In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today’s readings give us two very different scenes.

In Galatians, we have an argument in Antioch. In Luke, we have Jesus quietly teaching his disciples to pray.

Yet both passages ask essentially the same question: What happens when the Gospel we profess actually shapes the way we live?

Historically, Paul’s confrontation with Peter takes us into one of the earliest and most important debates in Christianity.

The first Christians were Jewish. But as the Gospel spread, Gentiles began coming to faith in Jesus Christ. The great question was: Must Gentile Christians first become Jews in order truly to belong to God’s people?

Paul’s answer was emphatic: No.

We are justified and incorporated into God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ, not through ethnicity, circumcision or observance of the Jewish Law.

That is why Paul’s confrontation with Peter is so significant.

Peter had been eating freely with Gentile Christians in Antioch. But when certain people arrived from Jerusalem, he withdrew from them because he was afraid of criticism.

Paul confronts him publicly because this was not merely bad manners.

It was a Gospel issue.

Peter’s behaviour was effectively rebuilding a dividing wall that Christ had already demolished.

Theologically, Paul is saying something profound: if Christ has made us one, the Church must not behave as though we are still divided.

Race, culture, social status and background cannot determine who sits at Christ’s table.

There is only one Gospel, one Lord and one family of God.

And then we come to today’s Gospel.

The disciples say to Jesus:

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

And Jesus gives them words that Christians have prayed for two thousand years:

“Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.”

Notice that Jesus teaches us to say “our” and “us”—give us, forgive us, lead us.

Christian prayer is never simply private spirituality. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, Christ places us inside a community.

The person beside me is no longer simply another person.

In Christ, they are my brother or my sister.

And suddenly Galatians and Luke belong together.

Paul says: Do not rebuild the walls Christ has destroyed.

Jesus says: Pray for the Father’s Kingdom to come.

If we pray, “Your kingdom come,” then we must be prepared for God to challenge the prejudices, divisions and exclusions that contradict his Kingdom.

And this matters deeply for the Church today.

We can proclaim reconciliation while still sitting comfortably within our own groups. We can celebrate diversity while allowing invisible barriers of race, class, culture or status to remain.

Paul reminds us that the Gospel must become visible in the way Christians actually live together.

And the Lord’s Prayer reminds us how that transformation begins:

Father.

We belong to one family.

Your kingdom come.

God’s rule, not our prejudices.

Give us each day our daily bread.

We depend upon God together.

Forgive us our sins.

None of us stands before God on our own merit.

So as we come to this Eucharist today, there is one table and one Lord.

We do not come because of our race, status, achievement or background.

We come because of Jesus Christ.

And having eaten from one bread and shared one communion, we are sent to become what we have received:

one body in Christ.

May the Gospel we believe become the prayer we pray, and may the prayer we pray become the life we live.

Amen.