We are back where we began this brief exploration of faith and trust - in the busy life of the city! By faith there is the possibility of responding to the risen Lord and experiencing the growing relationship with him in giving thanks in eucharist and in prayer and in life-long discipleship. There are similarities in our human relationships. When we think of these relationships, the turning point lies when two people go beyond trusting one another and find that they have come to love one another. The same thing happens between ourselves and the risen Lord whom we have come to trust in a deep friendship which, from our side is a response fulfilled in love.

From our point of view faith has had to be nurtured in coming to an understanding of Jesus - not only in worship and prayer but through reading and study and in any way in which my trust can grow into the richness of friendship. This takes time for most of us. Even the person who has had a blinding, eureka moment in coming to know Jesus, has to come down from the mountain and come to grips with the faith that can nurture true love. It is a process which one's closest friends may not be able to understand because this may be happening in small and hidden ways - but which will generally change us for ever - as real love often does! In the fullness of this relationship we also begin to know who we are.

All through these simple explorations there has been no overt mention of 'church'! And the reason is that the personal, experiential relationship with Jesus is the foundation of church. While that has always been true even in the lowest times of church history, it is also certainly true that the structures of the churches have sometimes served to hide the real facts of this personal relationship. Certainly in the 21st century, this corporate face of church seems unable to show what is the depth that lies within. The 'depth' of the reality of the risen Jesus who is the human face of the divine.

'Corporate', in terms of church, is not the same as community. To be able to enter into communion with the Lord in the community of his friends, in the thanksgiving of eucharist, is the transfiguration of personal Christian faith and love. But there may also be what one might call 'anonymous' Christians who have come to trust and love the risen Jesus as the centre of their lives - but who are not, for one reason or another, attracted by 'church'. When Bonhoeffer wrote about 'religionless' Christianity from his prison cell, perhaps that is what he envisaged?

Whatever the individual person's relationship with church, if she is one who has come to know and love Jesus, it cannot but be lived out amongst all with whom she comes into contact in the city, on the tube, with friends and family. It is like an 'earthing' of the love and joy of this relationship with Jesus in such a way that, quite hiddenly, the faith that makes this possible will be shared with everyone. To be present to others with this 'excitement' hidden and earthed in real life is, in a strange way, to extend the community of Jesus' friends - a song without words! Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of the Father in his life and death. This unseen rule of God takes place in the city and in the village, in the home and in the office - without structure - by the living out of personal faith and love of the risen Jesus, the Christ of God.

Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. (1 Peter 1: 8)