Psalm 148; John 13:31-35; Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6
It definitely looks from our readings this morning as though God is keen on variety. And we could have made a guess at that just from looking at the world around us. As the Tuesday afternoon group discovered recently in a presentation about Lynwood Gardens, in their 2006 wildflower survey there were over a hundred species logged in the course of a year - and I suspect that if they do a 2010 census, it'll be even greater in number.
Or take the varieties of political opinion that have been offered to us in the past few weeks. I wonder, though, how much we have discussed the different parties and what they stand for with those who differ from us. It's more comfortable to stay in groups of people who think the same way as you do than to brave differences of opinion, as I suspect the Conservative candidate for Central Ward may have discovered at the hustings at St Mark's last week. Yet, all credit to the man, he didn't turn tail and flee; though I was sad to see that he, and some of the others, did succumb to the temptation of explaining why the others' policies were wrong rather than why his own were right.
What seemed to throw both the Labour and the Conservative candidates into a spin - and this seems to be replicated more widely, from national commentary - is the possibility that there will be no clear overall majority, and therefore a ‘hung' parliament (if you don't relish the prospect) or a ‘balanced' parliament (if you do). Interestingly, both the Greens on Sheffield Council and the Scottish National Party, who have experience of such an outcome, seem to be saying that it's not the worst of all possible worlds - though it does require more time and effort than having a huge majority to do your party's will.
In a way, though, that situation is not so different from the way Jesus chose his closest followers. In a group of twelve men we have two pairs of fishing brothers, but with very different personalities - John and James get nicknamed the thunderbolts because they have a tendency to explode; Peter's called the rock because he's often so unstable; sadly, from this church's point of view, we know much less about Andrew. What about the others? We have a freedom fighter and a tax collector - who are bound to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum - and assorted others; not forgetting the Judas who brought Jesus to his death. If God doesn't like variety, in people as well as flowers, in politics as well as character, Jesus has sadly slipped up on his recruitment policy.
But, as with a balanced Parliament, it's much harder work being a balanced church - what my friend Kyusak who runs the Sheffield Korean Church calls a rainbow church - than being of one opinion only. In a way, it's simple for Kyusak and his Korean friends, because their culture is a strong common bond, as Scottishness has been for us, so it's comparatively easier for them to be a political and theological mixture than in some other churches, where people have many other congregations they can try if they don't like what they find. But being a balanced church is a task that all of us must face if we are to follow Jesus' new commandment: that just as he has loved us, we are to love each other. He's not asking us to love him as much as he loves us; that would be relatively easy to get our heads around. He is asking the Conservatives to love the Labour supporters; the Brits to love the foreigners; the home owners to love the homeless; those attracted to the opposite sex to love those attracted to their own; and, of course, the other way around too. And he is asking this of his friends - those gathered at his last meal, and those gathered here this morning - not in an ideal situation of peace, calm and plenty but in the middle of an economic crisis, with power politics at work all around.
Does this seem too hard, too much to ask of us? Are we tempted, like the majority political parties, to gather with and love people like us, who will think and act the same way as we do? I suspect, if that is our dream, we will be sadly disappointed. For Peter has not been the only God-fearing individual in history to discover that God's love goes much wider than we ever thought or wanted it to extend. Slave owners in the nineteenth century discovered with shock that their slaves were valued by God just as much as they themselves; that in fact it was wrong to enslave human beings. Men in the twentieth century discovered with shock that women were as able to preach God's word and administer the sacraments as were they - not to mention fulfilling many other vocations previously held to be male preserves.
Yet to frame such advances in understanding in terms of human rights would be to miss the point. For as Christians we believe that slaves and women, like free people and men, are created by God in God's image for God's praise. Going back for a moment to our psalm this morning, the whole universe and everything in it is called to praise God. What reason is given? God commanded and all was created. Yet at the very end of the psalm, God's faithful too are called to praise him. What reason is given? Because we are close to him. As we come closer to God, we come closer to one another too, more able to see the good in one another, to appreciate those aspects of others which are very different from our own preferences; more ready, too, to admit to our own faults and weaknesses, safe in the knowledge that God will never abandon us. So the next time you catch yourself muttering, like Gordon Brown in the car, ‘I can't stand that woman!' or ‘How can he think like that?', I challenge you to reflect on the fact that this person, too, is made in God's image, made for God's praise. It might be a useful exercise to try out during the last few party political broadcasts before the election, during our next church meeting or even next time you see me ascending the pulpit steps...
But what's it going to be like if we ever do have a truly balanced church, a truly balanced government, a truly balanced world? It won't be like some people imagine political correctness - no one daring to say or do anything in case others are upset, but secretly thinking just as before. No: for that would be hell - and I'm thinking of heaven. I'm thinking of a new heaven and a new earth, one where there will be even more different sorts of people than species of flower in Lynwood Gardens, where we will all truly appreciate one another. What will be so different? God will be living alongside us, and we will see each other in the light of God's love. All that is unlovable in us and in them will have gone, as will every sorrow, every pain; we will have come out of our graves to Easter newness. Are these words trustworthy and true? For if they are, even now we should be able to see little signs of heaven in waiting. I think I see them in my life, in the life of this church; but that involves using my discernment, and remembering when I see them to give thanks. That, too, is part of the Christian vocation I need to practise - and I don't think I'm the only one.