“These
men who have turned the world upside-down have come here also....”
I hear these words, albeit the words of an angry mob, and ask how
can they apply to us the church here in North America. How can we be
those who turn this world, this culture upside-down when for the most
part it owes its existence to Christianity. Seriously, literature
majors in university are still recommended if not required to read
the Bible in the King James Version because it is needed for making
sense of so much of Western literature. Economics, we would not
live in a capitalist economy without Calvinism's stress on delayed
gratification. You know, deny yourself now for the heavenly reward
later. That's called investing. Democracy, democratic forms of
government are the result of John Calvin having declared in Book Five
of his Institutes
of the Christian Religion
that the people of a land have a divine right to overthrow a
tyrannical king. If you did not know, elections are basically a
bloodless means of overturning a government. The justice system, it
may sound a bit controversial but the church's misunderstanding of
the nature of God's justice, mercy, and wrath has led to our having a
justice system that is retributive rather than restorative. The
environment, science and technology, the mindset that has brought on
the destruction of the environment is rooted in Western
Christianity's misunderstanding of what it means for humans to be in
the image of God and have dominion over creation. We think we are
little gods who have power to dominate the creation rather than power
to caretake it. Sir Francis Bacon, who defined the scientific
method, said it best when he said that humans are nature's masters
and it must be made to obey us for our benefit. Cultural
imperialism, Christian missionaries in the 19th and 20th Centuries
took Western ways of medicine, lifestyle, education, economics, and
progress into the Two-thirds World along with our version of the
Gospel and made their worlds look just like our own to the detriment
of indigenous culture! I'll stop there but I think it is obvious
that we Christians made the world we live in particularly so in North
America.
Yet,
something has happened. Gabe Lyons, a Christian sociologist of sorts
and author of unChristian:
What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why It
Matters
notes: “Not too long ago, belief in the Christian God was almost
assumed. Judeo-Christian principles governed the public square and
anyone who challenged them was marginalized. Christian leaders were
considered forces with which to be reckoned, and politicians coveted
the Christian vote. That is no longer true. The world today is
increasingly pluralistic and post-Christian. Christianity is no
longer the dominant religion governing the public square. Many
faiths have a seat at the table. The world is also increasingly
post-modern. Christian truth claims are questioned by a generation
that is skeptical of statements of certainty. And,...negative
perceptions about Christianity abound even as the faith's influence
is slipping away and churches face declining attendance.”
I
don't think that I am being too overly generalistic to say that in
Western Culture particularly the North American variety the church
has not and is not turning the world upside-down, but rather it's the
other way around. The world is turning the church upside-down.
Indeed, in Mainline denominations no matter the survey the divorce
rate is just as high as it is out there; extra-marital sex even among
senior citizens – just as high, substance abuse, domestic violence
– just as high; our views on money, consumerism, materialism –
pretty much the same. When it comes to morals, we for the most part
don't look so much like the image of our God. Rather, we look just
like the culture around us. And, a recent Barna study tells us that
people outside the church, particularly those younger than forty
think that Christians are simply anti-homosexual (91%), judgemental
(87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), too political (75%),
out of touch with reality (72%), insensitive to others (70%), and
boring (68%). Apparently and in all sincerity, to the world around
us we really don't look like Jesus.
To
the world around us we do not look like those who are that new form
of humanity Paul calls “in Christ”. Paul said there in 2
Corinthians 5:17 (and I'll give you a very literal translation), “if
anyone is in Christ, NEW CREATION.” He means the people in Christ
(that's us by the way) are return of Jesus, all things made new,
Kingdom of God kind of humans reconciled to the God who made us right
down to the deepest part of who or what we are by the incarnation of
God the Son as Jesus of Nazareth applied to us by the indwelling the
Holy Spirit. We don't look like new creation “in Christ” people
who proclaim and minister the divine edict of unconditional
reconciliation to God rendered in and by Jesus that is evident in
communities of people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and love one
another so unconditionally and so sacrificially that we virtually
eliminate poverty among ourselves as
attested of the early church by the book of Acts.
Friends,
there is another king. His name is Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews
and the Lord and Saviour of the universe. In life and in death we
belong to him. True? He has given us one commandment, only one.
What is it? That we love one another as he has loved us. Why? So
that the world around us will know that we are his
disciples. One commandment, yes? Love one another, yes? So, why do
we look so much like the world around us? Why are we looked upon so
negatively when all we are supposed to be doing is loving one another
with zealous authenticity as Jesus has loved us each laying his life
down for us? It's time we got back to turning the world upside-down.
Well,
turning
back to the Book of Acts and taking a look at what Paul was doing
that turned the world upside-down and well basically, it began with
him going to his people and Jesus' people too, the Jewish people, to
their Sabbath teaching sessions and there Luke says he “reasoned
with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was
necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and
saying, 'This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Messiah'."
Some of the ethnic Jews were persuaded and joined with them as well
as many of the law-abiding Gentiles or God-fearers and many leading
women. And then, even the altercation that followed spread the word
even further. Please note that the early church missionary efforts
of Paul were primarily an in-house Jewish thing. The first culture
to be turned upside-down by the Gospel of Jesus Christ was Paul's own
Jewish culture.
Well,
applying this to our situation in North American, the first thing
that needs to be turned upside-down is us, the Christian church.
Turning the world upside-down must start in-house. We, the Jesus
people, the people of faith must gather quite humbly and prayerfully
around the Scriptures and let the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy
Spirit teach us who he is, why he had to suffer, why his way of life
is the way of the cross. We have to come back to him gathering
humbly around the Scriptures so that we can take to heart his life
and way of life and know him in not only his death, but also in his
resurrection. As Paul said in Philippians: I count everything as
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that
depends on faith - that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from
the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already
perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has
made me his own.” We belong to Jesus. His way of the cross and
his new life in resurrection is our way and our life. We are not to
be the religious institution that undergirds Western civilization.
That's colluding with Caesar. We are the new creation ones "in
Christ" called to the ministry of reconciliation and
restoration.
I'm
one of those freakazoid ministers who still translate the Biblical
passages from which I preach. For me, that first-hand handling of the Bible in its original languages is when and where
I really get "it", where I feast on the word. Let me share
some of that wealth from here in Acts. Luke says Paul reasoned with
his people from the Scriptures. The Greek word for reasoned there is
more or less our word dialogue and it literally means to mingle
thought with thought, mingle thought with thought. The imagery there
to me is quite simply beautiful. It's not arguing or banging your
head against the wall reasoning. It's a gentle mingling. We
Christians really just simply need to sit down together as much as we
can and mingle our thoughts on Scripture passages not so much around
the question of “what is the passage telling us to do” but rather
“what is the passage telling us of who Jesus is.” Mingling our
thoughts, together, around a table is a much richer way to experience
the transforming power of Christ Jesus in Scripture than a private
pondering of the Our
Daily Bread that
so many of us enshrine in our bathrooms of all places.
Another
word Luke uses which we translate as “explaining” literally means
opening completely. Luke uses it in his Gospel to describe how those
two disciples on the Emmaus road had their eyes opened to see Jesus
when he broke bread with them. He also uses it to say how Lydia,
Paul's first convert in Macedonia, how the Lord opened her heart to
accept Paul's message of Jesus. When we gather around the Scriptures
to mingle thought with thought the Lord will indeed open our eyes to
see him and our hearts to receive him.
Another
word Luke uses which we translate as “proving” quite literally
means to set before as in to set food before another. Jesus gave his
disciples the miracle meal of loaves and fish to set before the
multitudes. In our mingling of thought with thought around
scriptures Jesus through the working of the Holy Spirit will open us
up to see and accept him and will set before us the miracle feeding
of his very life to enliven us.
Another
word, the one we translate as persuaded. In Greek, it is a passive
word, meaning something that is done to us rather than something we
do ourselves. So, it is not "you've presented me with all this
evidence that demands a verdict and now my decision is....".
It's more like "suddenly my life makes no sense apart from what
you just told me about this Jesus."
Winding
down, what's usually the first thing people do when they come to
church and sit in a pew? I've noticed that they thumb through the
stuff in the pew racks as if searching for something. This is indeed
proof that people do come to church searching for something and it is
Jesus, our king Jesus, that they/we are searching for and he can
indeed be found in our midst. So, let's gather around the Scriptures
to mingle thought with thought particularly around the question of
who is Jesus. Paul's quintessential question which he asked Jesus
when he met him on the road to Damascus was "Who are you, Lord?"
That's the question we must gather together around. Turning the
world upside-down begins with the answer to that question. When we
prayerfully gather around the Scriptures mingling thought with
thought Jesus will come and open us up for the feast and he will
turn the world upside-down yet again. The people who are most
authentic in sharing Christ are those who are presently having
enlivening and transforming encounters with the Lord that they feel
not ashamed but empowered to share with others. Let me leave you
with a thought to ponder: what would happen here if this congregation
put aside everything it is doing and just hunkered down in prayer and
Bible Study until it happened? Amen.
