Community Cohesion

Sermon 6 September 2026 Chaplain’s Corner The 14th Sunday after Trinity

Readings: Ezekiel 33.7-11; Romans 13.8-end; Matthew 18.15-20

Theme: Community Cohesion

When civic organizations deal with religious groups they often do so because of the social cohesion that they can offer. This is unsurprising because the meaning of the word ‘religion’ is to ‘re-bind.’ To bring back together something which has been separated.

This is something that religious groups can frequently do well. They often forge a unity between members which is strong and lasting. Such a unity can be forged in positive and negative ways. In a negative manner, it can be created through an ideology of exclusion. We are not them. We are different and that is what makes us special. However, on the other hand this unity can be positively shaped by a vision of inclusion. We are members of God’s family and this common ancestry joins us together in bonds of universal solidarity.

This week’s readings speak about the sacrifice required for this type of universal inclusion to be grounded in a mature religious vision. When a religious group is conscious of its identity, it can share in the bonds of this identity in an open and inclusive manner. We are children of God and all loved by God. This attitude transforms the secular vision of ‘social cohesion’ into a religious vision of ‘community cohesion.’

Such a conception of religious solidarity poses the question of just what is it that forms the cohesion of a distinctively Christian community and helps it to continue in a healthy manner through the challenges of communal living.

In the first reading, Ezekiel speaks about the community of the people of Israel in a similar context to the prophet Jeremiah whom we read last week. This is the context of the exile in Babylon, and God appoints Ezekiel as a sentinel to warn the people of dangers to their community. He is to warn them about how their idolatry has led to the exile and that their responsibility is to follow the law and to worship the one true God even in a foreign land.

Ezekiel performs the role that a referee does in sport. As a sentinel or a watchman, he is the one to notice when the community is departing from its own rules.  Just like a referee, the sentinel is the one to ensure that the behaviour of the players meets the standards set down by the rules of the game. In the case of Ezekiel, he is the one to issue the warning cards to the community.  

This admonition of Ezekiel is expressed positively by Paul in the second reading through refashioning the golden rule as ‘loving one another as oneself.’ Paul knew the cost of this love. His missionary life was one of community building around the mediterranean and of promoting the distinctively Christian cohesion which would mark out the early Christians as a unique form of communal living. This was a cohesion born of generous sacrifice for the sake of the Lord and his kingdom. Rather than acting as a referee, Paul is here acting rather more like a founding father, reminding the people of the foundations upon which the building of the church has been erected.

These foundations set a high standard for future construction work. The challenges of such communal living are codified by the golden rule as interpreted through the self-revelation of God as love in Jesus.

It is these matters that lie behind the obviously practical issues that are addressed in the gospel. Conflicts and divisions arose in the early Christian communities and Jesus offers a strategy of conflict resolution, as we would say today, for how such challenges were to be faced in the churches.

In our context, we can reflect on this theme of community cohesion by considering the challenges that we face in maintaining a healthy church community. A particular challenge for us is geography. In UK terms, our chaplaincy would cover the equivalent of two dioceses and this is reflected by the fact that we are located in and hosted by the two Roman Catholic (RC) dioceses of the Málaga and the Cádiz provinces of Andalucía.

The two worship centres, which we rent from the RC dioceses, allow us to have Eucharistic services in both provinces and that is obviously convenient for the two congregations. But this comes at the cost of spreading our resources thinly and of paying for the privilege of renting two separate churches to hold the same service.

I have reflected on this and the results of the consultations on our vision of “Purpose and Path: Your Kingdom Come” and believe that over the next two years of implementing this vision, we will need to creatively face this challenge.

As we learned last year in the Paul Book Club, it is willing sacrifice for the sake of Christ and his kingdom and not convenience that should distinguish the specific cohesion that marks us out as a Christian community.

This means that as we work to build upon the fifty-years of foundations which have been laid down in our chaplaincy our question should be, what will allow us to best flourish over the decades to come? While none of us knows the future, it is our responsibility to plan as best as we can for it, so that we are in a position to implement our vision of what we believe best serves our goals as a chaplaincy.

As we embark on these next two years of implementing our vision, let us ask the Lord to bless us and to help us to be generous of spirit. May future generations be blessed by the efforts we are making to hand on to them the riches that we ourselves have received.