Last month, just before Christmas, I was in Geneva, where Colin Williams, a personal friend of mine was installed as the General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches. The Council of European Churches is “an ecumenical fellowship of churches in Europe which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and who seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of God, the Holy Trinity.

The Service was in German, French and English and the participants included representatives from the World Council of Churches, the Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, The French Protestant Churches, and the Anglican Church.  Colin was welcomed by representatives from all these churches together with the General Secretaries of other Ecumenical Bodies who work from the Geneva Ecumenical Centre. As most of these secretaries come now from Africa there was a wider Christian representation than simply Europe.  Indeed, as the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches said, he was rather disappointed that Colin had not come from Africa for then that Continent  would have sown-up the European ecumenical Scene. At least, he added, we now have someone to take the minutes.

The Liturgy reflected the richness of many Christian traditions both modern and ancient and this diversity was a reminder to all present that each of the branches of the Christian Family has a treasury of spirituality and worship which when shared can reach the soul in a new way.  There is so much that we can learn from each other and so much that we can share.  As one of the hymns we sang in the service put it:

Sharing the life of the living,
Sharing our faith and our doubts,
Sharing the gifts God is giving,
Sharing the new hope that sprouts
And later in the same hymn:
Sharing like pilgrims our food,
Sharing the songs of God’s glory

And the refrain catches us up in an urgency with its call – Now is the time.

Now is the time for the people of God to be reconciled; to live a new life in balance with the earth because we are all, in Christ, reconciled, churches with churches, each one to God.

This theme of reconciliation is at the heart of this year’s Christian Unity Week. The material is written by Christians in Ireland and the call for reconciliation and sharing with each other is more heartfelt because it comes from a Christianity which for decades has been divided and destructive.

The Revd. Mary Hunter, one of the group which produced this year’s service, said that  “forgiveness is hugely important in Ireland where all communities have suffered deeply. The violence has engendered fear in so many people.  There is thirty years of fear to overcome.”

There is a truth in that statement for all the families of the Christian Church. There is so much fear, distrust and even violence to overcome.

We are still, sadly, a little way off from that great statement of St. Paul – which encapsulates the Gospel in a nutshell: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

What a tremendous statement that is! And how demanding. We are bidden to proclaim God’s reconciling love to the world – which means, of course, that first we must know it for ourselves.

As I sat in the Chapel in Geneva,  I felt a great sense of being part of a bigger reconciliation. All those people working at the European centre of Ecumenism had this common goal – to be reconciled enough to reach out to a divided world and love people into the Kingdom.

Despite the physical differences of language – French, German, English, Swiss, Swedish etc, etc – there is a common language which unites and that is the language of Scripture which itself proclaims the common language of God’s love.

And how that love is proclaimed – by whatever tradition, by whatever means, using whatever spiritual treasury – is not so important as getting that work done.

So we have to ask ourselves the uncomfortable question – What is it that is so divisive in our Christian practice that we are prevented from loving with God’s love -  both the world and each other?

What is it that we need to find forgiveness which leads to reconciliation?

Well, I suspect that it may be because of another thing that unites us - that we are all sinners. No one can escape that truth, even if we may try to convince ourselves that our sins are smaller than their sins.

And yet we are not just sinners. We have another thing in common – we are ‘redeemed sinners’.

Our living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is such that we can claim both his forgiveness and his healing. What we have yet to do is to apply fully that forgiveness and healing to each other in our different denominations.

It is, we know, a slow process.

If Ireland has thirty years of sectarian violence to overcome, the Christian Church has not just decades but centuries.

Centuries of fear, distrust, sometimes hatred, occasionally violence, and without doubt, power seeking to cast before the Lord and humbly ask his forgiveness.

And the way we can do that is to remind ourselves of something the writer of the First Letter of John told us – Perfect love casts out fear.

Only in an atmosphere of generous love which turns us from self-seeking to other-affirming will we take those halting steps towards each other.

It is, of course, happening here in Epping.

We can point to the united witness of the Good Friday walk; to the joining together in song of the ECCA Choir; to things like the School Chaplaincy in St. John’s School; Workspace which is trying to support Christians in secular employment in the town; and there is the Box which is supported by Christians across the denominations as it reaches out to the youth of our town. There is too, the wonderful Christmas Lunch and the Christian Aid Collection and much more.

These are small candle flames of love which burn in an increasingly darkened world – a world which in the last few years has grown colder and more hostile and more needy – for in the midst of all the human struggles there is a longing, a deep yearning, for some value that carries people beyond the darkness and into the light of hope. A value and a light the world clearly cannot give.

And where can that value and that light be found?

Without being triumphalist – it can be found in our Churches, in our Christianity -  for it is a direct gift from the Lord we share in common.

Now is the Time, says the refrain from the Hymn I quoted earlier.

Now is the time for Christians to unite and be that hope to the world. It is a precious moment because the world is begging and we have the answer it needs. If we fail now, we may fail for ever.

So we need to gather together, in our two’s and three’s, and from our different Church families and rediscover and celebrate that unifying love of Christ which is always present when Christians meet with generous and open hearts towards each other – when Christians, reconciled to God, become reconciled to each other.

Now, I’m not suggesting that this will be easy but I took great joy from that gathering in Geneva and with renewed hope, I thought– Yes! This is possible! We just have to share and to listen, to care and to love. We have to be prepared to do the work, no matter how long it takes, to just learn to love each other.

I want to end with a little story which comes from the Corrymeela Community – that centre of love and reconciliation in Northern Ireland where, even in the very darkest days of Sectarian violence, it burned as a small but persistent flame of hope.

The story is about John who was six years old and who went to Corrymeela for just a week – to get away from a neighbourhood which was destroying itself in the name of religion.

The Helpers were sitting quietly, having a breather at the end of a busy day, when John burst into the room.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. He was told that they were just sitting quietly and he asked Why?

They told him that they were listening to the silence and they invited John to join them. “What are you listening to?” he asked.

“We’re talking to God and listening to his answers”

“What is God saying?”

“He’s talking inside my head. Come and listen.” John does so and then he asked, “Where is God?”  “He’s everywhere”    “Well, I can’t see him” said John.  “If you could see him, he’d only be in one place.”  John pointed around the room – “Is he there….and there…and there..”      “He is, and he’s with you too because he’s your friend.”

“My Friend?”  “Yes, he likes you a lot.”   John smiles, pleased with himself and then ponders – “Is God in heaven too?” “Yes and when you go to heaven then you’ll see God.”

John then asked a question which was very close to his own experience: “If someone came into my room in the night and stuck a knife in me, and I died, would I go to heaven?”      “Of course you would. God would pick you up and give you a big hug.”  And the leaders hugged him.

On the final day John was asked to say a prayer of thanks to God for all that had happened in the week. “I’ve nothing to thank God for” he said. But what about the games, the trips, the lovely food, the new friends? Can’t you say thank you for them. “No” said John adamantly.  “Why not?”  “I wanted it to be two weeks” came the stunning reply.

Binding people together, reconciling them, healing hurts, getting rid of the fears and mistrust – all those things which John found in his daily life and which all too sadly we find in the divided Christian Family, takes a little longer than a week – even a special week like this.

But if we are to reconcile and bring God’s healing love to a broken world, we have to do that work of sharing, loving and caring for each other – even if it takes a lot of effort, which it will, and a lot of giving up of entrenched positions – a lot of healing – a lot of generosity of heart.  And we have to do it now – For Now is the Time.

Now is the time to share the grace of God – a grace which is his deep loved poured out upon all of us – for God’s grace knows nothing of denominational divisions and simply cascades over all the barriers we put in its way. And it is in this Grace - which is the very presence of Jesus in our midst that we are – and always will be – united.