I remember once when I was sitting in my stall in another parish in our deanery, listening to a sermon that was going on for far too long.  And like most people was wondering just how much longer the preacher was going to waffle on for, and what was the point of the sermon anyway, when one short phrase made me sit up with a jolt and not pleasantly so either.  The sermon had got the stage were the subject matter had moved onto the point of Christian Sects, when I heard one sect referred to as the Morons.

My initial reaction as my stomach turned over, was, to walk out of the service, however I didn’t and instead mumbled in a sotto voce voice to my colleague sitting be side me my disgust at what had been said.  To call The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, regardless of what you may think of them as the Morons instead of the Mormons is a deliberate, callous, and downright insensitive thing to do as it would be to make a similar comment about any other church or religion.  I can understand such a reaction if it is made out of fear or the like, but the preacher didn’t have that excuse; he was experienced and educated minister of God, whom the diocese has seen fit to ordain since then.  It is an unforgivable to make such a cheap, ignorant statement, when a little searching into the facts would have found out that they were the exact opposite and have a great many qualities that are to be admired.

And how true this is of many religions in the world.  We listen to what the media feeds us and believe them that rather than looking a little deeper and finding out the truth.  And it does rather beg the question of what are the rest of us like.  Are we as so intolerant of others outside our own Christian circle, let alone the Christian family as a whole?  Are we so incapable of seeing God at work in others who are not Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox or one of the protestant churches?  If we are, then, we should go back to basics.  Back to that divinely inspired writing that we call the Bible.  Because as we read through it we will see time and time again God working his purpose out through those we do not consider to be believers.  We see God working through King Cyrus, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Samaritan – all to the good of the people as a whole and none of them were members of the so called “People of God”.

Though they may not see Jesus as the Saviour and Redeemer, God, today, still uses the Hindu, the Muslim, and the Sikh to work out his divine plan and to do his will in the world.  Although he uses them, it doesn’t mean that he loves us any the less.  Remember that it is we who call ourselves Christians who have had the faith to accept that God reached down, picked us up, redeemed and saved us in Jesus Christ.

If we are going to live our lives as understanding caring Christians, we have to realise that the country that we live in is not one hundred per cent Christian, not that it ever was.  We have to live with the reality that we live in a multi-faith society.  And so we must be prepared to sit down and listen to what people of other religions have to say to us and tell us why they believe what they believe.  Dialogue is a two way thing and we can’t endlessly batter them with our point of view and more than they can do the same to us.  We must all be prepared to see the other side of the coin.  Indeed experience shows that finding out about and listening to others does in fact help you to examine your own faith in Jesus.

You may not think that a multi-faith society will work properly, but it can and does, Mauritius is testament to that.  We may in fact have a long way to go to achieve the Mauritian state of affairs here in this country, especially with the rise of organisations like the BNP.   But perhaps we could start with something nearer home – our relationship with other churches.  Are we tolerant of those of other denominations whose ways of worship differ from our peculiar Anglican way?  Sadly more often that not the answer is no.

If we can’t agree amongst ourselves within the Christian church, what hope is there of presenting to the world at large our oneness in Christ, in our lives and our mission. Things like interdenominational study groups are excellent and a great start; and it is up to us at the grassroots level to boot the backsides of our hierarchies until they are galvanised into action.

Christianity is a tolerant faith; the instructions given to us by Jesus make it so.  But that does not mean that we are pushovers, we have standards that have been set and are there to keep.  Jesus teaches us to be prepared to see each others points of view and not to make hasty judgments that will in their turn condemn us.  All it takes is a little bit of patience and time to listen and understand.  Failing to do so endangers us all.

Yet we can take this all a bit further and bring it right down to basics  - the true nitty gritty of our relationships here in our own community.

What we must ask ourselves is; are we tolerant of each other, willing to listen to each others point of view and attempt to understand why they feel they way they do?  The answer is probably not and I am just as guilty as anyone else and I heartily regret it as well.  But before we can be a dynamic outward looking parish, eager to fulfil God’s mission for us in the world, we must spend time righting our relationships with each one of our brothers and sisters here in our church community, helping each other to become whole people in body, mind and spirit, fully equipped and able to face the world.

It is, therefore, imperative that we stop and analyse ourselves now and make sure we are and become a caring listening and understanding fellowship.

We have before us a simple choice – either we can put up barriers, unwilling to talk to and listen to others and so die as a Christian community or accept the challenge of Jesus’ teaching and change our ways and attitudes.

The choice and the end of the day, is up to us.