While I was training at a college in Oxford each of us Unitarian students were also concurrently engaged in ‘external’ theology courses, external to the college where the ministry course was held, and this turned out to be a very fruitful way of working together as we’d have lots of insights to share from the different courses we were attending. Each Wednesday when we’d meet for tutorials we’d always swap particularly juicy tit-bits, or particularly profound insights rather, and one week a colleague came in and said: my lecturer told us that all religions have the same core message and that this message can be summed up in two words…

I ‘ve always enjoyed this kind of exercise; there is the story of the great Rabbi Hillel who is challenged by a non-believer who says to Hillel “if you can summarise the Torah while standing on one leg I’ll convert and follow Judaism” and Hillel stands on one leg  and says “the whole of the Torah is this: don’t do to another what you would not have done to yourself, all the rest is commentary; now go and study it.”

This story is actually an example of a kind of first century riddle or test of asking a great Rabbi to summarise the faith and we hear an echo of it in the Gospel of Mark (12: 28-31) when the Sadducee asks Jesus which is the greatest commandment – actually a trick question because as the Sadducee would know  a pious person could not prioritise any one but must keep all the commandments – but anyway, Jesus response is a classic of this summarising the faith tradition. He says, essentially;

‘Love your God… and love your neighbour as yourself’

Which is a perfect summary of His faith. You could live by it.

Likewise there is a story of a the Prophet Muhammad; a man came to him and said I’m no scholar but a simple man, please tell me one simple truth by which I can follow your teachings and the Prophet replied;

‘Avoid being angry at all times’

Wonderfully practical, the Prophet taught that we should be peaceful at all times. Its wonderfully spiritual too because to commit to following this way would be a work of spiritual discipline.

As we heard earlier in our reading of the 37th Psalm the Psalmist writes ‘Cease from anger and forsake wrath’, (Ps 37:8) to forsake, or give up wrath, would be a hugely beneficial resolution for me, it would also be a specifically spiritual resolution and it is this that I want to ask us to consider today;

In this time of resolutions for the new Year what might we resolve to do to renew our commitment to our spirituality?

This month all these Sundays in January I want to consider our faith and in particular ask the question what our faith really means to us –

to be clear I want to propose that we do nothing less than ask an open and genuine question of ourselves; why we really come here on a Sunday?

Are we coming out of habit? do we gather because we gather, or is there a spiritual discipline involved? are we coming to fulfil a spiritual need or make a religious journey.

Even asking such a question requires bravery, it requires faith, because if the question is really an open one it may take us to an answer we may find difficult to hear... 

But at this juncture I want to look again at the 37^th Psalm: the psalmist frames faith in what I find, the best part of 3 thousand years after it was written, to be a startlingly bold way;

“Delight thyself also in the Lord:…” (vs.4)

How fantastic, not believe, have conviction or affirm but to ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord’, to delight in our relationship with God.

So when I suggest that we should spend a little time considering our faith and what our faith actually means, I want to remember this; that we are asked to enjoy a relationship with God (or Godess), to enjoy and revel in and cherish our relationship with the infinite…

There is none of this dour, rather grumpy presbyterian Britishness in the invitation to “delight thyself also in the Lord”,

and no worthy, puritanical, self-sacrifice in the response:

“and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

To make a resolution that could give you all the desires of your heart would be a worthwhile start to the New Year wouldnt it?

And the message of all religion in two words that we were all so keen to hear on that tutorial day in Oxford?

She said that the message of all religion is:

start again; 

Great isn’t it?

begin anew:

Happy New Year