Speaking Faithfully Out of Love
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 26, 2012
1 Peter 3:8-17
Last week, on Thursday, February 16th, something extraordinary happened. It was so extraordinary that it found itself on the front pages of most of the British newspapers. It was something that I, in my life, had found unprecedented, and maybe you would feel the same. It was the day in which Queen Elizabeth II, came to the public defence of the Christian faith. She did so openly and boldly, in the presence of people of different religious traditions and backgrounds. I awoke that morning in London astonished by the headlines: ”˜Queen defends the church.'
The very same day, I was walking through Westminster Abbey. Even though I was brought up in the United Kingdom as a child, it was the first time that I had ever been in that great, magnificent colossus of faith and history. I was moved in many ways by it, and perhaps richer because I saw it as an adult and it held a fascination that would not have been the same if I saw it as a curious child. As you enter the Abbey you come in through a side door, and immediately to your left there is a monument to General Wolfe and the history of Canada is affirmed. I was moved as a proud Canadian.
I continued along the centre aisle and turned into the side chapels and I went into one that caused me to pause and reflect. It was the burial place of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. These two women opposed each other in life because of their religious convictions, but now rest together in death. I was moved in my spirit at the seeming power of reconciliation, and I thought in some strange way that mysteriously through time I was in their presence. I went on to Poet's Corner, my favourite place in the whole of the Abbey, and there in the wall ahead of me there was a monument to Handel, along with Bach, my favourite composer. I stopped in front of the plaque and bowed my head for a moment. I couldn't help but think that because of his music, and particularly because of The Messiah, millions of people have heard about Jesus Christ through the wonder and splendour of his music. I was in awe! The history of the place was full of faith.
Then, I picked up another paper and its main headline in the afternoon affirmed: “Queen defends the Church.” How deep these roots go! In many ways, there is a term that can be used to describe a monarch who comes to the defence of the faith and it finds its origins in Pope Leo X bestowing the title upon King Henry VIII. It is called fidei defensor. It is the role of the sovereign to defend the faith. I decided that evening to do some research, and I realized that in this year of Jubilee when we remember the Queen's coronation, that the original ceremony included this very term, fidei defensor when the Archbishop of Canterbury made her the monarch. This is what he said when she was crowned:
Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, and the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, and of her other realms and territories,
Queen, Head of The Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
There it is in the very act of coronation: fidei defensor.
Why this week in 2012 would such a defence of the faith be required or even be necessary? Why would it occur? Well, because of an accumulation of things that happened over the last couple of weeks in the United Kingdom. First of all, a High Court ruled that City Councils and Local Councils cannot and must not open their meetings with prayer. It came to a head when Baroness Warsi, herself a Muslim and not a Christian, visited The Vatican. She is a member of the government and the House of Lords, and she said the Christian faith is being called into question by those who are “militant secularists”, and she was concerned about it: not for the Christian faith per se, but for all faiths.
It is also fascinating that the humanist and secularist movement supported by Richard Dawkins had come out with a very recent poll suggesting that in Britain two-thirds of people feel that faith has no role to play in the public square, and in fact should be removed from it entirely. It was in response to this that the Queen came to the defence of the Christian faith and indeed of all faiths.
My mind turned back, as I was thinking of that day, to the passage that I was going to preach on today from First Peter, Chapter 3. Two thousand years before our own time, the early Christians were struggling with exactly the same issues. They were not an established faith. They had not informed generations who had grown up in the faith. There were no temples or abbeys built to celebrate the Christian faith. Leaders of the world were not immortalized in such places as Westminster Abbey. Nevertheless the Christians felt the need to defend and express their faith.
Peter knew that these early Christians could very easily be the subject of persecution by the Romans and many of them were being slandered for their faith and beliefs. It is obvious from reading our text that there was a pending collision course between the public square and the new, embryonic church of Jesus Christ. Peter is concerned that they keep doing good and not be intimidated by the power of those who would want them to submit to the spirit of the age.
Peter is firmly in the camp that the Christian faith must remain holy and true, and that Christians must not bend to the prevailing ethos of the time. Peter uses strong words. His strong words are that, if asked, Christians should give a defence of the hope that is within them. Peter had a conception that all Christians in fact are fidei defensors - all of them are defenders of the faith. Not just monarchs and kings and princes and lords and governors and prime ministers, but all Christians are defenders of the faith and to each is given the calling in their time, in their era, in their culture, to defend the faith.
In this incredible passage from First Peter we find Peter giving those early Christians the motive, mission and the means of expressing that faith. For the purposes of this sermon, I want to reverse the order because I believe that the means whereby one defends one's faith is absolutely critical. Peter was convinced that Christians needed to engage the public square and that they needed to be part of civil society.
In many ways, he was imitating Plato in his Republic and other philosophers, who talked about how the public square is to be organized and arranged, and what virtues should be possessed by citizens in order that they can live a good life and create a just society. Peter, though not Platonic in any way, clearly understood that the early Christian Church was rooted and grounded in its commitment to the Lordship of Jesus. Therefore, believing in the Lordship of Jesus, he thought that Christians should be involved in the public square. He says, “Always be prepared to give a defence of the hope that is within you.”
However, the language that he uses to describe this is really powerful. He uses language, when you translate The New Testament into Latin, reflects the whole notion of civility. Civility comes from the same root as “City”, and how we relate to one another within a civil society. He asks for civility amongst those that believe and that when they engage the world, they engage it with civility: not with burning books and riots, not with threats, not with anger, not with the sword is the faith defended, but with civility as part of a civil society.
Richard Mouw, the theologian from Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, says that undergirding all of Peter's beliefs is the notion that all human beings are essentially sinful creatures. Because we are sinful creatures, we can all be tempted, we can all do the wrong thing and go in the wrong direction - everyone of us does that from time to time. Christians, however, understand that we are forgiven, and therefore we don't divide the world into good people and bad people in some arbitrary way thus causing conflict and a break within a civil society, but we understand that we are all sinful and in need of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. As the bumper sticker says, “Christians aren't perfect; we are just forgiven.”
As forgiven people we enter the public square and as forgiven people we do this in the hope that this forgiveness brings for all humanity. Therefore, to use the language of Peter, when you give a defence of your faith, you do so “with gentleness and reverence.” I found it fascinating this past week listening to the current Archbishop of Canterbury and from George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, that both of them used very restrained and thoughtful language to describe their concern about how faith is being pushed to the margins of society. They practiced, I thought, a degree of civility that I found winsome. I thought what a wonderful model for the way in which we defend faith in our society.
Martin Marty, the former editor of The Christian Century, once made the observation that people who are civil often do not have strong convictions and that those who have strong convictions often are not civil, and do we not see that? Martin Marty argues that the Gospel of Jesus Christ asks for civil, strong convictions and that there is a way in which one can convey the faith and one's sense of truth that is part of a civil society and not antithetical to it. That is also what made the early church so winsome and so different. When others tried to draw them into an earthly fight, the Christians would not, but instead they proclaimed Christ. Therefore, the means of expressing the faith are important. As Christians, this should be our methodology.
That is not to say that we don't have strong convictions. It is not to say that we don't have a mission. Peter is very clear: You are to give a defence for the hope that is within you. That is the expectation of the Christian faith. We are fidei defensors whether we like it or not. It comes with our baptism. It is part of who we are. It is in our spiritual DNA. Having said that, what is it that we defend? We defend our hope, and that our hope is not in ourselves but is in Christ. Our hope is in the things that his kingdom bears witness to: the love, and the truth, and the justice of God's reign, of the holiness and righteousness of God. Peter writes, “Be holy, for I your God am holy.” That is the source of hope.
But even more than that, in Christ lies our forgiveness from our sinfulness. In Christ is found the resurrection and the hope of eternal life. Through Christ there is the belief that the Kingdom of God is always greater than the kingdoms and the realms of this world. Peter, in experiencing a series of persecutions and questions and slander, wanted Christians to hold on to those convictions and the truth of the kingdom.
I was reading Brian Stiller this past week in a blog that he sent after having travelled to Egypt to watch what is happening to the Christian community there. He said one of the great confusions of our age is that people misunderstand the whole notion of freedom and religion: one of the things that the secularists want is freedom from religion, but what is needed is freedom for religion. In other words, Christians shouldn't ask that they have a place of social prominence or authority or establishment, but they should be given the freedom for their faith to enter into the public square.
Who enters the public square? Is it those who speak from pulpits like this? Very rarely, but sometimes! No, it is primarily the laity who are the fidei defensors - the Christians who carry their faith into the public square and it is in their witness where the rubber of the Gospel hits the road. That is one of the reasons why over the years at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church we have tried in our programming and in our adult education to provide programs that help members give a defence of their faith in a positive way.
It is not sexy in some ways to have a Bethel Bible Study or to have an Alpha Program that brings people into a greater sense of Christ's role in your life. It is not always sexy to have lectures on the bible and its impact on the faith and the society in which we live. It might not grab everyone's attention that many of the speakers at events and services are people who have a deep and resounding faith. Even when you look at our Prayer Breakfasts, you will seethe diversity of who has actually spoken to us: Supreme Court Justices, Lieutenant Governors, representatives of other religions, Presidents of seminaries, television personalities, anchormen and women, and business people. They provide us with a way of understanding the faith and how it relates to the public square, and that is what Christians need to grasp in our age. That is what we really need to take seriously.
If that is the mission, what motivates us? What moves us? Peter has a sense of the Church that I find is so engaging, and it has influenced me greatly. It is that the Church is the embodiment, the incarnation of the Body of Christ on earth. He uses that language and so does the Apostle Paul. Because we are the Body of Christ, we are not on our own - we never were, we didn't create ourselves, and we don't just shape ourselves and remake ourselves as we see fit. It is a natural thing to do, and we all do it, but that is not the purpose of the Church. The purpose of the Church and the Christian faith is to make Christ's appeal to the world on His behalf. The church must proclaim the Word of God.
If that is the case, then our commitment to Jesus Christ must be absolute. Peter's main point in all of this is that we must set apart in our lives a place for the Lordship of Jesus. For those who had been persecuted in the early church, there is no question that their source of strength was the Lordship of Christ. Believing in the Lordship of Christ, there is no distinction between the public and private spheres: he is either Lord, or he is not Lord. You cannot say he is Lord of the private spiritual inner life and not be Lord of the public life, and vice versa. He is both!
If that is the case and if that is the belief, then the whole way one engages society, and the whole way that one embraces the world and loves the world comes from that conviction. What I found so deeply moving about the Queen's comments was that she was doing so in the recognition that faith is something that is positive, not a negative force in society and in the world. There are those who purport that it is a negative force and while I recognize that religion has its flaws, the affirmation of the Lordship of Jesus is the source of life and justice - and Christians need to say so!
As someone who is a Reformed Protestant Congregationalist, who has more in common historically with Oliver Cromwell than any of the monarchy, it is special for me to quote a monarch. However, I admire what Queen Elizabeth II said: “The concept of the Church is occasionally misunderstood, and I believe commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism per se to the exclusion of other religions; instead the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in the community.”
It is, she suggests, “woven into the fabric of this country and the Commonwealth. It has created an environment for other faith communities, and indeed people of no faith, to live freely.” See what she is getting at? Faith provides even people with no faith to have the freedom to express that. She goes on: “…but our religion provides critical guidance for the way we live our lives, and for the way we treat each other. Many of the values and ideas that we take for granted in this and other countries originate in the ancient wisdom of our Biblical tradition. Even the concept of a Jubilee is rooted in the Bible. Faith plays a key role in the identity of many millions of people providing not only a system of belief, but also a profound sense of belonging to God.”
God bless the Queen! Her words are right and true! The Apostle Peter would say “Amen!” Amen.