According to Saint John’s Gospel (2:1-12) Jesus began his Ministry when he was ambushed by his mother at a wedding, and despite his reluctance, performed a miracle, turning water into wine. He thought the time was not right, but Mary had other views.
The last act of fellowship Jesus enjoyed with his Disciples before his crucifixion involved bread and wine. Charles Wesley’s hymn (StF 572) ‘Author of life divine’ summarises in two stanzas some of the mystery of our use of wine in Holy Communion. Following the Last Supper nothing was quite the same again. When we share in Holy Communion, particularly for the first time, nothing is the same again.
There are times when the rhythm of church life can feel staid, but it is a vehicle for big changes for its people enabling them, us, becoming The Church.
This week’s clause of the URC Statement of Faith seems very formal: ‘We conduct our life together according to the Basis of Union in which we give expression to our faith in forms which we believe contain the essential elements of the Church’s life, both catholic and reformed; but we affirm our right and readiness, if the need arises, to change the Basis of Union and to make new statements of faith in ever new obedience to the Living Christ. Our crucified and risen Lord, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection.’
Change is agonisingly slow in formal institutions and the Church, United Reformed or otherwise is no exception but do not lose sight of the changes continually going on in individual people. How do we respond when we have to change direction suddenly? How do we respond when a core belief is challenged by a new discovery?
A Prayer
Eternal God, you are changeless but all around you there is constant change. By the power of your great Spirit, soften us up to develop and alter direction as the need arises. Give us the grace to accept that as Jesus leads us to perfection, he will call us to be different and to do things differently. Strengthen us to respond, for his sake and for the sake of The Church. Amen.