Vigeon Post

ADDRESS

There is an old chestnut dating back from the swinging sixties, that a church in Bristol was holding a special service for young people - and there they were of all persuasions and none shepherded into their pews. The minister stood up to begin the worship and uttered the key text.  Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life. At which an audible whisper from the back row was heard to utter "Bighead !" And the service thus began with a universal snigger.  You might think that shocking - but it is a cautionary tale which reminds us that so much of our Christian faith and practice has in a way domesticated Jesus until we do not recognise that the claims we make for our Saviour are a source of scandal to those outside - as they were in his own days.  
Perhaps the problem of unity for us has something to do with we use the word Jesus as a sort of badge or logo; and each church community will claim to have the definitive version of our brand name. And that is what the world sees - an argument about logos - and it shrugs its shoulders and turns its attention to more worthwhile projects.  
What we all need to re-discover is the real integrity of the Name of Jesus. The Jesus who was a stumbling block in his own days - not least to those who considered themselves religious and god-fearing. The Jesus who was not sent to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. The Jesus whose condemnation was primarily for the leaders of church and society - on those whose religious convictions make them convinced that they almost know better than God what God is thinking. The Jesus who looked on the crowd in the wilderness and had compassion for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. The Jesus who would say that if a thing is good it is good and is not disqualified because the author does not wear the right label. Only this morning in my new testament gospel reading I hear Pharisees murmuring that because the healings of Jesus were not taking place through the official channels then they were demonic. The unforgiveable sin, says Jesus' in riposte, is to sin against the spirit - to make the demonic good and the good demonic.
This Jesus is not the moralistic Jesus which the world thinks it is hearing from the churches. We live in a culture which as it loses its Christian base so it is losing compassion and forgiveness in the name of a headline morality sponsored by the tabloid press. Where morality has been hijacked by hysterical screams - and where the media cooperate in anything which makes a good story .
I have a sneaking suspicion that if we could more drastically recover the true integrity of Jesus Christ then we would come a great deal nearer to that state where in todays Gospel reading Our Blessed Lord prays; "That they may all be one in us; so that the world may believe that you have sent me"  There is little if anything in St John's Gospel which speaks of organisational unity.  There is much about living within that constant dialogue of love and unity between Father and Son, whose power and quality we call the Holy Spirit.  There is a lovely story from very early on in  Christian legend that John lived to be a very very old man. And that when he was no longer able to preach or do anything very much he would just gently murmur over and over again "Little Children love one another".
When Jesus says to us "I am the way" he does not mean "Believing doctrines and teaching formulas  about me is the way". He means living a life within a shared and frighteningly deep friendship with Him. And you will never quite know where that will take you.