Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
20th November 2016 11.00am
Revelation 21.1-11,
22-26; 22.17
Jeremiah 29.1-14
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/simon-woodman-building-a-vision-for-the-common-good#t=6:34
The question I’d like us to hold before us this
morning,
and
which I hope our engagement with scripture will shed some light on,
is the question of:
‘what,
in the world, are we here for?’
‘What, in the world, are we here for?’
And as with all interesting and important
questions,
I
think it bears a little unpacking.
Specifically, I wonder who we think is the ‘we’
here?
Do
we hear this as applying to us as a collection of individuals?
Perhaps
asking us why we are here, at this church, this morning?
Or
do we hear it as applying to us as a congregation,
asking
us collectively why we exist here,
in
this building, in this city?
Or
maybe we should hear it in a wider sense than this,
perhaps
as applicable to the church universal,
asking
us what the point of Christian churches are in general?
Or
maybe we should hear it at an existential level,
applying
to all of humanity,
asking
us what, if anything, is the point of human life itself?
All of which are valid questions,
and
subsumed within them we have whole disciplines
of
philosophy, ethics, ecclesiology, and theology.
So perhaps we might need to narrow it down,
for
our focus of enquiry this morning?
I’m going to suggest that we hear it as being
directed
primarily
at the church in its universal sense
–
why is there a church in the world? –
and
then secondarily as applying to us as a congregation.
We may need to put aside our own existential
anxieties
for
another sermon on another day.
So, ‘what, in the world, are we here for?’
We’re coming to the end of our series of
sermons on biblical buildings,
which
we’ve been working our way through over the last month or so.
We started with the Tower of Babel,
and
then we looked at the tabernacle,
then
the temples of Solomon and Ezra,
then
Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the temple,
and in today’s sermon we come to the vision of
the new Jerusalem
from
the end of the Bible.
It’s often said that the Bible starts with a
vision of a garden,
and
ends with a vision of a city,
and this can be a helpful way to think of the
trajectory
that
scripture take us on
with its rollercoaster journey
from
a one vision of perfection to another,
encompassing the vast sweep of human experience
along the way.
But another way of thinking about the Bible
is
that it is an attempt to explore,
through
story and history, through poetry and parable,
what
the purpose might be
for
God having called some people to be his people.
It’s there, of course,
in
the moment of revelation given to Abraham,
the
father of the Jewish people,
and
the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
The covenant that God made with Abraham,
was
that his descendants would be the people of God,
and
that they would be a blessing to the whole earth.
The purpose of calling one group of humans
into
a relationship with God
has always been that the blessing will go
beyond that group.
The outworking of this, then, is that any form
of religion
that
seeks to keep the blessings of their relationship with God
to
themselves and those like them
is
a betrayal of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
So, the first part of an answer
to
our question of, ‘What, in the world, are we here for?’,
surely has to be that, at the very least,
we
are here to be good news
to
those who live beyond our own community.
We are here to be good news
to
the lost, the lonely, and the least,
to be good news to those who not like us.
And here we come to my main point for this
morning,
which
I’ll give away now so that we can think about it as we go through.
It’s this: I think we’re here, in this world,
to
build a vision for the common good.
Those who built the Tower of Babel
were
trying to build their way to heaven,
while those who built the tabernacle
were
trying to build a home for God on earth.
Solomon built his temple
to
keep God close to the seat of royal power,
and Ezra rebuilt it as a symbol of ethnic
exclusivity.
But all these attempts to build the kingdom of
God on earth ultimately failed,
because
God cannot be reached by human efforts,
and
neither can he be contained by human buildings.
The good news of the New Testament witness
is
that God is encountered on earth,
not
through a sacred building or a tower of strength,
but
through the person of Jesus himself,
as
he is revealed by his Spirit
through
the people that bear his name.
And I want to suggest that if we are those
people,
then
the reason we’re here
is
not to build God a house,
or
to build power or strength,
but
to build a vision for the common good.
We’re here to be a blessing to those who are
not part of us,
we’re
here to be good news to all people.
And so we come to the fascinating vision of the
church on the earth,
which
we meet in the biblical image of the New Jerusalem.
Many readers of this image take it as a vision
of the future,
something
that will happen at some point far from now
as
a mysterious celestial city bangs down from the heavens
and
settles on the earth.
I
have to say that this approach has never seemed all that persuasive to me,
after
all, what earthly use today is a vision of the distant future?
I
think it’s much more likely
that
what we’ve got going on here is a metaphor,
a
compelling picture which invites further reflection
as
to what it might mean for us to be the church
in
our own time and place.
So, in this way, I think that the New Jerusalem
is
one of the images that the Bible uses
for
the church in the here-and-now.
It’s a picture of the people of God on the
earth.
And I think it helps us address our question
of
what, on earth, we are here for.
Bear with me for a moment on this,
but
I’d like us to think about the utility supplies in the New Jerusalem.
Specifically, the supply of light and water.
The text clearly tells us that the city has no
need
for
either the natural lights of the sun and the moon,
or
for the artificial light that comes from lamps.
Rather, the glory of God is its light,
and
its lamp is the Lamb of God.
In fact, it has so much light
that
it shines brightly enough for all the nations to walk by its light.
And similarly, it seems to have a never-ending
supply of fresh water,
enough
not only for its own citizens,
but to quench the thirst of anyone who wishes
to come
and
take the water of life as a gift.
And this super-abundance of light and water
is
in stark contrast to all other human cities.
The city of Jerusalem itself, the one that
still sits on a hill in Israel,
actually
has no natural water supply at all;
until
very recent times, it was entirely dependent on a water tunnel
bringing
water in from outside the city.
And the supply of light to keep city streets
safe at night was,
until
the invention of electricity and gas supplies,
dependent on lamps and oil,
as
we see reflected in Jesus’ famous parable
about
the virgins and their oil lamps.
And here, considering light and water,
we
find ourselves in the world
of
the economics of the common good.
In any city, and in any society,
there
are certain things that it makes more sense to enact collectively.
The lighting of the streets is a great example,
although
the principle can be extrapolated
across
many areas of need and provision.
The thing about street lights is that
no
one street light exclusively benefits
any one individual.
The system only works
when
all the lights are working
for
the benefit of all the inhabitants.
It makes no sense for someone to arrange to
light
only
for the part of the pavement that they are walking along.
This, in a nutshell, is the economics of the
common good.
The same is true of water supplies,
sewage
systems, public transport, and health care provision.
From the Roman aqueducts, to the National
Health Service, to Obamacare,
enlightened
rulers have sought to implement policies
for
the common good.
And I think the image of the New Jerusalem
as
the city with enough light to shine across all the nations,
and
with enough water to supply the thirst of any who need it,
invites us to reflect on a vision of the
church:
in
the world, for the common good.
What, in the world, are we here for?
We’re
here for the good of all;
in
fulfilment of the covenant between God and Abraham.
This is a spiritual vision,
but
it is a vision with some very practical out-workings.
All too often churches have come to see
themselves
as
existing in the world for their own benefit,
with the church in effect functioning as a
closed-set club,
with
admission upon request.
The purpose of such club-churches varies,
from
the basic Christian social club church,
to
groups drawn together around a particular understanding
of
a theological issue,
to
single-issue churches focusing on anything
from
a specific style of music to a distinctive architectural style.
And at one level there’s nothing wrong with any
of these;
social
interaction is a gift of grace,
theological
issues do matter,
as
do music and architecture.
But the problem with closed-set club churches
is
that they primarily exist for the benefit of their own members.
They build for themselves,
rather
than for the common good.
Many of the buildings that house churches today
are
there because churches decided to build themselves a home.
They offer somewhere for the people of God
to
come and worship their God.
We think of them as ‘our church’, where we come
to meet with God,
encountering
him in the sanctuary we have built for him.
However, this is not true of all church
buildings.
Think of the great Methodist Mission churches
of the London suburbs,
built
to offer transformation in the poorest
and
most deprived areas of the Victorian city;
promoting
the temperance movement
in
the face of the evils of alcohol addiction,
and
supporting the suffragette cause for the emancipation of women.
They were built for the common good.
And I want to say, also, think of this building
in which we now sit,
built
not just to house a congregation
who
come to worship God on the Lord’s day,
but
to be a place of Baptist mission to the centre of the city,
strategically
placed on the boundary between wealth and poverty
with
the express intention of bringing the two together
in
ways that transform the city for good.
We are the heirs of a vision to build for the
common good,
just
as we are the spiritual descendants of Abraham
and
his vision of the people of God in the world
for
the blessing of all peoples.
We are called to be the new Jerusalem,
offering
light and water to the city outside those doors.
The question, of course, is what offering light
and water
might
look like in our complex, technological, 24 hour city?
What does it mean for us to build a vision for
the common good?
Where
is the need in our city?
What would it mean for us, as the people of
God,
to
shine light into the darkest corners of London,
exposing
the oppressive systems and practices
that
enslave people’s souls and bodies?
What would it mean for us, as the people of
God,
to
offer refreshing water to those who are being poisoned
by
the polluted atmosphere of hatred and cynicism and despair?
Here, I think, we need to hear the word of
Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon.
You may remember the story:
The
Babylonians invaded Jerusalem,
about
six hundred years before the time of Jesus,
sacked
the city and destroyed the temple,
before
carrying a swathe of the Jewish population into exile in Babylon.
It was to these exiles, far from home,
with
no buildings of their own and no temple in which to worship,
that Jeremiah wrote:
Thus
says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel,
to all the exiles whom I have sent
into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5 Build houses and live in them;
plant gardens and eat what they
produce.
6 Take wives and have sons and daughters;
take wives for your sons, and give
your daughters in marriage,
that they may bear sons and daughters;
multiply there, and do not
decrease.
7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the LORD on its behalf,
for in its welfare you will find your
welfare.
The call of God to those in exile in Babylon
is
to seek the welfare of the city of Babylon.
In the book of Revelation, where we meet our
image
of
the church as the New Jerusalem,
the name Babylon is used as a codename for the
Roman empire,
and
the picture it paints is of the people of God
there,
in the midst of the empire, for good, and for the common good.
The gates of the new Jerusalem are open,
its
light shines brightly beyond its own walls,
and
its pure water is available for all.
This is not a vision of the church battened
down,
defensively
protecting itself while entering survival mode.
It is a vision of the church militant,
in
the world for the good of all,
courageously
seeking the welfare of the city.
For Babylon, read Rome, read London.
We are not here to build a temple in which we
can worship our God.
We
are not here to build a tower of strength.
We
are not here to build political power.
We
are not here to build walls around our communities.
We are here, in the world, to throw open the
doors,
to
shine brightly, and to build a vision for the common good,
to
seek the welfare of the city to which we have been sent.
We’re not building a building,
we’re
building a new world.
We’re here to learn, together, to see the world
differently,
to
see the world as God sees it,
and to speak and live into being
an
alternative way of being human before God
which
is light and water
to
those whose lives are in darkness
and
whose souls are parched.
Pope Francis has said,
“Indifference
to our neighbor and to God …
represents a real temptation for us
Christians.
Usually,
when we are healthy and comfortable,
we forget about others (something God
the Father never does):
we
are unconcerned with their problems,
their sufferings and the injustices
they endure…
Our heart
grows cold.
As
long as I am relatively healthy and comfortable,
I don’t think about those less well
off.
Today,
this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions,
to the extent that we can speak of a
globalization of indifference.
It
is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront.”
We are here, on the earth, to be good news for
all,
to
build a vision for the common good,
because if we
don’t articulate Heaven’s perspective on the earthly situation,
who
on earth is going to do it?
So as we live in a world of growing fear,
with
the whiff of fascism in the air,
with
growing suspicion of the other,
and
fear of the foreigner,
with
poverty and homelessness literally on our doorstep
with
mental health services in crisis
at
the very point where they are most needed
with
social care and security facing cuts of catastrophic levels…
Maybe this is what, in the world, we’re here
for.
And so we are called to look beyond ourselves,
to
take into action our conviction that in Christ every life matters,
and
that Christ always has a bias
to
the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.
We are called to build alliances with others,
and
to speak truth to power,
as
we hold to account those who hold power.
We are called to engage politics and charity,
to
build communities of reciprocity,
to run night shelters and day centres,
to
use our resources to see the marginalized included,
the
poor lifted up,
and
the vulnerable made strong.
We are called to build a vision for the common
good,
where
the absolute love of God for each and every person
is
at the heart of all that we do.
Because it will be in and through us
that
utopian religion finds its pragmatic reality,
we
are where dreams become real and visions get built.
We are the outpost on the earth of the new
world that that is coming.
As
we live into being in our midst the reality for which we pray:
That
the kingdom will come,
on
earth as it is in heaven.
