Today we are in the midst of the week of prayer for Christian Unity. This coming Sunday is World Leprosy Day. There is a sense in which both are about recognising and including those whom we may often exclude.
We are comfortable in our disjointed church; we worship with those with similar tastes in music, similar theological views and who believe in arranging Church life as we believe it should be arranged. The tendency flows naturally from our inherent humanity because it is comfortable and safe; it is challenging to accept that our many different styles and interpretations are as the word describes, different. Different does not mean wrong.
Leprosy is a terrible disease. It has been a problem since Old Testament times; in the Old Testament we can ready of the lengths required to protect healthy people from those with disease. It was all about exclusion for safety’s sake.
This is not designed to make you feel uncomfortable about how you view other Christians, or how you keep yourself safe from someone with an infectious disease but to remind us all again about the mind-blowing capacity of Scripture to speak universally to people of diverse beliefs, different states of health and every other difference you can think of across the global spectrum of life.
This coming Sunday’s Old Testament reading from Nehemiah [8:5-6] says: ‘And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.’
Ezra read for a long time, publicly and out of doors. Who knows how diverse was the group of people listening to his words but their response was to repeat the short word, ‘Amen’. So be it – that is it – nothing to add.
Little has changed. For all the divisions we worry about the same scripture speaks to us all; for all the variations in our health and circumstances scripture speaks universally but individually we hear what God has ordained that we need to hear.
What else can one say but ‘Amen’?
A prayer
God of all people from the broad canvas of human existence, we pray that our fellows may each meet you in your word, unprejudiced by our interpretation and spin. Come to meet our needs for faith and health and, we pray, for grace and the forgiveness of our sins. For Jesus’ sake we pray and to Jesus we look for the confidence to be sure of our pardon from you. Holy Spirit, we ask that you empower and embolden our ‘Amen’. Amen and amen.