I think that I would have made an excellent Pharisee. After all, as a life-long Anglican, stubborn Englishman, and devotee of the Prayer Book, I like established routines and set out procedures. What is more, except perhaps for going over the speed limit a bit, I try to be pretty conscientious when it comes to traffic laws and regulations. And, like the Pharisees in their devotion to even coming ‘close’ to breaking the law, I park ‘miles’ away from curbs and such like, just to avoid hitting and causing damage to whatever car I’m driving. And, like them, I tend to be somewhat disapproving of people who continue to dress slovenly or inappropriately or people who have an overly developed sense of entitlement and who feel that everyone else should step up to the place and do their bidding. And like them, I love the Scriptures and love studying them. As I said, I would have made a great Pharisee.

But then, there is the ongoing question, namely just what rules and regulations, what expectations, are worth keeping and adhering to, and what ones are not. Here we need God’s help and direction. Anyway, I suspect that this is something that probably most of us need to work on.

There are many remarkable things that set apart the Christian faith from other world faiths and philosophies, but one of the greatest is the confidence that we can have through Jesus Christ. In both Islam and Judaism, there is always a constant striving, trying to ‘be good enough’, trying to do the right things, but never knowing whether you have ‘made it or not.’ This is why the apostle Paul, prior to his conversion, strived so mightily to try to ‘make himself right with God’, but in the process, knowing whether he’d succeeded. And in Islam, the whole question is whether your good deeds outweighed the bad ones, but never knowing until death how this panned out.

Christians, by way of contrast, can know whom we have believed and where we are going. It is like travelling on a road or pathway--which is Jesus, by the way--confident that we are ‘on the right track.’ And rather than creating a kind of nasty or destructive arrogance, it can give us a sense of assurance. That is, we don’t have to be continually checking up on some road sign or marker to make sure we’re heading the right way, but can just busy ourselves with the journey and what it holds. To me, that is incredibly good news. I can just get on with life, all the while trying to listen to God and obey what He says.

So, here is the million-dollar question: why do some people, even when they have heard God’s message or seen Him at work, still refuse to believe, still refuse to turn their lives over to Him? While I have admit that for many of them we will never know, though I suspect that there may well be interior, personal reasons for this decision--things like fear, doubts, reluctance to change, conflicting agendas and behaviours, or ideas or prejudices or misconceptions gleaned from their upbringing, education or social media.

On these matters, we will probably never know, but there is one matter that we can know, namely, that we should try to communicate the gospel message as best and as lovingly and sensitively as we can, and then mirror that message, live out that message, in our daily lives. Maybe this way we can overcome some of their inhibitions.

Our meditation for today reminds us of something so very important, namely that God knows us inside and out, knows our needs, and cares for us. And, so we need to trust Him more fully and go to Him more consistently, faithfully, and expectantly in prayer.

Today’s Scripture and meditation should give all of us pause for thought. Ezekiel is saying that God has been profaned, simply on account of His people’s behaviour. It should certainly cause each of us to consider our own behaviour and how it might impact people’s perception of God. As one of my old bishops was accustomed to say, “You may be the only Jesus Christ that some people will ever meet.” In other words, Jesus is being assessed by our words and actions. Whoa. Something to think about.

Today’s passage and meditation speak of something that was near and dear to Jesus, namely the unity and oneness of His Body, the Church. But, as the apostles Paul and John both allege, it does not come naturally or easily, and nor does it come just by ‘wishing that it was so’. There are certain standards, ethically and doctrinally, that must be present if true unity and oneness are to be achieved. (By the way, oneness does not mean sameness. We can be one, can be united, even if there are variations in belief and practice, though not at the expense of certain core values and truths). Sad to say, however, we are far from that, even within single congregations and denominations. It is, therefore, still something to work on, and work for, in whatever ways we can.

One of the lies that the enemy of our souls often tries to use on us--and, far too often, to good effect--is that we are pretty insignificant and of very limited usefulness in God’s kingdom. Actually, the total opposite is true, namely that God uses the unlikely ones, yes, even us, for His purposes. That is the lesson that I take from today’s Scripture and meditation. I hope you find the idea inspiring.

Today’s Scripture passage and meditation are excellent reminders that we desperately need each other, whether in the church or in life in general, and simply cannot ‘go it alone’, or even try to. And we are reminded that not only do we need the ‘extra’ hands or feet or thinking, or whatever, but also that that ‘extra’ person can contribute something far beyond anything that we ourselves have.

It is often assumed that the sense of ‘earning’ one’s salvation, or of being ‘good enough’, or of performing the right duties, is a more ‘western’ way of thinking, but sadly, and unfortunately, it is a built-in way of thinking with the entire human race. Every religion and philosophy has its list of ‘requirements’, and with Islam, it goes one step further, namely that you can never know if you have been ‘good enough’ until after you die. You can only hope against hope that your good deeds outweigh your bad. True to the old way of thinking, one old clergyman--yes, an Anglican--once told me that it was presumptuous to believe that you were saved. You can never know this in this life, he said. But God, here in the words of the apostle Paul, tells us that we can most assuredly know this if we have believed in Christ Jesus and accepted God’s free gift of salvation.

Sadly, and rather unfortunately, we humans often get hung up on the ‘minor’s, minor issues or problems, when the major ones are starring us in the face. Now, our world tells us the global warming, plastics pollution, and inequality and injustice are the major ones--and certainly, they are important. But interestingly, none of these are the tasks or issues that Jesus leaves us with. He left us with just two tasks, telling His story to all and sundry and bringing people to repentance and faith in Himself. Sure, these other tasks may well ‘flow’ from that, but those two tasks are the ones that He left us in His ‘final words’. So, maybe we should indeed make them our major tasks.

There’s several things that are important to remember as followers and friends of Jesus. Firstly, contrary to what many others might try to tell us--including, I might say, the evil one, we can--and should--have a positive impact upon our world. And, secondly, that while this may seem rather daunting, even impossible at times, God is always there for us to provide us with the help and the direction that we need. And, thirdly, that while this does indeed require our participation and cooperation, it is really God that is at work there. And so there is no justification for getting all proud or personally worked up about it. It is really He, and not us.

How to pass on our faith to succeeding generations is a question that many of us have trouble with, even to the point of knowing how to bring it up, much less expressing it or sharing it. And, the sad fact, that many of the ‘next’ generation are unfamiliar with the faith story in general, and certainly with our own ‘take’ or understanding of it, or our experience of it.

For instance, what does Christmas, the fact that Jesus was born into this world and subsequently experienced everything that we do, mean to us in practical terms? To me, it means that God fully understands me warts and all, and all the things that I go through. Wow. So, what does it mean to you? And likewise, all the other events of Jesus’ life or the life of the early Church: what do they mean to you?

To me, thinking about such things and coming up with our own personal answers, is the starting point. But then how do we convey this? And what can be our starting point, to even raise the issue? Some good questions, and certainly something for all of us to wrestle with.

The double edgedness of the parables, and of the Biblical stories in general, alerts us to the fact that we can so easily hear but not hear. We can hear the story, find it interesting and even entertaining and intriguing, but are we always getting the full impact of it. Often in stories, even those told to us by friends, family and elders, and those that we hear in the media, there is something deeper that God--or that individual--wants us to hear. A friend of mine, a mighty prayer warrior, used to sit with her Bible whenever she tuned into a news broadcast. She was sure that God wanted to speak to her through it, and if nothing else, at least to pray about it. So, let us, you and I, truly have ears to hear.

In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus gives this command to His disciples, and to us: “Now I tell you to love each other, as I have loved you” (verse 12). And then, as if to give substance to that command, He follows it up with: “The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.”

Now, notice if you will, who He addresses this to: it is to His disciples, those that we would call Christians. Now then, here’s the catcher: do we really and truly love each other, love our fellow Christians, as Christ has loved us?

I think not, at least not on many occasions: I have observed far too often how people treat their fellow parishioners with spite and anger and disrespect--certainly the opposites of love. And, I have seen how clergy have sometimes been mistreated and demeaned, by their parishioners, by their colleagues and even by their bishops. And for too often I have seen how synods erupted into name-calling and the imputation of evil motives, hardly the stuff of Jesus’ kind of love.

And in none of these I have observed a willingness to lay down one’s power or pride or agenda or beliefs or anything else for that matter, much less one’s life, on account of the fellow believer. I’m afraid that we have a long way to go. But, with God’s grace and help we can do it--or at very least, do a better job of it.