Sunday 15 July 2012

July 15, 2012 Sermon - The Works # 1: Role Reversal


The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.  But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.  For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business. (James 1:9-11)

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     Having read through the Letter of James last week, we’re now going to take the next few weeks to reflect on some of the content we found in it. Since James is essentially an "ethical" letter - stressing how we should respond to God's grace and not God's grace itself (although, with apologies to Martin Luther, I don't believe grace is absent from the letter!) - I'm going to be focusing on the ethics of Christian living (or, as in the words James actually uses, the "deeds" or "works" that are ideally called forth in our lives by the gospel of grace as it touches our hearts and transforms our lives.) One of the things we have to come to terms with is that we are not called to live as the world lives. Our faith is supposed to change us. The way we live is supposed to be almost unrecognizable to the world. People are supposed to look at us and shake their heads because we think and act and respond so differently than the world expects. People are supposed to wonder how it is that Christ can make such a difference in our lives. Jesus is supposed to turn the world and how we view it upside down. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament make this abundantly clear and repeatedly tell us that people of faith are supposed to approach each day with an outlook that defies worldly standards and that makes people stand up and take notice. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

     I have a friend who I’ll call John (that’s not his real name) who I’ve come to know over the last few years who is a Baptist pastor in South India. Since I’ve known him, he’s shared a fair bit with me about what being both a pastor and a Christian in South India is like, and I now have a standing invitation to visit and worship with him at his church if I’m ever in South India - and I’ve extended the reciprocal invitation to him to worship with us should he ever find himself in this part of the world. John was born and raised as a Christian in an overwhelmingly Hindu culture in which only 5% of the people are Christians. His father was also a Baptist pastor, but he was a convert in his early adulthood from Hinduism to Christianity. The family made a lot of sacrifices to become Christians. Persecution of Christians in the region isn’t uncommon. I found this report about the situation of Christians in South India: “There has been an increase in anti-Christian violence in recent years … . The acts of violence include arson of churches, re-conversion of Christians to Hinduism by force and threats of physical violence, distribution of threatening literature, burning of Bibles, raping of nuns, murder of Christian priests and destruction of Christian schools, colleges, and cemeteries.” I share this not to demonize Hinduism (because God knows Christians have done a lot of ugly things over the years too, so we have no room for feelings of pride or superiority) but just to give you a taste of what my friend John faces on a regular basis. One of his challenges is that almost all the people who attend his church are converts from Hinduism to Christianity in a culture that doesn’t take very kindly to such conversions. Another challenge - especially for him as a Baptist - is that many of his parishioners absolutely refuse to be baptized. He doesn’t doubt their Christian faith, but they believe that if they accept baptism that will be the final sign for their enemies to begin persecuting them. So they gather quietly to worship, but because baptism by law has to be registered, they decline baptism. Dr. David Scott, a Methodist who teaches at the Union Theological Seminary in Bangalore, India, writes that “ the Indian Christian convert has been described as “an outcaste, no longer recognizable as a functioning member of his or her former community. ... numerous Indians consider Christian conversion and baptism to be effective denationalization. For many conversion to Christianity is offensive, a betrayal of India's national heritage, an alienation harmful to the life of the nation, a disturbance having undesirable political and economic implications.” My friend John tells me that, to avoid these consequences, many in his congregation insist on holding on to the Hindu caste system - the system that establishes a “social pecking order,” with those on the bottom (known as the “untouchables”) being truly cast out. They can be educated, make money and even rise to positions of prominence in government, but those of higher castes still won’t associate with them. So John’s congregation is hopelessly divided into Hindu castes, in spite of the fact that they’re professing Christians, and many of his parishioners won’t even speak to each other.

     That is not just a South Indian phenomenon, although in South India it’s taken to something of an extreme. There are many Christian congregations in North America that find themselves quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) divided between the “ins” and the “outs,” and woe to anyone who chooses to challenge the unspoken power structure. And this is not just a modern phenomenon. It’s witnessed to in Scripture. There are repeated warnings in Scripture about the dangers of discriminating within the community of faith, and repeated calls for that not to happen, for all to be treated as equal in the eyes not just of God but also of the people of God. In Matthew 20:16, Jesus says “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” There is no sense to that, is there? But Jesus is saying that God will bring about a radical re-ordering of society in which those who are often the last to be thought of and the last to be taken care of will be placed at the front of the line. Jesus was the one who promised blessing - and not as a future promise but as a present condition - to the most unlikely of people: the poor, the meek, those who mourn. Our world is more likely to see those in such conditions as cursed, not as blessed. Even before Jesus was born, Mary saw that His birth would re-order society. As she reflected upon God’s work, she said: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” And even centuries before that, the prophet Isaiah in speaking of the work of the Messiah, wrote that “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.” The fact that these things needed to be said suggests that Jesus, Mary, Isaiah - and James, who wrote that “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.  But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position” - all saw various forms of inequality in the community of faith as a problem to be addressed. And it is a problem to be addressed. Most congregations have a power structure - those who, for one reason or another, can influence every decision that gets made if they want to. If that’s because they’re the spiritually mature people, that’s all right - and appropriate. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes it’s those with money vs. those without. Sometimes it’s those who are educated vs. those who aren’t. In some contexts it’s those who speak in tongues vs. those who don’t. Sometimes it’s those who commit what they think of as “lesser” sins vs. those who commit what are thought of as “bigger” sins. In some churches it’s men vs. women, or clergy vs. lay. We’re not supposed to (and maybe we don’t even mean to) - but we try to make the church look like the world by dividing it in some way into those who “have” vs. those who “don’t,” or those who “are” vs. those who “aren’t.” Ultimately, that destroys Christian community. It becomes far too easy for those who “have” or who “are” to look down upon those who “don’t have” or who “aren’t” and it becomes equally easy for those who “don’t have” and who “aren’t” to start to believe they’re unworthy.

     That’s why I like to speak about the "paradox" of the gospel - the fact that what Jesus gives us is not what we expect by worldly standards. From Jesus we get the God who humbled himself and became a man; from Jesus we get the crucified God; from Jesus we get the Son of God who eats with sinners; from Jesus we get unmerited grace apart from obedience to law. The world doesn’t understand this. Neither should they really understand we who follow Jesus. Instead, the world should be fascinated by both Him and us; they should wonder what makes such a difference. Back to those words of James: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.  But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.” This isn’t normal. It’s a complete reversal. It’s not “the law” that demands obedience but it’s part of “The Works” that should simply flow from faith - to establish a community where there are no rich and no poor, no mighty and no weak, no important and no unimportant; to establish a community where we all just treat each others as equals - which is what we are in the eyes of God anyway. The things of the world don't count to God. Having a lot doesn't make us more worthy in God’s eyes; having little doesn't make us less worthy in God’s eyes. We are equal in the sight of God. God promises a radical re-ordering of society; and God desires that it begin in the church, among His people, as an example to the world of what real community and real relationship look like.


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