Every Trinity term I read some of the classics of political thought with first year students. It’s a chance to think about what makes a society flourish, about how diverse human beings can come together to live in peace, freedom and stability – and how difficult that can be. Each year we find new emphases, but one recurring theme is the need for members of any society genuinely to see themselves as part of it, to feel involved in the community’s shared life, and to learn to understand the views and needs of others. We talk about how the texts we are reading are rhetorical, designed to shape their readers’ thinking, character and imagination; and how symbols and images can be just as important as words.

I often think about what this might mean for us as a church, and especially this year in our changed circumstances. Like every community, we need structures and bonds to hold us together and help us to see each other as valued members of the whole. Our services and liturgy help us to place ourselves within the bigger story of God’s creation and redemption of all the world and to see ourselves as part of the Body of Christ - something we were reminded of on Thursday on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Meanwhile this week, we’ve been confronted by the ongoing scandal of racial injustice across the world, by the structures and divisions that dehumanize or exploit, by the barriers in our communities that prevent people from realizing their true potential. These times challenge us to find new ways of being together, across every line that divides us; they demand us to extend the boundaries of our imagination, to open ourselves to what is unfamiliar. And perhaps in strangeness and in our unsettling we can find fresh resources to see each other in the light of God’s love, and to work together for the flourishing of all.