Of one mind.

I'd like to read again the opening of today's reading from Philippians, using the translation by Tom Wright.
'So if our shared life in the king brings you any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy - then make my joy complete! Bring your thinking into line with each other.'

I think that sometimes when we hear the titles of Paul's letters, we imagine a very large audience for them. In one sense there has been, because millions have read them over two thousand years. But Paul wasn't expecting that to happen. Although he knew that the letters might be passed around between local churches so that more people could hear what he had to say, he was still addressing one particular church. And those churches were small. They were probably about the size of Piddington or Hardingstone church on a Sunday at 11. They met in private houses, gatherings of a number of families within a town which did not share the faith.

So let's imagine that it is a church of forty people or so that Paul is addressing. And let's imagine that it is one of our churches, rather than one in first century Philippi. Paul is telling us, our little group of people, that what he really wants for us is to bring our thinking into line with one another.

Now he is not saying that we should all mindlessly share the same opinion. He is not saying we should stop thinking for ourselves, that we all have to like bananas and vote for the same political party. He is not saying we should share the same views on whether Scotland was right to vote no, or whether parliament was right to vote yes when it met on Friday. We are likely to differ, even if only on detail. That's not the point. So let me offer an analogy.

Many of us in Living Brook support, or at least take an interest in, our local sports teams. We don't for a moment imagine that when the fans gather at St James or Sixfields to watch the Saints or the Cobblers, that every fan shares the same politics or even the same preference for filling in the interval pie. But what we can expect is that the fans will share one common focus. Every Cobblers fan wants to see Northampton Town putting away more goals than the other side; every Cobblers fan's mood today is affected by the result against Morecambe yesterday, while every Saints fan is interested only in the result against Bath. At the stadium, whatever the shape of the ball - and forgive me if you prefer the Ryder cup, or the tennis or the cricket, hopefully you can transfer the analogy - every fan has one focus. My team to win. My team to keep the ball at the other end of the pitch. My team to score more than the other team. One focus that turns this great crowd of people into a community. No matter what else they might think, no matter what they do, what their families are like, what colour their skin, what level their income, what length of time they spent in education, that community of people is bound together by a single interest, something that transcends the differences between them.

This is what St Paul looks for in us. Whatever our differences, we should be bound together in a joyful unity because we have one common focus that transcends all else. And that common focus is Jesus. Jesus Christ, our Lord, the presence of God in the world, who lived a human life and died a human death in humiliation and pain because of his love for us. Our bond should be as strong as the bond between sports fans when their team is leading in a cup final match. All the time.

It doesn't matter, Paul reminds us, whether there are small things that could come between us. Whether the brand of coffee drunk after services isn't a personal favourite, or someone made a mistake which affected you adversely - well, we're all human, and things happen, but this should not affect our unity as Christians. We don't always manage to be perfect for each other. And we certainly don't always agree about things. But on this we do agree. Jesus Christ is our Lord and our Saviour, and not only ours but the whole world's, and that is something everyone should know. And everyone is much more likely to believe it if they look at us and see a group of people strongly united, joyfully and delightedly united, behind the common cause of following and proclaiming Jesus Christ.

That is what Paul wanted for the Philippians, and I believe it is what he wants for every church that has come together ever since. Living Brook included. And it is what I want too.

So if you want to make my joy complete, bring your thinking into line with one another. And make that thinking in line be thinking about Jesus, who is at work among you and who will give you the energy and the will to follow him and to do what pleases him, with one heart and mind, if only you ask.