Sermon Page:

Silver Street Mission

Please use your browser's back arrow to return to the previous page

Created for Relationship — with the world

Colossians 2: 9 – 23

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 27 Aug, 2006

I ALWAYS feel good when I think about Martin Luther King, and all he did in the Civil Rights struggle. And I feel some pride that he was a Baptist.

You know, Christians have a long history of social involvement, from the struggle against the cruelty of the Roman Circuses through to the Anti–Slavery movement and beyond.

There have been some moments... when Russia was falling under Soviet control, the Orthodox hierarchy was locked in furious debate — about the correct dress for priests.

But the story has mostly not been too bad.

When I was studying Town Planning, although our lecturers were not necessarily pro–Christian, they had to admit that Christians were among the earliest theorists and practitioners of Town Planning in England, because they were keen to improve people’s living conditions.

In 1991, when the Berlin Wall fell, Christians had a leading role in the dismantling of the old East Germany. Without Christian input it would easily have turned into a blood–bath.

Unfortunately, Baptists were not involved, though there were plenty in East Germany.

When George W Bush began talking about invading Iraq, every major denomination in the US, from Catholics and Episcopalians to Pentecostals and Quakers urged him not to do it. Only the Southern Baptists didn’t join in.

Where are the Baptists?

I have heard a few jokes about us Baptists. One says that you could hold the entire Baptist World Congress meetings in a one horse town, because we Baptists are so narrow you can fit four to a bed.

The other joke says that Baptists won't have sex standing up for fear people will think they are dancing.

People laugh at jokes when they contain an element of truth.

We laugh when an Iranian Muslim comedienne says that, when anyone asks her brother for his name, he has learnt to reply, “Don’t shoot!” We understand the element of truth.

Jokes about Baptists show the hint of truth about our frequently narrow, frequently petty attitudes, to the exclusion of life’s really vital things.

Where are we when a crisis hits?

As a young Christian, I heard stacks of sermons along the lines of “Come out from among them, and be separate.” The Bible does say that; and, at times, we need to do that. But I heard about being separate from the Catholics, and I heard about being separate from the Anglicans because they were like the Catholics, and I heard about being separate from the Methodists because they were liberal in their theology. You couldn’t lift your eyes in the street for fear of seeing a heretic.

Then we were told we must not be politically involved, because that was worldly — and, anyway, the Liberals would look after keeping the world right. There were no Catholics in the Liberal Party.

And we were told not to bother about the environment, because there was nothing we could do about it anyway.

I was friendly towards just about everyone, but I always kept my distance. I didn’t go to pubs or clubs with them, I didn’t bother about being uncoordinated, because dancing wasn’t a Baptist activity... there was no one whom it was safe to mix with.

Now you remember from last week how important community is. We are created for society, we are created to be together; we are created to share our goals, dreams, aspirations.

God said it is not good for humans to live alone. That was the primary reason why he created male and female.

But let’s move on a little.

Hear what God’s plans were for us in the creation:

^{GEN 2:15} The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

or we can read a little further down,

^{GEN 2:19} Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

If you take those two together you will see that we are created to work the land, we are created to care for the land, we are created to care for and to manage the living creatures. And you will also see that we have a wide freedom to use what God has given us for our good.

God made us with a responsibility for our environment.

Now we will move on to Genesis 4, where we read,

^{GEN 4:8} Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

¹⁰ The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. ¹¹ Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain asks, “Am I my brother‘s keeper?” It’s clear that the expected answer is that we are all our brother’s keeper, that we are all somehow responsible for each other.

George Liosatos, who used to come here a long time ago, once told me about how he had originally been suspicious of an uneasy with Asian people. Then it struck him one day that, if we are all descended from Adam and Eve, then, regardless of where we come from or how we look, we are all part of the one family. “How can I reject my own relatives?” he said.

And, through the entire story, there is a spiritual strand.

For example, we read,

^{GEN 4:25} Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” ²⁶ Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.

At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.

Or in Genesis 8

^8:18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds — everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another.

^{GEN 8:20} Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. ²¹ The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

People called on the name of the Lord; they worshipped; they sacrificed.

If we move on to the covenant under Moses, we see how these things were drawn up into the particular plans that God had for Israel.

The prophets were adamant that people should do right, and not defraud each other, not harm each other, look after each other’s well–being.

^{ISA 1:15} When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even if you offer many prayers,

I will not listen.

Your hands are full of blood;

^1:16 wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds

out of my sight!

Stop doing wrong,

^1:17 learn to do right!

Seek justice,

encourage the oppressed.

Defend the cause of the fatherless,

plead the case of the widow.

As Amos writes,

^{AM 5:24} But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

or Micah:

^{MIC 3:11} Her leaders judge for a bribe,

her priests teach for a price,

and her prophets tell fortunes for money.

Yet they lean upon the LORD and say,

“Is not the LORD among us?

No disaster will come upon us.”

^{MIC 3:12} Therefore because of you,

Zion will be plowed like a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,

the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

Justice and righteousness are mandatory. Where these fail, the environment itself falls apart.

And this is exactly what we see in our world, isn’t it? Doesn’t our desire for oil, for coffee, consume our environment? Aren’t the whales the victims of our desire for oils, perfumes and petfood?

The New Testament is never particularly specific about these things that we have been reading about. It assumes them, but doesn't go over them again.

However, in 1 Cor 15, we read,

²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

And in 2 Cor 10, it says,

³ For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

In God’s eternal plan, everything is to brought into subjection to the Lord Jesus, and everything is to be submitted through him to God the Father.

Society, politics, the environment, these are all to come under the control of Jesus.

That is what lies behind that splendid picture in Colossians, of Jesus as the triumphant general, defeating enemy hosts:

^{COL 2:9} For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰ and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority...

¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

We Baptists have a habit of focussing on our relationship with God — which is basic — and on our relationship with each other as the people of God. But we fail when it comes to our relationship with the world.

You know, I was not very happy about our involvement in the Vietnam War, but do you know why I was not involved in the protests? I was not involved, because Communists were, and I was afraid that my involvement with Communists was a betrayal of Jesus.

What a narrow–minded attitude!

I want to tell you this: if God’s people truly acted as God’s people, the Communists would be compromised by having to struggle alongside us for justice. Why should unbelievers do God’s work while believers do nothing?

I looked at my attitudes to politics, to social action, to being involved with other Christians, and I found that I had swallowed a theological viewpoint which assumed that Christians are weak, that Christians will be defeated, that Christians will lose out, if we touch the seamier side of life, if we get involved with the world, if we mix with Christians who are different from ourselves.

I saw that we had woven an entire interpretation of the Bible out of that basic and essential lack of faith.

We are the ones whom God created to have dominion over the entire world! We are the ones whom God has equipped through faith in Jesus and the power of his Spirit to overcome the world! We are the ones whom Jesus spoke to when he said,

`Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

If ever there was a call for Christians to be socially involved, that is it. We are our brother’s keeper, because our brother might just be Jesus.

Our weapons are not, as Paul reminds us, the weapons of this world. Too often we ask Governments to pass a law and then congratulate ourselves. And, if the law works, the law gets the glory — and who thinks of Jesus? But we do have our weapons: faith, hope, the Word of God, the power of the Spirit.

When the world sees us involved, caring about their struggles, sharing in their concerns, we will have preached louder than any words.

We have people in our congregation who are politically aware, who have concerns for social issues, who are into environmental matters. John knows about the International Whaling Commission. Bruce knows the needs of people on the margins. Steve knows about homelessness. We could go on and on.

We have the expertise. Let’s get involved! Let’s engage with the world — for Jesus’ sake!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)