“It is good and pleasant when God’s people live together in peace!” Psalm 133:1 (NCV)
I’m not sure what outcome I was expecting following the general election, but as I made my way to the polling station and joined the queue of people determined to cast their vote, little did I realise that the ensuing week would produce the biggest sea change in politics for a generation. For decades we have had a system (and a media culture) fashioned on adversarial conflict and polarised by opposition. How will the “new politics” adapt to the need for cooperation, compromise, and collective responsibility across party boundaries?
Cooperation is a frequent theme in Paul’s writing in the New Testament. The call for believers to relate together as the “body of Christ” is engagingly simple, yet profound – and often profoundly difficult to live out in practice. As a community of faith our “togetherness” comes, not from political necessity or even necessarily from similarity, but from our inclusion together in the heart of God as Jesus makes us “at one” with the Father, and each other. We may be as un-alike as hand and toenail, or ear and foot, but together we are part of one body, sharing each others joys and sorrows; learning to live at peace with one another and in the world – as agents of the gospel of peace.
James Willby
SGM Lifewords