by Rev Dr Mike Semmler, president of the Lutheran Church of Australia

It is a blessing to be able to go to work and look forward to the day ahead, with its possibilities and often inevitable difficulties, knowing that those with whom you work are a pleasure to be around. That is not the experience of everyone.

In some instances, personal health and wellbeing can be so adversely affected that the workplace becomes an intolerable environment. Where co-workers are deceitful or abusive, a toxic atmosphere soon prevails, and it may be well for a worker to seek alternative employment rather than become depressed or experience a detrimental effect on home life and on family and friends.

We think the church family will be different. No, it will not! Many may not particularly like us or our ideas, and we may have difficulty feeling close to these people. The real problem, as we were created by God to be his own, is that we have left his side and gone our own way. We live life our way and not with him, whether we have good intentions or not.

When I see the drastic action that Jesus took in being crucified for me, I begin to realise it is all a matter of my own loss of the image of God. In Luke 6:36 Jesus says, ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’, but I do not naturally have that gift of mercy within me. Like everyone else I have my own faults, impurities, hypocrisies and selfishness. It is hopeless. God and I are not in the same image. How dare I criticise others for their shortcomings. What a nerve!

When Christ offers me his righteousness, having given up his rights and justice to give it to me, my world changes. There are new possibilities now.

We may not all become the best of friends, but we can extend to each other the love and mercy of God himself. He gifts it to us to share with one another. The mercy and love of God in Christ know no bounds.

Only Christ can make amends for my separation from God, whom I have replaced with my own felt needs.

Imagine the people of God in a particular locality facing difficult decisions and issues, each one being unafraid to contribute to the discussion, knowing that acceptance is a given, even from those with whom they disagree.

Do we really have a concept of the privilege which is ours in being merciful with the mercy of Jesus? Seeking justice and rights becomes swallowed up in opportunities to extend the grace of God in Christ in order to build each other up and to edify the people with whom we gather as poor sinners at the foot of the cross. No, I have not loved God only. Such love would have meant that I would also have loved my fellow worshippers as God has loved me. I have failed. That is why his forgiveness of me is so sweet — a treasure to be shared.

The Saviour of sinners has called me his own, as he has called also my brothers and sisters who eat the same bread and drink from the same cup in a holy communion with him and with each other.