Life Together--Apart
Life Together–Apart by Rev. L. John Gable
June 7, 2020
These past two weeks Oscar has helped us bridge the two decades and enter into the new year by looking at the opening volley of Jesus’ ministry in Luke 4 where we hear Him reading from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” – in short, Jesus is announcing God’s good will toward all people. I’d like to pick up that thread and look at the Church’s role and responsibility, as the recipients and successors of Jesus’ ministry, in relation to the world in which we live. So, during the coming weeks we will consider together what it means to be “A Church FOR the world”, “A Church TO the world” and “A Church IN the World.”
I trust we would all agree that the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation is the first and primary service the Church owes the world. There are many other organizations and clubs and movements which do many wonderful things, but this task of sharing the Gospel of salvation, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is given to the Church alone. No one else can do what we have been called to do. It is for this reason that God sent His Son in to the world and it is for this reason that Jesus commissioned His disciples “to go and make disciples”. If we are going to rightly call ourselves part of the universal Church of Jesus Christ then everything else we do or say must be to this end. We are called to be a Church FOR the world in Jesus’ name.
But have you ever noticed that we “in here” often refer to those “out there” as if they were somehow different than we are or as though “we” were not a part of “them”? I am not dismissing the difference Christ makes in us when we surrender control to Him as Savior and Lord, but neither can we dismiss the fact that “they” are “us”, and “we” are “them”. When a radio commentator hypothetically asked his listening audience, “What’s wrong with the world?” G.K. Chesterton famously called in and said, “I am.” Or to quote Pogo, the comic strip character not a philosopher or theologian, “We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us.”
So, what is the Church’s responsibility to the world, those “out there” as well as we “in here”? Some Christian traditions have chosen isolation and separation, but not so we Presbyterians. We have chosen engagement. Calvin, our theological father, constantly emphasized the primacy of the community over the individual, teaching that we are bound together and must take responsibility for each other, not just in the Church, but in the community at large. He writes, “No surer rule and no more valid exhortation to keep it could be devised than when we are taught that all the gifts we possess have been bestowed by God and entrusted to us on the condition that they be distributed for our neighbor’s benefit.” Put another way, the Church exists primarily for those who are not a part of it. We have been called and blessed by God, not for our own benefit alone, but to be used as instruments for God’s good work and favor in the world. To this end, we are called to be a Church FOR the world.
In our lesson from Isaiah the Lord, through the prophet, identifies a misapplication of this teaching as Israel’s fatal flaw. As a nation they had come to think of themselves as God’s chosen ones set apart for God’s special blessing. Through the centuries they had somehow forgotten that when God first called Abraham and Sarah He blessed them “so that all the nations of the earth might be blessed through them.” Israel was called, not for their own satisfaction, but to be an instrument of blessing for the nations, so we read in Isaiah the Lord giving a word of correction saying, “It is too light a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Israel’s first and primary calling was to be a light shining and sharing God’s blessings of salvation, not on them alone, but on the whole world; and friends that is our calling today as well. We are called to be a Church FOR the world because the God we worship and serve is FOR the world.
That understanding of the role and responsibility of the people of God in the Old Testament translates very easily in to our New Testament understanding of why the Father sent His Son, not to condemn us, but in order to save us, (re-read John 3:16 and 17), and He took this action on our behalf because He loves us. So, lest we fall in to Israel’s self-deception of having a privileged status we need to be reminded that God loves not just us but the whole world. It is this mission and ministry to which Jesus commissioned His disciples: “to go and make disciples”, to share this grace-filled, life-saving message not just among themselves but with all nations, tribes and people. Any instinct we have to close ranks, hunker down and keep this Good News to ourselves runs contrary to this clear message of Scripture: God is FOR us, not against us; and not us only, but He is FOR each and every man, woman and child. He always has been and He always will be. We are His children, created in His image and likeness, whether we recognize Him or not. So if God is FOR the world, then it only makes that we, as His Church, must also be FOR the world.
Now, I firmly believe that we get that “in here”, but I am not convinced that they, “out there” believe that about us. I am not convinced that “the world”, whoever they may be, actually believe that we, the Church, are FOR them and subsequently I think we have given them the unfounded notion that God is not FOR them, which as we have said earlier was Israel’s fatal flaw.
Survey after survey in recent years has spoken of the decline of the Church, both in numbers and in influence. There are a myriad of proposed reasons for this decline, too many to even begin to enumerate here, but recent studies have shown that the fastest growing segment of the population with regards to religion are the “nones”, (n-o-n-e-s, not n-u-n-s); those who identify no religious affiliation at all. Other studies have shown that among Americans ages 16-29, when asked to describe present day Christianity they overwhelmingly use words such as “judgmental, hypocritical, out of touch with reality, insensitive and confusing.” Oscar told a Phillip Yancey story last week that captures this sentiment perfectly when he told of the young woman in need who was asked why she didn’t go to a church to ask for help. Her answer was, “Why would I go to a church? I already feel badly enough about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.” Believe me when I say, my intention here is not to bash the Church that we love, but it is a gut-check for us. Those who are not a part of us seem not to think quite as highly of us as we might think of ourselves. It seems for many, and an increasingly many, that we (the Church) have come to be defined by those things we are against rather than those we are for. And that’s a problem.
So, the question I am asking us to consider is: how then can we show that we are FOR the world that God is FOR? Again there is not one single or simple answer to that question, but I will suggest that we begin by committing ourselves to praying FOR the world.
Prayer reminds us that there are certain things that need to be done in the world that are beyond our doing, and this is one of them. Prayer reminds us that it is not by our might, or our power; it is not by our ingenuity or the powers of our persuasion, but by the Spirit, says the Lord. There is a spiritual aspect to the dis-eases which ail us, individually and as a society, so we need to draw on all the powers of the Spirit made available to us.
I am convinced that just as it is impossible to stay angry with someone for whom you are genuinely praying, so it is also impossible to remain uncaring, unloving, unconcerned about those for whom we are genuinely praying. If we are concerned FOR the world, then we must be committed to pray FOR the world as an expression of our love FOR it. Simply put: If we do not pray for people how can we truly say we love them?
And for what should we pray?
- That they would come to know the love which God has for them, a love beautifully and perfectly shown in Jesus Christ;
- That they might come to know His saving grace and the freedom of His forgiveness;
- That they might experience the life-changing, life-transforming power of His Holy Spirit,
- And that they might commit themselves to follow after Jesus as one of His disciples and join in the fellowship of the company of His Church.
Such a commitment to prayer can be directed for the benefit of the whole world, certainly we all need it, but I would encourage you to individualize that kind of prayer to one or two individuals that God may place on your heart. Picture them as you pray, not in a judgmental way at all, but in all love and concern, asking that God’s love to be revealed to them. Should you tell them that you are praying for them in this way? Your call, but I would suggest not, at least not at first. Rather let God first do His work in you, so that your prayer is not merely to “fix them”, or “correct them”, or “convince them of the rightness of your way of thinking”, but that it might be nothing more than an expression of your love and God’s love for them. Remember it is impossible to remain unloving, uncaring, insensitive and uncommitted to those for whom we are praying.
And lest you think I am suggesting that these prayers need only be offered for “them”, we need also to pray the same for ourselves. There is as much conversion needed inside the Church as there is out. So let us also humbly pray:
- That God’s love might be made real to us and through us;
- That we too might know with full assurance the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of our sins;
- That we might experience the life-changing, life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us;
- And that our lives might be a demonstration of the Kingdom life we profess.
In his commentary on Corinthians, William Barclay, wrote, “More people
have been brought to the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christians than by all the doubts in the world.” Friends, if we are going to be Christ’s representatives to the world, then we must be FOR what God is FOR, and that begins with love.
Let me give you a teaser here. I am not suggesting that prayer is the end of our responsibility to the world; it is the simply where I am asking us to begin. Prayer is what prompts us to action. Through prayer our eyes and our hearts are opened to the cares and concerns of the world around us, and about that we’ll talk more in the weeks to come.
For now, let us commit ourselves to being FOR what God is FOR – and God
is FOR the world and all who live in it- us and them –for we are they and they are us – and thank God, God is FOR us all.