Church then and now - the big questions on terrorism and religion

Church then and now – the big questions about terrorism and religion

A sermon preached by Richard Cleaves

when Highbury Congregational Church and St Luke’s worshipped together

Sunday, 24^th January 2015

It’s great to see Mike getting back into the swing of things once again – very much in our prayers.  In the light of our conversation about today’s services it’s interesting to bring what we are exploring at Highbury on Sunday’s together with what you are doing here at St Luke’s.  Here you are exploring what it means to be church seeing the tremendous importance of the apostles’ teaching, of fellowship, of the breaking of bread and of prayer.  At Highbury we are running a Question Course at our Explore evenings on Tuesdays and inviting people to share the questions that trouble or intrigue or simply interest them so that we can address them together in our Sunday services.

 It was the Sunday after the atrocities in Paris that we had a real focus on getting people to think up questions.  Eleven of the questions asked that morning were to do with religion and terrorism – the big questions that trouble us.

I find it difficult sharing responses to those questions because I too am troubled by those troubling questions.

Charity Fatigue, Prayer Fatigue, Religioin Fatigue

One of the things that gets to me is something akin to what is sometimes described as ‘charity fatigue’.  I guess it’s something that gets to you as you get older.  Charities get you to give because you really can make a difference – but somehow over the years there’s still such a lot to do And so you ask what’s the point, and charity fatigue is in danger of setting in.

That can happen with church, even with those things at the heart of what church is about – prayer – we pray for persecuted Christians, for Syria, for Palestine and Israel – for Nigeria and those facing Boko Haram, for Uganda and those facing the Lord’s Resistance army – and the world seems to get worse not better.  We pray for people who are ill – and see wonderful results to our prayer, and then we pray for people who are ill and they get worse  – and prayer fatigue is in danger of setting in.

What motivates us as Christian people?

It’s very tempting to be motivated by the prospect of seeing the world a better place – if we can campaign for the right changes and give to the right causes we can get rid of homelessness, we can end child abuse, we can stop modern slavery, we can see peace in the world.

If that’s what motivates us … what’s going on in the world can have a devastating effect on our faith, our commitment to giving, our praying, on our whole involvement in the church.

I believe that something else motivates us.  I believe that’s what renews our commitment to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer – that’s what drives us to campaign for justice and peace, to give to alleviate distress and perhaps above all to pray.

To grasp what it is that motivates us as Christian people I believe we need to go back to our roots, back to our  beginnings to the people who actually knew Jesus and through what Luke in Acts 2.42 describes as ‘the apostles’ teaching’ in such passages as Romans 12:1-2 and 9ff to the basic message of Jesus in Matthew 4:17 and in the prayer Jesus taught us to  pray.

Back to our roots in the Apostles’ teaching and in Jesus

I want to go back to Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 12, to the basic message of Jesus in Matthew 4:17  and to the opening words of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.

The wonderful thing about the Bible is that you can read it and it can speak to you straight away.  But it’s also wonderful to see the kind of world the Bible is set in and then discover that there are connections we can make with our world.  Do that and you find the words take on a different meaning and speak into the world of today so much more powerfully.

Entering into the world of the New Testament

One way to do that is to visit the Holy Land or follow in the steps of Paul.  But another way is open to us as well.  For at exactly the time Paul is travelling the eastern end of the Roman Empire, there is a pretty brutal war going on at the North Western end of the Roman empire.  The conquest of the indigenous peoples of these islands.

And the front line of those battles is around about here.  Battles are fought on the pitch at Kingsholm now … in the late 40’s as Paul was on his first missionary journey it was the site of the fort they built to control the Severn crossing, to subjugate the Dobunni and to press to the West.  The story of the battles is told on the wall opposite Argos and on the Sainsbury’s round the corner from the Cathedral.

The Emperor Claudius hounds the Jews out of Rome as Paul’s second journey is under way … and by the time he writes his letter to the followers of the Way, the followers of Jesus, the church in Rome Nero has come to power.

When Paul is under arrest in Caesarea he is interrogated by Agrippa II who commnents that Paul almost persuades him to become a Christian.  By the time Paul is in prison in Rome the Romans have overstretched themselves as they pressed up the Watling Street, the A5 as far as Anglesy, and Boduica and the Icenii rebel against Rome.   Paul is still under arrest in Rome when the Legions take on Boudica where near where the A46 crosses the A5 and smash the last resistance.  It’s a year or so later that news reaches Rome and Jerusalem and Agrippa II takes the opportunity to warn the Jewish revolutionaries who by now in the middle 60’s are planning to overthrow the Romans in their own rebellion.  In a speech recorded by a contemporary historian, Agrippa II appeals to the jewish revolutionaries to put down their arms – look what the Romans did to the Greeks, look what they did to the Germans, look what they did to the Gauls – not even Britain surrounded by the ocean could withstand the might of the Roman legions.

This is the world of the New Testament … and we can glimpse it on our doorstep.  It’s a world where military powers dominate.  It’s the world where Nero turns against that very Christian community.  It’s a world that leads to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the sporadic persecution of those first followers of Jesus.

In that world what motivated Paul?

Against the backdrop of that world we can turn to Romans 12 and ask what motivates Paul, what drives him to be so passionate about the way of life he maps out?   You can work through verses 9 following and ask what motivates Paul …

9 What motivates Paul to believe that Love must be sincere?

What motivates Paul to hate what is evil and to cling to what is good?

What motivates Paul to 12 be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer?.

What motivates Paul to share with the Lord’s people who are in need and to practise hospitality?

I don’t think what motivated Paul was the thought that do all that and the world will be a better place.  From the point at which Paul writes these words his own personal circumstances are going to go down-hill and will take him to some pretty awful places.  His fellow Jews and his brothers and sisters in  Christ and indeed any who stand over against the might of Rome are going to face some incredibly difficult times.

Something else motivates Paul.

It’s that something else that needs to be our motivation too.

One clue lies in the very first word of Romans 12.  The word ‘therefore’.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters,

Looking back to Romans 1-11

What motivates Paul is in the earlier parts of his letter that’s nothing less than the good news of Jesus Christ that has within it the very power of God for wholeness.

It opens with an indictment of the Roman world and an indictment of the Jewish world – he gets to the point in 3:24 when he recognises that all of us make a mess of things and get it wrong in the living of our lives.

But the wonderful good news for Paul is that the God of creation has stepped into the world of his creation and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has shown himself to be a God of utter grace, of sheer love.  This is the good news of Jesus Christ that is nothing less than the power of God for the transformation of our lives.

Just take that step of faith in Jesus Christ and discover the transformation he brings.   Not that we can live the life Jesus maps out for us in our own strength – but there is a strength from beyond ourselves we can draw on in the unseen yet very real power of the Spirit of God.

It’s the presence of the grace of God, let loose by the power of the Spirit that enables us to face all the troubles that come our way sure in the knowledge that there is nothing in the present or the future, in life or in death, no powers or dominations, nothing in all creation that can separate us from this love of God in  Christ Jesus.

It’s all this that shapes the way we live our lives.

So … what did motivate Paul in that world?  And what motivates us in our world?

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, [that little word sums up the whole of Romans 1-11]  to offer your bodies [your whole selves, everything you are]  as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.

What motivates us is a complete new way of thinking – a transformation in our whole way of looking at the world.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

This is exactly Jesus’ message:  Repent – have a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of looking at the world.

Jesus was sure – the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God has come near.

What is the thing that motivates us?  Be transformed by the renewing of you mind – have this whole new way of looking at the world – and then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

What motivates us is nothing less than the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name,

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Charity fatigue? Prayer fatigue?  Religion fatigue?

An anti-dote to Charity Fatigue, Prayer Fatigue, Religion Fatigue.

This is what motivates us – this is what it’s like when God’s kingdom comes, when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven …

This is what motivates us as it motivated Paul to 14 bless those who persecute you.

This is what motivates us with Paul to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn.

This is what motivates us with Paul to live in harmony with one another.

It’s not that when we do that we will see a better world next week, next year or even in our lifetime.  It’s because this is what it’s like when God’s kingdom comes, when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is what motivates us along with Paul not to 17 repay anyone evil for evil.

This is what motivates us along with Paul to be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone and 18 if possible, as far as it depends on us, to live at peace with everyone.

This is what motivates us along with Paul to not to 21 be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good?

This is what motivates us to keep at it.  This is what motivates us to renew our commitment to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer – this is what drives us to campaign for justice and peace, to give to alleviate distress and perhaps above all to pray.

This is what it looks like when the God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.  This is what it looks like when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

A Sure and Certain Hope! Acts 17:22-31

We're not in the Holy Land this week ... we have travelled to Athens for a change! Though there may still be some surprises in store!

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,

I took it with me on the Orient Express … and I made sure I had it with me on my visit to the Holy Land this time too. My Bible.

And in situ it was exciting to read then. Just as it was exciting to read now.

"Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.

It is not just the Jewish people who are extremely religious, but the Greeks, the Gentiles too … the Roman Empire as well.

Something of that religion we shall see on our visit to the British Museum. The Elgin marbles in all their splendour once adorned the Parthenon, that Temple on the hill top holy place in Athens.
Standing on the Areopagus and wandering through any great city of the Roman Empire one couldn’t help but sense how religious they were.

You sense it here too.

The shrine in Chedworth. The shrine where the water comes in at Witcombe. From Chedworth take the path back to the road, down the lane, and then through the private estate on a public right of way and the path follows the little stream to your left and to your right after a while – an impressive mound on which was a Temple.

Over to Lydney. A remarkable Temple. On a hill top marvellous architecture, staggering views of the Severn and the Cotswolds beyond. And most fascinating of all as again over the other side of the River Severn Uley. See it at its best in the British Museum! Wonderful artefacts.

23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.'

We’ll also be seeing some of the wonderful Vindalanda letters, constructed in just the same way as the epistles in the New Testament – and dating from only thirty or forty years later. Every settlement and fort has its temple shrines, sometimes in profusion. A wonderful temple to Mithras towards the Newcastle end of the wall. And at Vindalanda … just as you go into the site a temple shrine.

And an innocent enough sign. To an unknown God.

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,

Athens is a city surrounded by hills … and now covered with smog.

But then as clear as could be – high mountains in one direction – the harbour and the Mediterranean in the other.

And on that site it is breathtaking.

No less breathtaking in Lydney … or for that matter at Uley.

Make no mistake about it these temple shrines were impressive. In Athens more impressive than anywhere.

Stunning.

The pinnacle of human achievement.

And as nothing compared to the wonder of God’s creation!

24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,

What a remarkable truth.

The wonder of God of creation.

No matter human ingenuity, the wonder of God is greater.

24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

I love that expression. Since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.
Life, breath and all things. Ta panta – the universe. A guide to science. Should science phase you? Not a bit of it. It captures the remarkable wonder of God in all his greatness.

26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,

There’s a solidarity here for all of humanity. And also a particularness that values different cultures.

I should have gone to Hy-Way last Wednesday, after all I went to the Friendship Group on St David’s Day. Sue did her bit for England and celebrated St George.

I did my bit this afternoon too and celebrated St George at the Scouts Parade. We brought out the century old flag once more. I recalled the international nature of the Jamboree. And a remarkable quote from Baden Powell in which he suggests that true patriotism takes pride in one's own country while at the same time respecting and treasuring other countries too.

This year has seen the re-discovery of St George's day and the flag of St George.

Maybe it's a flag worth re-claiming. It's a flag that can become a symbol of something very special for all of us who live in England whether we are English or not.

Legend has it that he was born in Turkey of a Turkish father and a Palestinian mother and grew up around Bethlehem in Palestine. And I was a there in Bethlehem a fortnight ago! I visited the Church of the Nativity where the Peace Light is lit each Christmas and brought by the Scouts of Palestine and then Israel to Austria and all over the world – and here to Cheltenham as well.

As I was leaving I passed a wonderful sculpture to St George.

The Palestinian Christians made him their won centuries before he was adopted by England. He became a soldier in the Roman Empire. A soldier who had the courage to say ‘no’.

One day a stranger passed his way – he went out of his way to help him. And he discovered the teachings of Jesus – welcome a stranger and you welcome me … Jesus said. The teaching caught St George and his life was turned inside out. Love for your neighbour. Love for your enemy. What a difference that made.

And then came the order. It was a new Emperor. The order came to capture these Christians, to torture them and to execute them. And St George said ‘no’. He put down his arms. And he decided he would travel many hundreds of miles to confront the Emperor. He did just that.

He was put on trial. Tortured. And executed in the most awful way. On the 23rd April. But the ideas he had lived on. Care for others. Meet their needs.

In the next town to Bethlehem in Bet Jela there is a shrine to St George. And there is something special about that shrine. Christians go to it; Muslims regard it as a holy place too; and Jewish people do as well.

The Shrine of St George is a place where religions too often now in conflict meet together. Scouting is a place where that happens too. For it is only by becoming friends with people who are different from you that there is a hope for peace. And that hope for peace is what world-wide Scouting is all about.

If we make friends with our neighbours around the world … we shan’t want to fight … and that is by far the best way of making sure of lasting peace. Baden Powell

But we must come back to Athens. Forgive me, I couldn’t but include one reference to the Holy Land!

Paul suggests that humanity has something in common. And that something in common is God-given. Part of God’s creation of humanity and part of God’s purpose for humanity.

26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 7so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

I love that phrase. A seeking for God. A groping for him. And a finding of him.
Science and the quest for life and an understanding. The Queen of Sciences – the quest for God and an understanding.

Father Prem, the Roman Catholic Priest from Warwick … a PhD in Mathematics from Downing College Cambridge.

Interesting.

The coach may have been driving through fascinating countryside. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to turn the conversation to mathematics.

We turned to John Polkinghorne’s account of his belief in God.

The language of mathematics is a construct or a discovery of the human mind.

The language of mathematics is capable of describing life, the universe and everything

The human mind is capable of describing life, the universe and everything.

That accords with the Christian view that the God who created life, the universe and everything created human beings in his own image and so the human mind bears the imprint of the creator God and is capable of understanding life, the universe and everything.

Not a proof of the existence of God. But a description of the existence of God that accords with the evidence of science.

The language of poetry that Paul chooses to use is far more powerful.

As human beings we are made to search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us, and this is where the wonderful poetry locks in …
For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'

All of that impacts on how we understand God and then on what we do.

First, it impacts on how we understand God. Again, remember the scene. Magnificent architecture, the greatest achievement of humanit’s mathematical minds, together with sculpture the like of which the world has never seen – magnificent. But as nothing to the magnificence of God’s creation. Not simply the world out there and its beauty. But the wonderful beauty of each one of us as ‘in him we live and move and have our being’.

29Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

God is far beyond anything we can picture, anything we can begin to imagine or understand.
That is humbling.

It pricks the bubble of our human arrogance that imagines we can solve all the problems of the world. As much as we think we know, we still are remarkably ignorant.

But God knows us as we are. He knows us in our humility. And he looks on us with love and kindness.

30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness

We will face the consequences of the things we have done in this world and with this world and to this world.

And when measured by that righteousness, that justice that is God’s.

But the sting of Paul’s message is in the tail.

This God in all his wonder, whose imprint is within our mind, has disclosed himself, revealed himself through someone just like us … his teaching of selfless love is the measure by which we are to measure ourselves and the measure by which we are to be measured.

The life he lived is measure enough; the death he died has disclosed the depths to which God will go in order to bring forgiveness to people’s hearts. Not even death itself could contain him.

The measure of that righteousness comes to us ...

by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

What a note to finish on!

A sure and certain of the resurrection to eternal life!

The resurrection authenticates all that God has done through this man – and gives us the assurance that this is the way of God for us. The resurrection provides us with a vision, a wonderful vision of the world that is to be. Hold on to the vision of the world that is to be and that will shape the life we live here and now.