How to be a Christian in the contemporary World?
Certainly, this is not a novel question. That was the kind of question that the first Christians had to figure out two thousand years ago.
The New Testament that we have today was just one of the ways they tried to find answers. And, I emphasize the plural "answers", because, as we can gather from the fact that we have not one but four Gospels, there was just not one answer. The quest for answers was not new, even in the Gospels we are told that people went to John the Baptist in search for answers- "What should we do, then?" (Luke 3:10).
It is quite surprising that for a people that had known the Law for so many years, they still had to struggle with the question. So, we shouldn't be surprised if, two thousand years after Christ, we still struggle with the question.
It is quite surprising too, that John, and even the writers of the Gospels and Paul, and the other writers of the New Testament, never resorted to quote the commandments, or the other teachings of the Old Testament. They could have saved a lot of trouble by writing: Please read the Ten Commandment or the Book of Leviticus. For answers, they told the story of Jesus (the Gospels) signaling to them, and to us, as we face the challenges of living in the 21st Century, that rather than simple formulas we need to resort to principles. Advisedly, I am not using the term "values" because today the word has a ideological and theological load. Also, because values, as the word implies, is category-setting: some things are more valuable than others, thus implying a certain degree of judgment, and the question that begs to be answered is, "Whose judgment?"
I like "principles", because it clearly implies a road ahead. A road that will need to be discerned and a road that needs to be explored and to be traveled. And, as we realize by the fact of the existence of the four Gospels, a road that may not be exactly the same for everyone, even, as we have to acknowledge, there is a unique destination.
As we are just completing the great Epistle to Liberty, and also because we just celebrated on May 25 the first cry of freedom, today we celebrate the Independence of the USA, and at the end of the week we will celebrate our own Independence Day, let me suggest that to begin to answer the question, we need to rely on the principle of freedom. That God, the God of freedom, the God that delights in setting prisoners free, has given us the gift of freedom.
For freedom Christ has set us free, Paul told us last Sunday (Galatians 5:1). It is rather odd, isn't it? Is like asking, "Why did you think that I brought you food… You are supposed to eat it!" But it was clear that some people in Galatia — like so many even today — wanted to leave the open road of freedom and continue to live under old myths, traditions, and under the yoke of the Law. Because living under the Law makes clear who are the righteous (those who cannot see the tree in our own eyes) and those whose stick in the eye we can see and condemn.
To live as Christians requires us to learn to live in freedom. Make no question of it: Living free is scary. Paul, writing to the Galatians tells them that they are not more under a task-master, "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For you are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:24-26). Surely, being under tyranny is awful. But it has its advantages. I still remember living in the 1970s under the dictator Stroessner in Paraguay, and it was horrible it you wanted to stray into politics. But surely, it was safe, crime was at a minimum, and as long as you didn't mess with politics, you could live in safety and peace. Living under the Law is always easy. It tells you exactly what to do when, and how to do it. Easy answers for an easy living. And yet, that was the kind of religion that Christ came to abolish.
But to live free, is much more than living "My Way" and do whatever one pleases.
"But freedom isn’t only freedom from; it is freedom for – for loving self and others. We have been set free in order that we might become that same sort of liberating love in the world, setting others free. Freedom is directional. It moves away from slavery, and it moves toward something more, the more that God intended from creation" (The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, http://anglicantaonga.org.nz/Features/Sermon)
Freedom frees us from our self-imposed limitations (the circumcision of our intolerance, prejudices, and of the yoke of stale traditions) and from the slavery of the sin "that so easily entangles" us (Hebrews 12:1) into the realm of what could be possible if we really were to allow God to be the God of and in our lives. For freedom will take the blinders off our eyes to allow us to see the world – and ourselves — as God sees it: — Ready for the harvest, ready for the Kingdom.
The Star Spangled Banner, the USA national anthem, and whose Independence we celebrate today, draws attention to the fact, that all through the severe bombardment of Fort McHenry at the entrance of Baltimore Bay, the American flag streamed gallantly, never surrendering to the attacks.
"O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
What the American defenders needed was not to realize a new reality. They needed to open their eyes to the fact that surrender was not an option. It also encouraged them for the fight of the days ahead. Baltimore was not a one-night stand. It foreshadows the long fight ahead. So the vision of the streaming flag was inspirational. But it also underscored the fact that the flag was not streaming over an idyllic hill, but in the midst of battle. It also helped the defenders to realize that true freedom was not just resisting the enemy, and that that freedom was not only freedom from but freedom to.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
In our Christian tradition it is freedom from the slavery of sin so we can freely serve the mission of God proclaiming that the Reign of God is at hand, and doing "the more that God intended from creation" as Bishop Katherine said: restore what is wrong, share the peace, proclaim the good news, be salt and light of the world, encourages Jesus his disciples. "Work for the good of all" preaches Paul, mostly, he says, for "the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10)—but not ultimately. May be he recognizes that working for the good of ALL may place one at odds with the household of faith. Sometimes, one has to risk being the Good Samaritan, despised for touching blood, and becoming impure under the eyes of the "guardians of the faith."
We do good works not to earn God's favor, nor just as a token of appreciation of the much that God has done for us. We freely chose to serve the cause of the Kingdom of God because we reckon that not only it is a worthy goal, but because we believe it is God's.
Sometime people stress the fact that our most important personal God is to work out our salvation, as Paul says, by pursuing our knowledge of God, by deepening our spiritual fellowship with the Creator, by seeking the nirvana of ultimate union with the God of Creation. And I believe that it is essential to realize that our freedom from sin should free ourselves to devote time, energy, and devotion to seek the face of God in meditation, prayer, worship, constructive solitude, and Eucharist.
What we must never forget it is not that we are seeking God as an idea, ideal, or interstellar and supreme spirit and force of the Universe. He may be all of that, and even more that we have not even began to grasp. But it is also the God justice for the widow and the poor, of freedom for the oppressed and the outcasts. He gives sight to blind, and he cares for those uncared by society and religion (Cf. Isaiah 42, Amos 5, Luke 4).
There are no easy prescriptions to live in freedom. It is a life-long quest. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17); "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
It is a long journey. From time to time it will require us to humbly back-track many of our steps given in such high confidence. But it will be fun, not always, though; but certainly it will be exciting!
Certainly, this is not a novel question. That was the kind of question that the first Christians had to figure out two thousand years ago.
The New Testament that we have today was just one of the ways they tried to find answers. And, I emphasize the plural "answers", because, as we can gather from the fact that we have not one but four Gospels, there was just not one answer. The quest for answers was not new, even in the Gospels we are told that people went to John the Baptist in search for answers- "What should we do, then?" (Luke 3:10).
It is quite surprising that for a people that had known the Law for so many years, they still had to struggle with the question. So, we shouldn't be surprised if, two thousand years after Christ, we still struggle with the question.
It is quite surprising too, that John, and even the writers of the Gospels and Paul, and the other writers of the New Testament, never resorted to quote the commandments, or the other teachings of the Old Testament. They could have saved a lot of trouble by writing: Please read the Ten Commandment or the Book of Leviticus. For answers, they told the story of Jesus (the Gospels) signaling to them, and to us, as we face the challenges of living in the 21st Century, that rather than simple formulas we need to resort to principles. Advisedly, I am not using the term "values" because today the word has a ideological and theological load. Also, because values, as the word implies, is category-setting: some things are more valuable than others, thus implying a certain degree of judgment, and the question that begs to be answered is, "Whose judgment?"
I like "principles", because it clearly implies a road ahead. A road that will need to be discerned and a road that needs to be explored and to be traveled. And, as we realize by the fact of the existence of the four Gospels, a road that may not be exactly the same for everyone, even, as we have to acknowledge, there is a unique destination.
As we are just completing the great Epistle to Liberty, and also because we just celebrated on May 25 the first cry of freedom, today we celebrate the Independence of the USA, and at the end of the week we will celebrate our own Independence Day, let me suggest that to begin to answer the question, we need to rely on the principle of freedom. That God, the God of freedom, the God that delights in setting prisoners free, has given us the gift of freedom.
For freedom Christ has set us free, Paul told us last Sunday (Galatians 5:1). It is rather odd, isn't it? Is like asking, "Why did you think that I brought you food… You are supposed to eat it!" But it was clear that some people in Galatia — like so many even today — wanted to leave the open road of freedom and continue to live under old myths, traditions, and under the yoke of the Law. Because living under the Law makes clear who are the righteous (those who cannot see the tree in our own eyes) and those whose stick in the eye we can see and condemn.
To live as Christians requires us to learn to live in freedom. Make no question of it: Living free is scary. Paul, writing to the Galatians tells them that they are not more under a task-master, "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For you are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:24-26). Surely, being under tyranny is awful. But it has its advantages. I still remember living in the 1970s under the dictator Stroessner in Paraguay, and it was horrible it you wanted to stray into politics. But surely, it was safe, crime was at a minimum, and as long as you didn't mess with politics, you could live in safety and peace. Living under the Law is always easy. It tells you exactly what to do when, and how to do it. Easy answers for an easy living. And yet, that was the kind of religion that Christ came to abolish.
But to live free, is much more than living "My Way" and do whatever one pleases.
"But freedom isn’t only freedom from; it is freedom for – for loving self and others. We have been set free in order that we might become that same sort of liberating love in the world, setting others free. Freedom is directional. It moves away from slavery, and it moves toward something more, the more that God intended from creation" (The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, http://anglicantaonga.org.nz/Features/Sermon)
Freedom frees us from our self-imposed limitations (the circumcision of our intolerance, prejudices, and of the yoke of stale traditions) and from the slavery of the sin "that so easily entangles" us (Hebrews 12:1) into the realm of what could be possible if we really were to allow God to be the God of and in our lives. For freedom will take the blinders off our eyes to allow us to see the world – and ourselves — as God sees it: — Ready for the harvest, ready for the Kingdom.
The Star Spangled Banner, the USA national anthem, and whose Independence we celebrate today, draws attention to the fact, that all through the severe bombardment of Fort McHenry at the entrance of Baltimore Bay, the American flag streamed gallantly, never surrendering to the attacks.
"O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
What the American defenders needed was not to realize a new reality. They needed to open their eyes to the fact that surrender was not an option. It also encouraged them for the fight of the days ahead. Baltimore was not a one-night stand. It foreshadows the long fight ahead. So the vision of the streaming flag was inspirational. But it also underscored the fact that the flag was not streaming over an idyllic hill, but in the midst of battle. It also helped the defenders to realize that true freedom was not just resisting the enemy, and that that freedom was not only freedom from but freedom to.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
In our Christian tradition it is freedom from the slavery of sin so we can freely serve the mission of God proclaiming that the Reign of God is at hand, and doing "the more that God intended from creation" as Bishop Katherine said: restore what is wrong, share the peace, proclaim the good news, be salt and light of the world, encourages Jesus his disciples. "Work for the good of all" preaches Paul, mostly, he says, for "the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10)—but not ultimately. May be he recognizes that working for the good of ALL may place one at odds with the household of faith. Sometimes, one has to risk being the Good Samaritan, despised for touching blood, and becoming impure under the eyes of the "guardians of the faith."
We do good works not to earn God's favor, nor just as a token of appreciation of the much that God has done for us. We freely chose to serve the cause of the Kingdom of God because we reckon that not only it is a worthy goal, but because we believe it is God's.
Sometime people stress the fact that our most important personal God is to work out our salvation, as Paul says, by pursuing our knowledge of God, by deepening our spiritual fellowship with the Creator, by seeking the nirvana of ultimate union with the God of Creation. And I believe that it is essential to realize that our freedom from sin should free ourselves to devote time, energy, and devotion to seek the face of God in meditation, prayer, worship, constructive solitude, and Eucharist.
What we must never forget it is not that we are seeking God as an idea, ideal, or interstellar and supreme spirit and force of the Universe. He may be all of that, and even more that we have not even began to grasp. But it is also the God justice for the widow and the poor, of freedom for the oppressed and the outcasts. He gives sight to blind, and he cares for those uncared by society and religion (Cf. Isaiah 42, Amos 5, Luke 4).
There are no easy prescriptions to live in freedom. It is a life-long quest. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17); "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
It is a long journey. From time to time it will require us to humbly back-track many of our steps given in such high confidence. But it will be fun, not always, though; but certainly it will be exciting!
Won't you come along?
