The Church's responsibility (Or 'What's next?)

The Church’s responsibility (Or ‘What’s Next?’)
Matthew 5:13-16

(This is the text of yesterday's sermon in Ballygrainey. It also forms my response not just to the events of last week, but to  whole trend that I and others see in western culture at the moment.)

One hundred years ago, in November 1916, the world was in turmoil. WWI had entered its third bloody year. The carnage of the Battle of the Somme ahd just come to its end. Ireland was still recovering from the impact of the Easter Rising. By November 1917, the Russian monarchy would be overthrown and peace would look further away than ever.

By those standards you might think 2016 has been pretty mild really. But this year will go down in history as a year of significant political, economic and social upheaval. The times they are definitely a changin’. Things have happened this year that would have been considered unthinkable just a short time ago. Whether it is Brexit or the US election or the refugee crisis or the terrorist attacks in places like Brussels, Nice and Miami or the disintegration of Syria or the continuing violence in Iraq or even the Ashers court case, this year has been one of enormous, unprecedented change.

In my favourite TV show which, appropriately enough for this week, is The West Wing, the president signals his desire to move on to the next item of business by simply asking ‘What’s next?’ And so I want to ask today, in light of all of the events that have happened and are happening in this tumultuous year around the world, what’s next for the church? What’s next for the people of God? What’s next for you and me?

I have felt a deep need in my own mind and heart to try and make some sense of what is going on in our world and to work out my role as a Christian and our role as a church in it all. I hope in the process to help you to do that as well, if I can. As a result I have changed this morning’s sermon from the Church’s gifts (which we actually touched on a couple of weeks ago) to the Church’s responsibility.

I don’t preach political sermons. You all know that. I don’t let events in the news dictate what I say on a Sunday morning. But the events of this week have finally brought to head a growing sense in me that this is a crucial time for the western world unlike any other we have faced in the last 70 years. That makes it a crucial time for the church of Jesus Christ in the western world and that includes you and me.

And I need to make a confession. This sermon would have been necessary no matter who won the presidential election on Tuesday. But I confess that I would have been much less likely to preach it if Hillary Clinton had won. The reason? Hillary’s election would have felt like less of an upheaval, less of a shock more like what we have come to expect over the years. But the same issues would have needed to be addressed no matter what.

You may feel that you are a world away from events in Washington DC or London or Aleppo or Mosul. You may feel unqualified to take part in complex legal disputes or unable to comment on complex political issues. You may feel that you don’t have much, if anything to contribute to those situations. You may feel like the world is passing you by and you just have to shrug your shoulders accept events as they are and move on. And to some extent that is true. But it is not the whole picture.

From beginning to end the Bible is clear that God’s people have a crucial role to play in the world. Abraham’s family were going to be a blessing to many nations. The children of Israel were going to be a kingdom of priests bringing God to the world and the world to God. The kingdom of David was going to result in one of his descendants bringing in an everlasting kingdom. The OT prophets kept calling Israel back to its role to be a light to the nations.

This is no less true for the people of God today and Jesus gives us our responsibility here at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are a city on a hill.

But what does that mean? What does it mean for the church to be the salt of the earth in a time of unforeseen moral upheaval? What does it mean for the church to be the light of the world in a time of uncontained social upheaval? What does it mean for us to be that city on a hill in a time of unprecedented political upheaval throughout the world?

Jesus said ‘You are the salt of the earth.’ Salt was an essential commodity in NT times if you were going to preserve food and prevent it from going rotten. Jesus says that his church, which is made up of the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted is the essential commodity that will prevent the entire world from utter decay.

But the salt can only act as this preservative if it retains its saltiness. It can only perform its essential task if it retains its essential character. Salt is different from the meat and other foodstuffs it preserves. The church is different from the world. That essential difference must be maintained or the church loses its effectiveness.

The church’s values are not the values of the world. The church’s behaviour is not the behaviour of the world. The church’s message is not the world’s message and the church’s lord is not the one that the world recognizes as lord. We are different. We provide an alternative.

The church offers truth in what many people today are calling a post-truth world. From the beginning the church of Jesus Christ has been about truth. The central teaching on which the entire Christian faith stands or falls is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If that event did not happen, if it has all been made up, if it is not true, says Paul, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins. Our faith stands or falls on the historic truth of the resurrection. It happened. And if it didn’t happen, what are we doing here? We might as well pack up and go home.

The US election has demonstrated that the church’s view of truth and the world’s view of truth are starkly different from, even opposed to one another. Truth no longer matters. You can stand on an election stage and make statements that are either unproven or simply untrue and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as enough people believe it (and vote for you because of it).

In a world which no longer values truth, we will hold out the truth of the gospel which alone can set men and women free. IN doing this we wil be acting as the salt of the earth.

The church offers mercy in a harsh world. We do that because we have experienced mercy. We were dead in transgression and sin, says Paul, until God, who is in rich in mercy reached down and lifted us up. Listen to the way Bonhoeffer describes the merciful people described in the Beatitudes; ‘They have an irresistible love for the lowly, the sick, for those who are in misery, for those who are demeaned and abused, for those who suffer injustice and are rejected, for everyone in pain and anxiety. They seek out those who have fallen into sin and guilt. No need is too great, no sin is too dreadful for mercy to reach.’

Think about our world for a moment. Think about the refugee who has left their home in Aleppo and spent everything to get passage to Europe. Think about the white blue-collar worker in the middle of America who has lost everything and who struggles to feed his family on food stamps. Think about the people who are sleeping on our streets as the winter comes in. Think about the soldiers coming home from theatres of war in recent years with terrible physical or psychological injuries. Think about the mother in Malawi who is sick not because she doesn’t have medicine but because she doesn’t have the food that will help the medicine to work.

This is a world in need of mercy. Throughout the history of the world Christians have been at the forefront of showing mercy. Building hospitals for the sick and schools for the uneducated. Campaigning against slavery and child labour and third world debt.

Our world of social media and power politics has little or no time for mercy. It is the church’s responsibility to show mercy because we, above all people, know what it means to receive mercy. If we do this, we will be acting as the salt of the earth.

Jesus said ‘You are the light of the world.’ Not you can be. Not you should be. You are. Being the light of the world is not easy. It will require us to be as different from the world around us as light is from darkness. It will require us to expose and confront the deeds of darkness in our own lives, our own communities, our own nations.

It will require us to hold out the light of the gospel of grace. By doing this we remind ourselves that no darkness in our own lives is so dark as to remain unforgiven by God in Christ. By doing this we point our communities and nations to the only one who offers an unfailing light for our feet and a lamp for our path.

It will require us to put on display a life of faith in the One whose light we reflect to the world. His kingdom and his righteousness will become our first priority. The desire for earthly power, prestige, fame or wealth will all be laid to one side in the overwhelming desire to know Christ and make him known.

The life of faith in Christ is one which listens to the words of the psalmist;
‘Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the name of the LORD his God.’

Those who celebrate the election of a leader as one who will make their country great, right all their wrongs (perceived and otherwise) and bring peace and prosperity for all are making a huge mistake. No Prime Minister, Prince or President will ever meet those expectations. Those who see the election of a man they did not support as an unrecoverable disaster and who mourn and weep and will not be consoled are also making a huge mistake. All Prime Ministers, Princes and Presidents are mortal human beings whose influence is limited.

There really is only one name given under heaven by which men and women can be saved – the name of Jesus Christ. There really is only one kingdom that will last forever – the kingdom of God. There is only one act that has ever really met the deepest need of every human being on the face of the earth – the self-giving, sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sin.

It is only those who trust in Christ and live the life of discipleship who will never be failed by the one in whom they put their trust. They will know the reality that whoever is in the White House or Downing Street or the Kremlin, God is on the throne and the Lamb who was slain is the ultimate conqueror in history. They will be the ones who live as light to the world – giving hope to those whose trust has been betrayed and pointing out the idolatries of those who put all their faith in human princes.

Jesus said ‘You are a city on a hill.’ Over the years various American leaders have used this phrase to describe the shining light of American democracy as the example for the world to follow. It was never intended to be used that way and to do so is a complete misuse of Scripture.

No, the city on a hill that Jesus describes are his followers. They are to be a new community breaking down barriers of race, social class and gender through the power of the gospel. They are to be a community that stands out from the world as a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.

They are to be a hope-filled community pointing to Jesus as the one whose cross and resurrection brings true and eternal hope to a world broken and distorted by sin and death. They are to be a prophetic community, unafraid to speak truth to power as the OT prophets and NT apostles were.

What they are not to do is to hide themselves or accommodate themselves to the values and standards of the world in which they live. They are to be visible, obvious, different. They are to live for the approval of one person. They are to care only about the opinion of the audience of One – their heavenly Father.

At 7.30 on Tuesday morning I got a message from Steve Burton in Alabama (It was 1.30 there and the result was clear.) This is what he said; ‘We faced a no win situation. Either way we were faced with a decision about ultimate allegiance. I'm worried that the church will settle for this political "victory" and assume a posture of accommodation that wants a place at that political table at the expense of Gospel purity and Kingdom intentionality. Time for some serious discipleship.’

This is always the temptation for the church of Jesus Christ, to gain short term earthly power at the expense of gospel and kingdom integrity. In these days of upheaval in the western world, if you’re wondering what possible difference you can make it is simply this. Be the people God called you to be where he has called you to be. Be the salt of the earth. Be the light of the world. Be the city on a hill.

That is the church’s responsibility. Nobody else can do it. That is our responsibility, so, if you’re wondering what’s next….then it’s this; ‘let your light shine before others so that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven’. That’s the difference you can make today.