This Sunday we celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. As we sing the great hymn ‘The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord’, we will be reminded that there is only one church, the Church of Christ. And that Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic together, we are united by ‘one Lord, one faith, one birth, one holy name professing and at one table fed, to one hope we are pressing, by Christ’s own Spirit led’. Humility before each other, hope in God alone.
‘Oikomene’ was the classical Greek word used to speak of ‘the whole inhabited world’. In Christian circles, it (and its derivative ‘ecumenical’ in English) has come to refer to the whole Church of Christ. This morning we will meet the disciples in a boat upon the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14: 22-33) – they are terrified, and to them comes Jesus upon the water. The symbol of the boat is an appropriate one for the Church – perhaps adrift, perhaps beset by storm, but never abandoned by its Lord (notice the mast at the very centre of the boat!).
In the evening we will gather with others from across the city to witness together to our unity in Christ (St. Mark’s Lutheran, 263 Victoria, 7 p.m.). Join us, both morning and evening!