Highbury - a Place with Christ at the Centre

A place with Christ at the Centre

Christ at the centre of our thinking

Christ at the centre of our acting

Christ at the centre of our living

Christ at the centre of our sharing

Christ at the centre of our planning

Christ at the centre of our doing

Christ at the centre of our caring

Christ at the centre of our praying

Christ at the centre of our worship

Christ at the centre of our giving

Christ at the centre of all we are

Christ at the centre of all we will be

Christ at the centre of our very being

Imagine a disc that spins.  It could be the wheel of a car, it could be a disc that spins in the engine, the flywheel … if cars still have such things.  It could be the wheel of a bike.  What makes the wheels turn smoothly is the fact that the axle goes through the exact centre of the wheel, what makes the engine run smoothly is that the wheels that spin spins exactly around its centre.  There’s nothing more pleasing having repaired a puncture and admittedly with the help of one of the cubs and his dad than giving the wheel a spin and seeing it spin exactly smoothly – thanks to the fact the spindle or do you call it an axle is exactly at the centre of the wheel.

Get the centre a little bit askew and the tyres will wear, there’ll be a bumpy ride and the wheels simply won’t spin round as they should.

What is at the centre makes a difference.

When first I wrote the front of our Order of Service sheet I missed out the word ‘Christ’.  I was going to make it the last word.

That would make you think …

Put a question mark at the end of each line and it makes you think some more …

 at the centre of our thinking?

 at the centre of our acting?

 at the centre of our living?

 at the centre of our sharing?

 at the centre of our planning?

 at the centre of our doing?

What do we put at the centre of things?

Maybe we don’t think about it when things are going well.

Maybe there’s something we are aiming for and it takes over everything.

The sportsman who is so single-minded as to think of nothing else.

When things go wrong – an illness and you cannot help thinking of it, it comes back even when you want it to go away.

A bereavement and it takes the centre of everything.  It absorbs everything.

It’s fascinating as the children are looking at God’s creation and creepy crawly creatures that the Rain Forest Man has brought to show them and to delight them, there is a kind of default mode that we all of us can click back into.  A default mode that characterises not just humanity but all those living creatures.

And that is survival – when me and my concerns take centre stage and become all important.

It is perhaps no coincidence that John’s gospel gives us the record of a prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples and then for all who would come after them and for us as well precisely at the point when the disciples and for that matter Jesus are absorbed in something that is disturbing, that is horrific, that is about to swamp their lives and become an obsession at the heart of all they do and all they think and all they are.

It is as that last supper Jesus shared with his disciples is coming to an end that he prays not just with them, but for them and not just for them but for all who were going to come after them.

It was the bleakest of moments as Jesus was about to go out into the dark and face his arrest, the mockery of a trial and the bleak awfulness of the cross and crucifixion.

And then comes the most wonderful of prayers.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,

Jesus looks above and beyond the world that is enveloping him to his Father in Heaven – and now is the moment for Jesus to be glorified.  But Jesus is glorified and glorifies his father in what he does for people for those ordinary people around that table, for us too ..

So that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent

There’s wonderful poetry in the words of this prayer as Jesus prays for those His Father has given him, those who have been his friends and companions on the way …

All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

He prays for their protection in a world that all too often can be so hostile a world to which in one sense they no longer belong.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

It’s  a wholeness that Jesus prays for – sanctify them in the truth – the truth of God’s word.

It is as if those followers of his are bound up in Jesus …

As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,

What a remarkable prayer that Jesus may be in us as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father.

Putting Christ right into the centre.

We come back to that list … and as I prepared the front of the order of service I wanted to spell it out … and put Christ back in …

Christ at the centre of our thinking

Christ at the centre of our acting

Christ at the centre of our living

Christ at the centre of our sharing

Christ at the centre of our planning

Christ at the centre of our doing

But there is a purpose, a larger purpose in the prayer Jesus prays …

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

A wider dimension – so that the world may believe – and discover this presence for themselves.

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

It is that love that makes all the difference when Christ is at the centre.

I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

But this now is a collective presence of Christ.  Not just Christ at the centre of each one of us.  But Christ at the centre of us as a body of people as we come together in the name of Christ.

Church is a place where Christ is at the centre …

Christ at the centre of our sharing

Christ at the centre of our planning

Christ at the centre of our doing

Christ at the centre of our caring

Christ at the centre of our praying

Christ at the centre of our worship

Christ at the centre of our giving

And Christ at the centre of all of our churches – a oneness with Christ at the centre – expressing things differently – a wonderful unity in the rich diversity of all those different churches.  Yet a wonderful unity.

What is at the centre when Christ is at the centre is the very presence of God, the God who is love …

so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

It is a wonderful prayer – it is a prayer for us individually and together as a church … and together as churches.

Christ at the centre of our caring,

Christ at the centre of our praying

Christ at the centre of our worship

Christ at the centre of our giving

Christ at the centre of all we are

Christ at the centre of all we will be

Christ at the centre of our very being

So that the love which is the very essence of God may be in us as Christ is in us and at the centre of our very being.

Binds us together in seeking to bring God’s love alive in Christian Aid Week.  Christ at the centre means the wheel spins, the engine works properly – that they may be one – all sorts of expressions of oneness.  One of the greatest of those expressions is in the love we show to the world around us.   It’s what appeals to  me – Christian Aid is not another organisation but is the development agency of the churches collectively in this country – this is a tangible sign of that oneness so that the world may believe – that oneness that puts Christ at the centre so that the love which is the very essence of God may be in us as Christ is in us and at the centre of our very being.

Christ at the centre of our thinking

Christ at the centre of our acting

Christ at the centre of our living

Christ at the centre of our sharing

Christ at the centre of our planning

Christ at the centre of our doing

Christ at the centre of our caring

Christ at the centre of our praying

Christ at the centre of our worship

Christ at the centre of our giving

Christ at the centre of all we are

Christ at the centre of all we will be

Christ at the centre of our very being