Readings: Matthew 5:43-48 and Philippians 2:1-8.

It would come as no surprise to anyone that as a teacher I would see the Bible as a journey of learning, of getting to know who God is and who we are in relation to Him. It is a journey of relationship, and just as our ancestors, by faith, were chosen, we too as Christians are also chosen. But what does it mean for us to be called into a covenant of faithfulness and of service? A covenant that is not bound to what is seen outwardly as our ancestors were, but instead to what is unseen in the Spirit and resides within?

T.S Eliot wrote:

Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

‘What has been’ is all that we know, all that we see around us is what we know, so is all that we see past? Is this why it is so hard for us to accept change?

Viewed through the nature of time, knowledge is memory. Our knowledge of ‘what is’ and ‘what was’ is finite, yet God who is behind and before us is said to be omniscient or ‘all-knowing’. Yet to even say that God is ‘all’ knowing is to assume there are limits to knowledge itself – that there is an ‘all’, that there is an ‘end’ to knowledge, and that all this ‘finite’ knowledge is contained within Him who is eternal. Therefore, in order to embrace the infinite, we must embrace not being able to see an end, that is to embrace what is ‘unknown’ – what is beyond our seeing. Infinite knowledge must embrace all knowing that is past, and present and all future is our unknowing.

So we are not climbing a mountain of knowledge to a summit – the mountain is our beginning and our end, and the summit is as each point on the way – our knowing in the moment, and at the end we look back to what was. To say all that is, is all that we can see, is to live inside a box, a box of time and space – if you like this is a reversal of the famous cat in a box thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger – what is outside the box cannot be in reality both true and false, it must be one or the other – therefore all possibilities exist until one or the other is proved false.

But we do not need to flip a coin, heads God is alive, tails God is dead. No, we believe in the truth of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

With Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made in the richness of that diversity, we share and participate in His creation, by a faith that seeks to understand and know Him. Therefore, the only universals are Creator and created, after that, what unites us is our humanity.

As Adam was created in the image of God, we are called to transcend that which makes us one with the animals, we are called to go beyond all that we see, we are called to have faith in what stretches beyond the limits of our imagination.  

Blessed are those who believe and have not seen. (John 20:29).

But if we have all the faith to move mountains but do not have love, St Paul writes, we are nothing.

We are called to walk by faith and to love, called to be a royal priesthood – royal by the integrity of our lives to the truth, as well as to become Christlike in the physical outward signs of that inner Kingdom of Heaven come to earth, that is to bring life into the lived reality of the everyday and ordinary.

We are many and God is One – but each soul is a breath of God, that together we might become a great cloud of witnesses. As our ancestors by faith were led by the cloud in the day when we see, so we now, in the spiritual darkness of our inner world, walk also by the Spirit, the great pillar of fire that is Jesus Christ, so that together day and night are no more.

Now since the coming of Christ, we know it is not that which we see outwardly that separates us before the throne of God. Clothes may indicate our circumstances, but it is not circumstances that determine the inward treasures we will take with us to heaven, for nothing perishable in this life will be carried across to our eternal home.

The essence of a person is not defined simply by the sum of their parts, but in their wholeness. In a moment we can see the heart in a smile, a soul in the eyes and the essence of being in the body between a breath. But we will live more peaceably with others if we can embrace others not just in moments, but in their ‘art’ that is their story from beginning to end – from recognising their beginning in God’s infinite love to the now, to the moment in which they stand before us.

Each moment, each now has its own essence, and we live many lives inside the one we are given, so that God who is with us day and night, in the spaces seen and unseen is the only righteous judge. But the story of our time is increasingly to categorise our being in order to have the language to possess it and have power over it. To refuse submission to God and to seek power for ourselves. In some senses it is a reclaiming of ownership of the body of our being which was by some, in error, considered evil in itself. Where what we did by action was considered right or wrong, now we are trying to negate actions by internal ‘states of being’, likes and dislikes – who can say after all that a persons very being is wrong? No one.

We are precious and valuable to God by our being, but this drive of our time is masking the truth that there is good and evil that stems from the orientation of the heart to self rather than other. Only we by relationship can know ourselves fully and choose the direction of our hearts.

The empowerment of the individual is a way of hiding in the shadows, the battle of good and evil is within us. The battle will not be won by our judging, by our categories, by our labels – not in our strength, not with our eyes. The only way to win is to love, for love is light.

We are all seen by God, we share in His love equally, without prejudice – God accepts all who turn to Him, everyone who calls on the knowledge of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:13). But He asks us to be transformed into His true likeness, to be of one spirit and of one mind. To do this He asks for humility, an acceptance of a radical unknowing so that we may accept one another as brothers and sisters in one human family.

How difficult it is for us to accept we don’t know it all, that the evidence we see is not all there is or will be. How easy it is for us to believe that survival is for the fittest, and the winner takes all. Jesus turns everything upside down. Jesus came to serve us and made Himself nothing.

Every refugee, every migrant is chasing life, is chasing happiness – just as we all are, and for as long as we forget that life is a gift given to us and not a right that we possess – we will not be able to access His true humility, the heart of a servant who gave His life for us.

Let us begin by recognising the value of those who have nothing to give except the smile in their heart. Let us not be swayed by leaders who treat people as objects to be tagged and transported like cattle. People, real human lives, precious and fragile are at the mercy of those who would start war for their own good, not recognising that neither victory nor defeat will give them a heart of flesh. Let us understand that harm is done to our own souls when we do harm to others.

Let us recognise that our unknowing frees our minds to love without limits.

Amen.