“Jesus Was Just Dying For Us To Live”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 25, 2011
At the turn of the last century a man who had been a two-bit baseball player but eventually had become an evangelist of great renowned called Billy Sunday, once said the following - and I've often thought there is a lot of truth to this - he said the following. “Just by going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than taking a wheelbarrow to a garage makes it an automobile.”
Billy Sunday, you see, was suggesting, and rightly so, that there is nothing magical, there's nothing sort of amazing about going to church, anymore than there is anything magical about the sacraments that it celebrates. The reason he said that is, of course, that some people feel that way. They think, for example, that the sacrament of baptism is a magical act, and that by pouring water and by having blessing it's like, zap, the child immediately becomes a Christian and they have found their home forever more.
There are those who believe sometimes that simply taking the elements at communion is magic, that all of a sudden through the taking of that, they are immediately transformed. There are some who think that by taking leadership in a committee in a church, or just simply by attending a service they are going to be, ipso facto, Christians.
Well, it seems to me that that is not only folly in a spiritual sense; it is in a worldly sense. It's the same as saying, well, I go to work in the morning and stay all day and produced absolutely nothing, but nevertheless I have worked. Nonsense, anyone can sit in an office all day and do nothing; it doesn't mean you have worked.
And where I really saw this was in an event this summer when I attended a particular ball game, and this particular ball game held a lot of emotion for me. I was very interested about who would win; I was engaged in the event. But sitting in front of me were two people who had brought their iPods and their BlackBerry's with them, and they came to the game and for the first half of the entire game they sat with their faces down texting somebody who wasn't at the game, going on the web, downloading things from the web and sending text to people who were weren't at the game, and by half time they hadn't seen one singular place.
During the break they went and they got hotdogs and they got Coke, and for the rest of the second half they ate their food, they reflected on how wonderful the food was, and then they decided they would text their friends to let them know just how good the hotdogs were that they had just consumed. And then the final whistle blew and the game was over.
I don't think they saw one single solitary play in that whole game; not one, and I couldn't help but think not only is it ridiculous to spend a $90 ticket doing that, when they could have sat on a park bench and texted and had hotdogs and diet Coke for nothing, that I couldn't help but think that they had completely lost the reason why they were there in the first place.
It wasn't just to say that they were at the game or take the ticket or be seated, it was in order that they could become involved in the game, it was so that they could be passionate about what was taking place, and they'd be moved in spirit by what had occurred.
The Apostle Paul in writing to the Philippians in this wonderful series of text that we're working our way through from the lectionary, is addressing a similar sort of thing. Last week I had suggested for those of you who were here that the Philippians were struggling with trials and persecutions and difficulties, they were uncertain about how they were going to survive. And the Apostle Paul himself was in prison.
Paul turns now from just addressing that particular plight that they were in to trying to encourage them, to keep the faith. And he does so by realising that in the Gentile world in which they lived, with all its competing cultures and idols and views, he wanted them to hold onto the essence of the faith.
He wanted them to be a real church. He wanted them to be different from the world around. He didn't just want them to participate in a religious environment, he wanted them to be passionate about what they believed. He wanted them involved, engaged, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit.
And in this magnificent passage, which I think is actually the apex, the top in a sense as it were, of the Book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul gives us this incredible sense of what it means to be a Christian, and what it means to be a church. And I can't think of a day that is more appropriate than this day, for us to look at this more closely.
I mean, we've just received this morning in the two services, seven children baptised into the church. It's a moment for us to think about the future and what kind of future we want for these children. It's about what we as a community of faith hold dear and want to stress and want to value in bringing these children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
And so I want to look at what Paul said, and he says two really powerful things. The first of which is that the church of Jesus Christ, where it is, in whatever era, is important; it's important. Paul describes this as being in Christ. He said for Christians the definition of the body of Christ, of the people of the believers is that they are in Christ. Not one step removed from Christ, not dispassionate about Christ, not looking just objectively from the outside in on Christ, but actually being in Christ, being part of His body, experiencing His love, manifesting His gospel, being concerned with His spirit.
And Paul describes what this being in Christ is like, and many scholars believe, and I agree with them, that this whole passage was part of a preparation course for people who were being baptised - that's why it was originally there. And Paul suggests the following and he says, look, if there is any encouragement, if there is any comfort, if there is any compassion, if there is any fellowship of the spirit then you're in Christ. And if you've experienced any of those things you're in Christ.
And so I ask you this morning, wherever you are listening today, have you at any time in your life experienced the encouragement of Christ in your daily life? Have you felt his presence with you, to be with you, to hold onto you and to encourage you in the faith? If so you're in Christ.
If you've experienced the comfort of the presence of Christ, and by comfort Paul is talking about the very presence of Christ's spirit in your life, the Paraclete, if you've felt any comfort in your life then you are in Christ when He comes and brings it. If you've experienced any fellowship, joy with one another, a sense of spiritual power and blessing, if worship has ever moved you, if Christ has ever lifted you up, if you ever felt like glorifying Him, if you've ever loved somebody who is a brother or sister in Christ, then you are in Christ. If you have felt any great compassion from Christ, if you've known even for a moment His love, if you've been touched by Him, you're in Christ.
And Paul says, look, if you've had any of these things then you are in Christ, and if you are in Christ you are in the church, and this is what the church should be, a place of encouragement, comfort, fellowship, compassion. The church then is not just to model itself on Christ - a lot of people think that, the church should work hard earnestly to try and be like Christ. No, the church should be in Christ filled with Him, having a sense of His complete and utter presence.
As many of you know I've been a huge fan of Dietrich Bonhoeffer for many years and I know I quote him a lot, but I quote him a lot because it seems to me that he is so relevant today. Bonhoeffer was put to death by the Nazis for resisting them because he believed that being a Christian meant something different.
Bonhoeffer wrote these incredible words before his execution -“ Since the Ascension, Christ's place on earth has been taken by His body, the church. The church is the real presence of Christ. The church is not a religious community of worshippers of Christ but is Christ Himself, who has taken form among people. The church is nothing but a section of humanity in which Christ has really taken form.”
Now, this is the highest ecclesiology, the highest view of the church imaginable, it is the view of Paul, that the church is the body of Christ. To be a Christian is to be in Christ. Christ then becomes the all embracing reason for the church. But he goes on, he gets practical. How should this church live in the image of Christ? How should the church live in the image of Christ?
And he says, well, first of all you should be like-minded, have the same mind. Now, there are some who interpret this to believe everyone should be in agreement on everything, some have suggested that it means giving an ascent to all the doctrines of the Christian faith as if everyone has them, all neatly nailed down. Some people think that it means, in a sense, always reciting and repeating the same creed all the time. But that's not what Paul mean here. The Greeks suggest that the word mind implies something more subjective, it's attitude. Have the same attitude, the same approach that was in Jesus Christ. Be united in that attitude of faith, be united in the spirit of Christ.
You know, yesterday I had a number of newspapers open in front of me, different ones, and as I do on a Saturday morning if I'm not watching soccer I read the newspaper, and yesterday I thought I'd better read the newspaper. And so I read thoroughly some of the articles that were in there, and you know, regardless of the newspaper I was struck by something, and that is the world in which these young children that have been baptised are going to live is a really divided world.
It's a world with strong, competing views on so many different things. In the geopolitical realm, this weekend, strong disagreement whether Palestine should have its own homeland; strong disagreement whether same sex education should be taught in schools, or be purely the domain of parents; strong disagreement about whether we should re-engage in Libya, or if we should be out of it. Strong views in the face of an economic crisis as to whether or not we stimulate the economy or remove our debt and bring down deficits. Strong view about whether or not the Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup and all irrational people who don't think they will. All the people who feel; all the people who feel that we need to increase our oil exploration, and those who think we should limit our carbon footprint. What a world!
Now, I am not suggesting here for one minute that those things and views on those are not important. I'm not suggesting for one minute that we shouldn't seek God's will and God's purpose for any of those things. I think it is fair enough to say that in this very place, this day, you can probably find disparate views on every single one of those issues if it were true.
The Apostle Paul, if he was speaking to us today, would say the same thing that he said to Philippi 2000 years ago that was cosmopolitan, heterodox, heterogeneous, very much conflicted. He would say to the Christian community I want you to be different, and I want you to be different because I want you to have one spirit, one attitude, one purpose, one humility, one sense of putting the other ahead of yourself, one body in Christ.
There's a wonderful book by man called Richard Neff, it's entitled The Third Way, and in it he talks about going to visit a small congregation and at one moment in the service a tenor - this would never happen here, gentlemen - began to sing out of tune. And he was so bad that people didn't know what he was singing and so people started, through the second verse, to thumb through the hymn book to see if they could find what it was that he was actually singing. And finally, some of them discovered what it was and still he sang and they barely recognised it.
By the third verse some of the members in the congregation decided that they would start to sing along with him to help him out. By the fourth verse he was starting to reclaim the tune and was singing along lustily with them. And the fifth verse the congregation kept quiet and let him finish his piece in tune, on song, brilliantly. At the end they gave him applauded. Richard Neff said, you know, if there's any sense of what it's like to be of one spirit there it was; there it was. Someone out of tune, out of sorts, brought back in through the power of the spirit - one word, one song, one praise of Christ.
Oh, there are many things that divide people, many things that we can disagree on, many things in the world that challenge us and move us, but you know, when we understand that as a church we're in Christ and we have one spirit, we want to be different.
In my opinion one of the greatest passages in the whole of the New Testament that was read by Francis this morning at the end, to great effect, the Apostle Paul repeated this which was a baptismal hymn in the early church. And my friends, this is what we should be if we truly want to be Christian.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being very in nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.”
When we believe this we are truly the church. Amen.