In the company of strangers ...

Susan Durber preached a thought-provoking and very profound sermon at the closing prayers of the Faith and Order plenary yesterday evening. It's always a challenge to preach at the end of a theological consultation, but this sermon really took up and echoed the issues that had been discussed but in a different tone. It drew everything together wonderfully. Here's an extract from the beginning:

It is firmly in the tradition of our faith, and it is firmly rooted in our experience, that Christ comes to us in the company of strangers.
But, central though this insight is, we keep forgetting it. And we cling very hard instead to our friends, to those who are like us and whom we like, in the hope that we will find Christ there. In an uncertain world, and in places and communities where diversity can seem sometimes not to be aesthetic decoration, but rather hovering threat, we cling to those we know and love well, instead of being turned towards those who are strange to us and to whom we are strange. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this can’t be good for us. It can’t be good for ecumenism, for the mission of the church, for inter-faith dialogue or for the peace of the world, or indeed for any kind of human flourishing. But the truth keeps returning to us - in the way of things, or perhaps the ways of God.