Communion of Saints.
Yes it is good to see and hear how the famous Saints lived their lives but we often still feel that they are in a different league from us. How can I compare myself with St Peter or St Francis they were special? So look closer to home. When I was Priest in Charge of St Michael’s in Abingdon I used to visit one of my congregation called Ida who was in her eighties, she always made me coffee using all milk, I noticed she watered hers down. She lived on her pension and could only afford to buy a pint of milk a day so she went without when I visited. That was a great gift to me but a greater gift was that I would give her a simple copy of my diary for the next month without disclosing anything confidential. I knew she would keep that list at hand and she would pray for me at the beginning of each event. The feeling of support was fantastic - she truly was St Ida.
Andrew SSL