Trinity sixteen

(Short Address for 08:00am)

"Whoever is not against us is for us." 

In a certain convent there was a sister Bridget who annoyed all the other nuns by her eccentric behaviour. One by one they each went to the Mother Superior to complain. The first thing that the Reverend Mother did was to send Sister Bridget off on a weeks holiday to see her family. Then she called all the other sisters together in the chapel and she told them about the oyster: When a piece of grit falls into its shell it produces a substance called nacre which builds up around the grit in order to protect the oyster from the irritation that the grit would cause. Now she said. Let’s give thanks to God for giving us Sister Bridget so that we can each build up in our souls the beautiful pearl of patience.

Jesus’ disciples were irritated by a man who was healing people in the name of Jesus but he wasn’t one of their group. Jesus gave them a lesson in tolerance. Nobody who cares for others enough to heal them can be bad he said and the fact that he didn’t belong to their fellowship didn’t make him their enemy. Whoever is not against us is for us.

We must learn to be not only tolerant but also thankful for all that is good whether it comes from people who are like us, or believe what we believe or belong to us or not.  

One of the most distressing and indeed dangerous phenomena in modern life is the tendency to fundamentalism. By fundamentalism I mean that intolerant spirit in religion and sometimes in politics and sometimes in nationalism which says that unless you are part of my group and believe and behave in just the same way that I do then you are an outsider and inferior.

Once you separate yourself from others in that way then a number of things can happen. You feel that you can treat them how you like – because they are after all, outsiders. You begin to think that you and your group are superior and have exclusive access to the truth or to God. You deny yourself the ability to listen to people who are different and thus the ability to be enriched by them. Fundamentalism can be a very destructive way of thinking. But also it seems to seems to me to be mistaken in that it fails to recognise the great diversity of human life and human experience of God and human understanding about God. It fails to recognise the diversity of creation – which is of course one of the great glory’s of creation.

If everybody were the same it would be a very dull world.