Pastor John Bell at Wellshire Presbyterian Church preached a great sermon this Sunday. Below is the text:
Read: II Corinthians 5:16-21
If asked to give one Bible passage to summarize the Gospel, many folks would point to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” However, the sermon text is thought by many students of the Bible – including this student of the Bible – to state the basic spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ more clearly and powerfully than anywhere else in the New Testament: The Apostle Paul declares, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” – that is the essence of what God was doing through Christ and continues to do through the church and in the world.
The process with which God goes about reconciliation is very different from the way Congress reconciles bill between the House and the Senate! God is reconciling the world to himself by choosing not to count our trespasses against us. When you forgive another, when you turn the other cheek, when you make a decision not to retaliate against your enemies or escalate hostility against your foes, there is at least an opportunity for reconciliation. Desiring a fresh, new start with his fallen and sinful Creation, God decided not to count our trespasses against us, to forgive us, to blot from his memory sinful things which we have done and good things which we should have done but failed to do. In plain English, God decided to “let it go,” to let bygones be bygones, to put the past behind him and start anew.
Reconciliation may best be seen in the story of the Prodigal Son. The Son comes to his senses in the pig pen, in the far country, hungry, dirty and tired, and decides to return home. The father chooses not to count the son’s trespasses against him: he chooses to forgive and the son is granted immediate amnesty. The father asked no questions of the son, he didn’t mention his own pain, he did not seem to care about the past … rather, the father ran out and hugged the son and welcomed him home; he gave him the best robe, the finest ring, killed the fattest calf; he threw a party for the son. What was lost now is found; what was dead to the father now has come alive again. It was an act of amazing grace. This is an act of reconciliation.
In the sermon text, Paul does not take the time to explain how or when God decided not to count our trespasses against us; rather, Paul simply declares that our forgiveness is somehow “in Christ,” who, for our sake, was made to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
So, Paul concludes, everything has become new: “If there is anyone in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away.” Another Paul – the late Paul Tillich, a 20th century theologian, once said memorably in a sermon: “If I were asked to sum up the Christian message … in two words, I would with Paul: It is the message of a ‘New Creation.” [The New Being, p. 15]
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The sermon text from Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians also clearly states the heavy burden of your Christian responsibility: in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us, and in Christ, God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to you. So “you are ambassadors for Christ, because God is making his appeal through you.” Stunning! God is making his appeal to the world through YOU. God is making his continued appeal for reconciliation with the world through YOU!
I encourage you to think of your self as an ambassador for Christ. Ambassadors are extremely important people, and they have an important role in the world. They live in foreign lands and represent their home their king, parliament or president. Their job is to generate good will between countries, broker peace, engender commerce and maintain healthy boundaries and good relations. They try to act responsibility and behave in an exemplary fashion; they often entertain strangers, opening their home, the embassy, to foreigners; they excel in the gift of hospitality; they shower gifts upon visitors and engage in meaningful dialogue. They study their context, learn a foreign language and study foreign cultures – as a sign of respect for people from nations other than their own.
As an ambassador for Christ, your job, your calling, your responsibility, is daunting: you have been charged with the task of reconciling the whole world to God! You have an awesome task in front of you, if you choose to accept it. Christianity is not for small thinkers; the pews of the church should be packed with people who want to go out and change the world – not only change your family, or city or nation, but change the whole world!
The Gospel compels us to go out and seek reconciliation with gang members and Guatemalans, with people from Zimbabwe and Russia, with Israelis and Palestinians, with Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and atheists – with the whole world … including the planet on which we live!
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It is not only humanity that is in need of redemption and reconciliation with God, but in some way the whole world, all of creation, is in need of reconciliation with God. In the story of the Fall in Genesis 3, God says to Adam, who had sinned, “cursed is the ground [the earth!] because of you.”
And the Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 8:
19 … the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now …
Apparently, all of creation needed a savior and was waiting on a messiah!
A leading Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, wrote a section in one of his dozens of books about God’s partners. In this section, he wrote that Israel is a special partner of God, in some way all of humanity – corporately – is in partnership with God, you and I as individuals are in a special partnership with our Creator, but there is a very interesting section about creation as the partner of God. He cites numerous passages which speak about how nature plays a role in the praise of God. Psalm 148 is typical, in that it calls upon the earth to participate in the praise of God:
3Praise [the Lord], sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars!
4Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens! …
7Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
8fire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!
9Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Wild animals and all cattle,
creeping things and flying birds! …
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
His glory is above earth and heaven.
And Psalm 19 suggests that creation even speaks for God:
1The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament* proclaims his handiwork.
2Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4yet their voice* goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Many have called creation “the theater of God’s glory.”
Creation is a full partner of God – and, no less than we, creation is in need of reconciliation with God, for creation too seems to be broken and times, it too is abused and it too seems to have experienced a fall and is harmed by others. I read somewhere that Christians should think of creation as “the new poor.” I am not sure what the author meant, but I like the phrase, because Christians are aware that we are to show special care for the poor. [I cannot recall where I read this, but I believe it was written by Sally McFague.]
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Of course, when we think about the state of creation today, the hot topic is global warming. And I am often asked what I think about climate change for some reason, … so … here’s “my take” on global warming – and this will not take long. I can even say it one sentence: it’s debatable. From what I read by the scientific communities that I am inclined to trust, humans are at the very least partially responsible for global warming, but the cause of climate change is still debatable, because global temperatures have fluctuated.
What is absolutely NOT debatable is this: regardless of whether or not humans are responsible for climate changes, you and I – as Christians – have a God-given responsibility to care for the planet. You see, I really, truly, honestly, do not think it matters much what I believe about global warming or climate change – I am not a scientist or an ecologist, but, as a life-long student of the Christian faith, what I can say with great confidence is: you and I, as Christians, are expected to be thoughtful and just stewards of the earth, practice conservation, reduce our carbon foot-print, clean up our waters and the air that we breathe, and protect and preserve this planet entrusted to our care by our Creator – not only because the globe is warming or the climate is changing, but because we love God, the creator of the heavens and the earth! We have not been placed here to abuse, ravage, spoil, kill and otherwise destroy our home for our own selfish or greedy purposes. We are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation with God. This applies equally to sinful people and to this broken, abused, poor planet.
In recent years, it seems as if everybody is “going Green,” but a deep reverence for all of God’s creation, care for this planet and good stewardship of the earth is clearly a very significant topic in the Bible and a teaching which has been present in the church in every age – a teaching which has been regularly ignored by the large majority of Christians – until recently.
[(This paragraph was dropped from the sermon due to time concerns.) I do not need to tell you how to care for the good ship earth this morning. You have all heard the simple slogan: reduce, recycle and reuse. I read a section in a book by theologian Sally McFague that encourages us to apply the rules we learned at home as children to the world: take no more than you need – don’t greedy; clean up after yourself – this is a basic life-lesson if you want to get along with others; and keep things in good order for your children and grandchildren – don’t spoil the world so that they cannot enjoy it. She says if we apply these lessons to creation, they the world will be a better place and we will all be happier. I think that is helpful advice! But you have to go further than replacing your light bulbs or recycling your newspaper; you must go out into the world and be an ambassador for the reconciliation between abusive people AND the world, between God and God’s creation.]
But you have to go further than replacing your light bulbs or recycling your newspaper; you must go out into the world and be an ambassador for the reconciliation between abusive people AND the world, between God and God’s creation. An ecologist, Lawrence Hamilton, wrote, “It is not ecologists, engineers, economists or earth scientists who will save spaceship earth, but the poets, priests, artists and philosophers.” [The Earth Under Threat, Prance, p. 27] – to which I would add “all Christians” can help save planet earth – and you should, because you are ambassadors for reconcilation!
At the end of his sermon of II Corinthians 5, Tillich challenged those to whom he was speaking, “The message of Christianity is not Christianity, but a New Reality. A New state of things has appeared, it still appears.; it is hidden and visible, it is there and it is here. Accept it, enter into it, let it grasp you.”
I charge you with the five “r’s”: reduce, reuse, recycle … repent and be reconciled to God, your creator, who is making his appeal through you.
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