Inspirational one-liner’s, the Internet is
full of them. I would like to share with
you some of my findings. “I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that
way. So I stole a bike and asked for
forgiveness.” “All power corrupts. Absolute power is pretty neat though.” “Always
remember you're unique, just like everyone else.” “Jesus loves you. It’s everybody else who thinks you’re a
jerk.” “If God is watching us, the least we can do
is be entertaining.” Though humorous
there’s actually a lot of profundity packed away in those uplifting tidbits. I could spend an hour alone on the first one
about prayer and I’m actually not being sarcastic. Really.
Well, if I haven’t done it
already I’m going to commit a great offence.
I am going to reduce the Apostle Paul to a couple of inspirational
one-liners. I will then spend likely
longer than I should on explaining them.
So, if I were to be so bold as
to reduce Paul’s teaching to a couple of his own one-liners I would begin with
2 Corinthians 5:13: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, (boom) NEW CREATION. The old has passed away (dead, gone); look,
the new has now emerged.” A one-liner
explanation for that verse would be Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with
Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I
now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me.”
Well, I doubt your going to find either of
those one-liners on the net. Ideas like
new creation and being crucified with Christ so that he now lives in and
through us just aren’t all that inspirational in a culture melded by a paradigm
that goes like “I want to be and do what makes me feel good and happy.” Being NEW CREATION in Christ means that living
a life that is driven by being and doing what makes me feel good and happy got
crucified with Jesus and now I have to yield to letting him live in and through
me and that’s something that’s going to reorient me, indeed compel me to lay
aside my life and take up a cross and follow him. That’s a task that will have us struggling
against ourselves as we try to live according to his way of loving others
unconditionally and indeed sacrificially.
Well, sometimes it’s just best to let Paul explain himself. So let’s pop on over to Ephesians 2 and with
a little paraphrasing I will try to let Paul explain his two inspirational
one-liners.
If you remember from the week before last I
probed into the first ten verses of chapter two and contrasted two ways of living
by contrasting two songs; Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and the classic hymn “’Tis
So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”. My using
that comparison was an attempt to explain Paul’s proclamation that we were all
under the influence of a false god, “the spirit of the times” we could
say. This powerful influencer caused us
to pursue our pleasures and live “my way”.
Therefore, we were the walking dead to coin the name of a popular TV
series. BUT GOD in his great love has
been gracious to us and saved us from death.
He has caused us to live again together with Christ Jesus. He raised from the dead together with him and
seated us together with him in the heavenly realm.
We also talked about grace being God’s
bringing us into his presence, showering his favour upon us, and acting for our
beneficence. The evidence of this,
reaching back to chapter one, is that God has given us the Holy Spirit, his
very presence. The Holy Spirit unites us
to Jesus so that, as Paul would put it, we were crucified together with Christ
Jesus and God has caused us to live again together with him, raising us up
together with him, and seating us with him meaning he gave us a part in his
ministry.
Twice in the first part of chapter two Paul
says “by grace you have been saved”. To
give you a quick and unfortunate grammar lesson, the verb there is actually a
participle which is a verb functioning as a noun. Though it sounds rough, a more accurate
translation is “by grace y’all are the have been saved ones.” We are the have been saved ones, saved from
death by God’s acting in grace towards us.
The second time Paul says “by grace y’all are
the have been saved ones” he adds “through faith”. He means not our own faith but rather God’s
faithfulness - God’s faithfulness to us according to his plan, the plan Paul
laid out in chapter one. It has been
God’s plan since from before he created anything to unite all things in heaven
and on earth in Jesus with the result that he would adopt us as his own
children through uniting us to Christ Jesus by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now moving on to the second half of chapter
two, if the first half of chapter two was driven by a huge BUT GOD (we were
dead, BUT GOD has made us to live again in Christ Jesus), the second have is
driven by a huge BUT NOW in which he focuses on the fact that God has created a
new humanity in Christ Jesus. This new
humanity consists of both Jews and Gentiles who before were enemies but are now
reconciled in Christ in that they both have access to God Father in the Holy
Spirit through Jesus.
This new humanity in Christ Jesus is a fundamentally new form
of human existence. Its newness is not
new like getting a new car, which is nothing more than better bells and
whistles put on an old idea. We haven’t
just been given a way of relating to God that’s based on believing in Jesus for
salvation rather than trying to earn salvation by doing good works. That’s just putting a new bell and whistle
called faith into same old human being.
This new humanity is like a totally new form of transportation to
replace automobiles altogether; like transporters on the Starship
Enterprise. This new humanity is new
because God now dwells in humans forming new community, a community based in
enemies no longer having enmity because God crucified enmity with Jesus and God
himself now binds us together. This new
humanity is a humanity in which God has come to live.
Wrap your head around this one. For centuries the church has been little more
than the vehicle through which our culture has promoted and enforced morality,
good behaviour. This has been
particularly true of the Mainline denominations for the last two hundred
years. We’ve been little more than one
more form of human religion. The fact
that I’ve stood up here and said we are a fundamentally new form of human
existence, humans in community indwelt by God, and it’s probably striking most
of us as the weirdest thing we’ve heard in a long time should tell us
something. Nevertheless, we are new
creation in Christ. In us the old has passed away
and new humanity is emerging. Our mode
of being is working for peace and reconciliation in all relationships. In the midst of the relationships we have
with one another in this congregation in particular, and really through us into
all our relationships, new creation humanity in Christ, humanity indwelt by
God’s very self is emerging.
It’s Anniversary Sunday. This congregation has thus far had a 164-year
run. It was the first church in this
community. God’s been faithful. You’ve been faithful. You’ve loved and served not only each other
but the broader community. You’ve been
through much together, thick and thin together in Christ. You’ve been young together. You’ve grown old together. You’ve been faithful. Yet, these are difficult days for churches of
the Mainline variety. Our culture is
going through something called “discontinuous change”, change that is causing
our culture to be fundamentally different.
Our call in the midst of this discontinuous change is not to try to find
new ways to continue to be the same old institution. Our call is to focus on simply being the new
humanity that we fundamentally are in Jesus Christ in the powerful working of
the Holy Spirit. The world around us is
yet again markedly driven by the powerful influence of the spirit of the times
and honestly we all have played into that. But God has graciously saved us from that
death. The world out there is hungry and
thirsty for authentic community. They
hunger and thirst for community that truly embodies Jesus. But now that’s what we are and that’s what we
have to give to the community of Southampton and to the Saugeen First
Nation. So shall it be. Amen?
