Ephesians 1.15,16: Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.
This is a conventional passage in the early part of what purports to be a letter. Paul’s genuine letters, among which I do not count Ephesians, also normally begin with a blessing and then a thanksgiving. What strikes me as important is that in his thanksgiving the writer puts faith in Jesus and love of fellow-Christians in parallel as being of equal importance. We would hardly be likely to think this way today. Of course, here at Hampstead Parish Church, we are all polite to one another; indeed, there are groups among us who could be said to love one another, though that is not the language we would normally use. But few of us would attach equal importance to faith in Christ and affectionate relations with all the other members of the church. Why was it not the same for the early Christians, and are we going wrong somehow?
We must bear in mind how different their circumstances were from ours. Then, the Church was the centre of their existence; they were inspired with all the excitement of a new way of life. So few of us today regard our religion in that light, however conscientious we may be. Again, the Church could then be seen as a secret society, membership of which was dangerous, so that loyalty to one another was of crucial importance. We do not have that consciousness of interdependence now. An example of our attitude to one another is the continuing reluctance of many people to shake hands at the Peace, though nobody over the age of three has ever refused to shake hands with me. The social differences between the slaves and the great ladies who met in church in those days presented a real challenge to tolerance and demanded greater efforts to overcome barriers than our relatively homogeneous suburban society. Above all, we lack the enthusiasm for our Christian neighbours which would lead to our calling them saints; we do not think of them or, indeed, ourselves in that kind of light.
And yet there certainly are groups of Christians in this country who regard this kind of passionate commitment to one another as of fundamental importance, partly because they wish their religion to mirror that of the early church, and partly because their emotions are engaged in a way not typical of our kind of Christianity. I am not convinced that the early church was in every respect superior to our own day. It was, of course, the product of a society very different from our own, and, as you would expect, I am not willing to endorse their acceptance of slavery or their attitude to women. But I also think that we have acquired a more discriminating understanding of the will of God than they. I am actually critical of any exclusive approach to being a Christian, whether sectarian prejudice or inter-faith rivalry be in question. I am not in favour of talk about loving our fellow church members if this means not loving those outside our congregation. It is too easy to ignore the existence of other faith communities in our society, or to feel antagonistic to those whose beliefs and practices differ from ours. There can be no doubt today that Jesus called us, like the Good Samaritan, to love everybody, not just those with whom we agree. This is perhaps a point particularly worth making immediately after a Parliamentary election which has, no doubt, left some people angry and disappointed and in need of friends, but it is equally true in the wider world, where it can be too easy to dismiss some national groups, and some public figures, with contempt.
We are also more inclined today to accord respect to other religions, more even than to different approaches to Christianity, which still arouse dislike. In our society today it is conventional for Christians to stress the welcome we give to ethnic minorities. Of these, the most important round here is the Jewish community; I do not meet many Muslims, but I see a few Hindus regularly. Here in Hampstead we are exempt from the strain of competing with these minorities for housing and jobs; it is the more important that we should offer an example, not just of tolerance, but of neighbourliness to those of other religions.
If that is so, we cannot offer other Christians less. It is good that in recent years the group of Churches Together in North Camden seems to have gained strength and the Christian Study Centre has grown more ecumenical in membership. The death of Pope John Paul II aroused considerable popular sympathy outside the confines of the Roman church, and the character of Archbishop Rowan Williams has inspired admiration far beyond the Church of England. At the same time we have to admit that the sins of some Christian clergy and the antagonisms of some fundamentalist believers have damaged the reputation of the church and the unity of Christians. I do not myself feel love toward all the saints, as Ephesians would expect.
It seems to me that in the church, as in private life, the simple rule must be to behave as if one loved them. We are not made to be fully in control of our emotions. Christian love is not supposed to be emotional. It is a matter of aligning our will with that of God, who accepts us all equally with concern. It is not required that we should agree with everyone, but that we should treat them and their opinions with courtesy and respect, however much we disagree, and that we should genuinely wish them well as individuals, however much we deplore their cause. It is, whatever Ephesians said, our duty, not just to love the saints, but all human beings, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Alan Goodison