"THE ROAD TO
THE THIRD MILLENNIUM"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, December 31, 2000
Text: Galatians 4:1-7
I received a card in the mail and I was absolutely ecstatic for it was an invitation to a party. Being aged ten, going to a party was one of the highlights of life. But this was no ordinary invitation; it was from my closest friend, Richard. Somehow ”˜though, there was something different about this invitation: it had some strange hieroglyphics on the front and the whole invitation seemed to be in an entirely different language. In fact, I wasn't quite sure what I would be going to. It wasn't his birthday; I knew that. It wasn't Christmas; I knew that. It wasn't Thanksgiving; I knew that. Why on earth, in the middle of March would one go to a party? So I took it to my parents and they informed me that this was a very special day for Richard and I should probably make sure I had a gift for him. I did as they said, (anything for free food and drink) and off I went to the party. When I arrived all his family was there: uncles and aunts had flown in to Bermuda from New York City and Chicago. This was a really big party! Richard opened the gifts, mine first, which was a nice little chocolate bar but all the other gifts were really amazing things…..the most spectacular being a Nikon camera with Leika lens! He showed this wonderful gift off by wearing it around his neck. There was singing and a man came in dressed in a weird outfit and with a long beard. He was jumping for joy and was ecstatic. I thought that this was the greatest kind of a party I'd ever been to! When I finally went home I said to my parents, "Mum and Dad, I'll tell you something! I want you to throw a party like that for me!" They looked devastated and said, "Oh no, son, we can't do that." I said, "Oh but I've got to have a party like that! It was magnificent." They repeated, "Sorry, son. We don't hold Bar Mitzvahs in our household."
It was a wonderful expression of how my friend Richard had become what literally Bar Mitzvah means the son of the divine law. This was the moment in his life when he had crossed over from being a child to being a full man. This was a moment when he had, in a sense, fully become a child of the law with all the obligations and freedoms and joys of being one of God's holy people.
When the apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians and said to them, ”˜You too have had a change. You were once children but now you are adopted as sons and daughters. Once you were not of the law, but now you are of the law.' Paul had in mind, I'm sure, this sense of a Bar Mitzvah, of becoming a child, a son of the divine law. But he is writing to Gentiles in Galatia and he looks and says, ”˜Now you have been adopted into the household of God; you have been transformed and changed as of this moment. The way in which you have been changed is actually through Jesus Christ himself. Jesus Christ,' as Paul says in Galatians, ”˜is the Son of God who was born of a mother and was born under the law.' In other words, he was saying he was a man who was divine, human and Jewish. Because of this man, Jesus Christ, you, the Galatian Gentiles, are now Bar Mitzvahed; you are now children of the divine law. All the promises that God had for Israel, all the covenants that he made with humanity, are realized in this man Jesus Christ. Because of him you are transformed and changed from a non-people into the people of God.
Paul then goes on and says that all this happens (I like the King James Version) in what is called the fullness of the time. In other words God did this in Jesus Christ at a time that was planned, apportioned and centered on the coming of Jesus Christ in history and in time. When you look at the world into which Jesus of Nazareth came you can see that it was in many ways, the fullness of the time. When you look at the politics and economics of the era in which Jesus lived, there is no doubt that Jesus came and radically transformed that which was around him. Economically there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The rich were selling their balsam all over the world. They were selling their grain to the Greeks, their oils to Syria. The people of Israel who were in the wealthiest class were becoming richer and richer. But on the other hand, the poor were getting poorer. We read that sixty-six percent of the people who lived in Rome were slaves. In the area where Jesus lived, in Galilee, ninety-seven percent of the land that was arable was being used because Herod had relocated people to Galilee and had forced them off his own land onto poorer land around Galilee and so eroded the soil that it could no longer bear the fruit and crops that it previously had. So great was the oppression of Herod and the Romans combined, people were not only driven off the land because they could no longer make it arable, but it created a nightmare of devastation on the land with dust bowls and drought. That is why you read in the gospels of Mark and Matthew about the terrible calamities in the area of Galilee. It was precisely because the poor people of the land were not able to make a living. There was a sense in which, among the people of Israel when Christ came, that there was an impending doom that the world was close to coming to an end.
There was also a religious problem. The religion of Jesus' day had become extremely legalistic. People who had previously been allowed into the synagogues were driven out of the synagogues. Poor people had to sit and beg on the steps; that's why Jesus is always running into people who are asking for alms or who are blind or crippled or nonproductive or leprous. The religion of the day had driven them out. Sin was seen as such an anomaly that it was not something that was to be forgiven by the grace of God, but something that was to be stomped on and to be removed. That is why Jesus was so heavily criticized for dealing with the sinners and eating with them and by celebrating God's grace with them.
Idolatry was also on the rise. Because of the Romans and their demand that everyone kowtow to their particular philosophy, the Pax Romana, that they were to worship the Emperor and Caesar, because they allowed the pantheon of gods to exist and people came and placed food at the altars of these gods. Idolatry was on the rise at the time of Jesus. So too was immorality. For with idolatry and the pagan philosophy often goes immorality. That is why prostitutes were in such great demand and were on the street corners even in Israel. There was a sense in which the time in which Jesus of Nazareth came was ripe for something new, was ripe for God to do something bold and different!
But it was also a good time, this fullness of the time. The very gospel that Jesus preached could now be told throughout the world via a common language which was Greek. Because of the Alexandrian Empire, Greek has spread throughout the known world that Jesus and his final disciples would travel in. Greek became a common language for people to speak and the gospel could rest in a word that people would understand. It was a word that was able to travel because of the Roman roads and transportation system. The Roman Empire provided a means for people to travel from one city to another and through their common Roman citizenship be able to talk and visit and trade with other parts of the empire. So while it was a difficult time for the gospel to be proclaimed and seen in Jesus of Nazareth, it was a wonderful time in the sense that the opportunity was there for the world to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We, my friends, now stand on the brink of a new millennium and I must ask myself the question ”˜Is this also the fullness of the time for us to hear again the good news that those earliest Christians did?' Simply relating the historical Jesus to the historical situation in which he found himself will get us only so far. When we look at it in such ways we see Jesus as an historical figure facing an historic context and we can draw from that some profound lessons about what Jesus said and taught. But we are two thousand years from that moment. We stand on the brink of another millennium and we do so on the understanding that God in Jesus Christ has given the Holy Spirit in order that that very news that was spoken incarnate two thousand years ago might also similarly live today. I was struck this last week at the return of Mario Lemieux after three years. I watched that notable hockey game and heard one of the quotes from one of the young fans outside the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh and I wrote it down: "God is back!" I might not ascribe such idolatrous implications to Mario Lemieux, as great a hockey player as he is, but I must say I keep asking myself the question, ”˜Is God back in this new millennium in which we live?' What are the signposts along the way to this new millennium that we can draw in the fullness of the time of Jesus Christ who calls each and every century, each and every year, to embrace the gospel that he proclaims and enacted on the cross?
I suggest four signposts along the way, pointing to the north, the south, the east and the west. Signposts that tell us what we as Christians should be doing as we enter this new millennium. The first is that as Christians we need to be evangelical. I mean the classic meaning of the word. What the initial early Christians proclaimed was a sense of the good news of the gospel. Evangelion means good news. That good news is spoken in every single era, in every single society that has ever been. There is a timelessness and yet a profound contextual implication to the proclamation of that good news in the world in which we live. All too often, however, we try to send the world a message of something else other than the good news, then wonder why the world which is on the brink of a new millennium, looks at us quizzically wondering whether or not we've got anything to say. It is like the story of a woman who bought a parrot from a pet shop and after one day she returned it and said, "I'm sorry but this parrot does not speak a single word; I wonder what is wrong." The store owner told her to buy a mirror for its cage. "They love mirrors and chirp away at themselves all day long." She tried the mirror but by the next day the parrot still hadn't said anything. She returned to the shop with her problem and the owner said, "I think the parrot needs a ladder. A little exercise will get the vocal chords working." She tried the ladder in the cage but the parrot said nothing. Again she went to the pet store complaining that neither the mirror nor the ladder worked. The owner said, "Try a swing. They love a swing. Get the blood moving then the parrot will talk!" She took the swing home and the parrot swings on the swing, climbs the ladder, looks in the mirror and says nothing. Finally, she goes again to the store. "I'm sorry, but I've got some bad news," she says. The owner says, "What's that?" She says, "The parrot is dead." "Dead?! Didn't he ever say anything at all?" She said, "Oh yes. He had his last words." "And what were they?" asked the store owner. "The parrot said, ”˜don't they have any food at that pet store?'
This sums up the church of Jesus Christ to me: swings, ladders and mirrors. All the things that humanity really does not need and the very food which sustains it and causes it to come to faith is the word. And the word is the Good News. But so often we have couched it in glum dead language, just like all those who criticize people for not going to church of Christmas eve and when they did come, made them sign pledges or purchase tickets to go to church (did you read about that?) and condemned people for coming only once a year. My friends, I'd rather that someone come to church once a year and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ than not come at all. I think that the whole approach that we've had toward the culture in which we live is so totally negative that it doesn't speak of the glory of the Good News that those early Christians found.
I have been rereading Douglas Hall's book Thinking The Faith. Doug Hall is one of the United Church theologians who was at McGill University and someone I have read voraciously for years. He makes a very interesting case about what we don't do with the Good News. He says that one of the things that we have done with the Good News is try to put it across as if it's simply a matter of knowledge. We have tried to expound what it is and we've cut it all apart. He says ”˜though, that this is like a young child who is sat down by his parents and is told that five plus five equals ten. Or that five plus five ones equals ten, or two times five equals ten or ten divided by two equals five and the child learns to repeat these statistics but Hall says they are simply abstract things. The child repeats the facts by rote but there needs to be something meaningful such as when the child goes into a candy store and understands that the candy can only be bought with a five cent coin or five one cent coins, does the child move from an abstract understanding of truth to a practical understanding of truth. It is no longer just knowledge; it is the act-knowledgement that what one has found is true in his or her own life. It seems to me on this new millennium that the Good News must not be just an abstract concept but that through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ it is seen to have an impact on everybody's life. This is one of the things that the church must move towards as it seeks to be truly evangelical.
The church must also be ecumenical. When you look at the history of the church it has been like an extremely bumpy road. It started off bumpy when Jews and Gentiles came together and the earliest Christian community included both. It became a somewhat less rocky road when there was a sense in which the church came together under the power of Rome. There was a sense in which it started to split again when the east and western church divided and there was antipathy between Constantinople and Rome. There was a sense in which later on the church consolidated its power again in the papacy. Under Gelatius and Boniface the church, particularly in the west, became more homogeneous and tried to suppress any dissension or division. But still the east and the west were divided. Through the Reformation and the Protestant Reforms there was schism in the west and the church was divided. In the nineteenth century so many offshoots began to grow all over the world and in so many different cultures. The church by the end of the nineteenth century was incredibly fragmented. This last century has seen to some extent a coming together again, of the church of Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which when our own particular denomination was created; there was an excitement about the sense of the people of God coming together, the oecumenae. Even so, as we stand at this new millennium, there is still much work to be done for the east and the west to come together, for the north and the south to come together, for evangelical and mainline to come together, for Catholic and Protestant to come together. The church of Jesus Christ, I believe, and the denominations that it has created over the years, must evaporate to some extent in order that the new word at the centre of Jesus Christ's love for the world might come through loud and clear. This millennium must be an ecumenical millennium, not only for the sake of the church, but also for the sake of the world. So much of what we inherit is one of division.
The church must also be ecological. I mean that it have an understanding of the world in which it lives and how connected they must be. One of the great challenges we will face in this millennium is that what happens in one part of the world is going to affect what happens in another. Perhaps equivalent to the Greek language in Jesus' day is the Internet. Perhaps equivalent to the Roman roads that we have is the ability and technology of travel and the different ways in which human beings come together. For more than ever before what happens in one part of God's world is going to affect what happens in another. On my way back from England in October I was sitting next to a young man from Ghana who was telling me of the problems that his country was experiencing. He told me of the outbreak of the Ebola problem and the fact that a disease that starts in the deepest parts of Africa ends up on the streets of New York City within a matter of days tells you that what happens to the environment and people in one part of the world ultimately affects another. As Christians we believe in our heart of hearts that Jesus is in fact the creator of the world. We believe that with the father and the spirit he was present at the very beginning of time, the alpha and omega. If we as Christians take that seriously, we have to break out of the nationalistic mindsets, the small parochial thinking that so often constrains us and look at the world as a whole. We must look at the world as the creation of Jesus Christ himself. When we do that we then have a passion for the world that is around us and we have a passion for the way in which things occur in the rest of the world. That is why I believe that when you forgive a debt in a poor country right there, it will have a positive effect even where you stand right now. It's not just a case of having some form of rigid sovereignty, for in a sense sovereignty itself over the years is bound to deminish as the world becomes smaller. What we don't need is narrow nationalisms. What we need is broader vision of God who is indeed, Lord of all. So often I think we have given up that vision to things like the New Age movement; we've given it up to others who have tried to seize it and originally it is founded in the sovereignty of God and it is Christ's will that the whole world might know the grace of the father.
There is one last thing; this is really the Good News: we must be ecstatic. Ecstatic comes from the Greek word ekstasis. which literally means to stand outside of oneself. In other words, to be so full of joy that one recognizes that we do not go into this new millennium just on our own; we go in and through the very power of the Holy Spirit which Jesus laid upon the church. I received a lovely book from Reverend Harries this week by Clifford Elliott entitled Apples Of Gold, full of wonderful little stories. One of them tells of the last South African election when Desmond Tutu went into the booth he actually put his vote into the box and then began to dance around and raise his arms. There had been problems with that election; they weren't ready for the sheer numbers of people who wanted to cast their votes. They didn't have butterfly or chad problems but there were so many people who had to wait hours outside to cast their vote. The people were becoming antsy and aggravated in this their first experience of voting. When Desmond Tutu came out and was dancing and shouting, "I'm able to vote; hallelujah; this is the greatest day. I am able to vote! Hallelujah! I am free!" Everyone else started to sing and dance and wave their arms and share with each other in the hot sun on the Veld which seemed to evaporate because of the joy that was present in that one man. That's what it means to be ecstatic. That's what it means to be filled with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit and what people will see in the church will be the very joy and the very gladness of knowing that they go into a new millennium in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to have the ecstasy of that joy of standing outside ourselves and recognizing the power of God's Holy Spirit.
There is one final thing. While we are to be ecstatic be also need to a little cautious and thoughtful. I remember one day playing rugby and it was a particularly bad game. I played in the scrum in the front row and it is like being a defensive linesman in football; you spend most of your time looking at the ground instead of the sky. I was so slow and was left behind most of the time. Whenever I did get the ball everyone piled on top of me; it was awful. I don't remember a thing about this particular game I played except that at one moment I got the ball and realizing that I could see daylight for the first time I ran with the ball towards the goalpost and I dived onto the ground right under the post and I got up and did my war dance. I then realized that everyone else was down at the other end of the field; I had just scored on my own goal line!
There's a lovely little children's book I've mentioned before. One quote says, ”˜it doesn't matter how fast you're running with the football if you're going in the wrong direction.' My friends, we might be ecstatic, but ecstasy is not the end or the final part of the religion of faith. It must be directed by the very signpost of the Holy Spirit. As we go into this new millennium, evangelical, ecumenical, ecological and ecstatic, let us do so with the Holy Spirit as our guide. For indeed, every era is the fullness of the time for the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.