Environment Sunday 2024

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

2^nd June 2024 – Environment Sunday

 

Colossians 1.15-20
  
Today is Environment Sunday,
            and today I think we find ourselves at a critical moment for our planet. [1]
 
I don’t know about you, but I often struggle bring myself
            to read the news reports of the climate crisis,
sometimes it all feels too much to deal with,
            too much to cope with, too big to do anything about.
 
And yet I know that the next few decades
            are going to be decisive for what life on this planet will look like.
 
The undeniable reality of climate change accelerates around us,
            leading to devastating loss of biodiversity
            and increasingly severe weather events.
 
Scientists are clear that the root cause of this crisis
            can be traced to our overconsumption of the Earth's finite resources,
            and our growing disconnection from the natural world.
 
Despite some progress, there is still an urgent need for action
            to protect and restore the delicate balance of creation.
 
As followers of Christ, we worship a God
            who not only brought the world into existence
            but also cares profoundly for its well-being.
 
The Scriptures affirm this divine care,
            revealing God's mission to unite all things in heaven and on earth
            under the lordship of Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
 
As those who embrace this truth,
            we are therefore called to actively engage
                        in God's mission to the whole of creation,
            serving not only as disciples personally,
                        but also corporately as the body of Christ on earth.
 
And on this Environment Sunday,
            we are reminded that our missional activities as a church
            should reflect our Creator's love for the world.
 
It is my conviction that by cultivating greater unity
            between God, ourselves,
                        our communities, and the entirety of creation,
we can work meaningfully together
            to restore and protect the earth,
ensuring that it thrives for generations to come.
 
Our passage for this morning is the beautiful Christ-hymn
            from Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae,
and I want to draw out for us three ways in which this text speaks
            to the situation of our relationship to our planet.
 
The first point is that it speaks of God as the CREATOR
‘God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth’
Colossians 1:16 (NLT)
 
Here we are reminded that God is not only revealed to us in Jesus Christ,
            but also as the Creator of all things, in heaven and on earth.
 
As Christians, our worship is often focussed on the ‘heavenly’ revelation of God:
            we worship ‘God on high’.
 
But the challenge here is that our worship also must also reflect
            our reverence for God the Creator
who, from the beginning of time, has breathed life
            into a vast and intricate world,
            a world teeming with abundance and beauty.
 
Please don’t hear me wrong, though:
            I’m absolutely NOT arguing for creationism, for a young earth,
            or against the theory of evolution by natural selection.
 
A view of God as creator which takes you in the direction of science-denial,
            is a profound misreading of the theology of creation.
Creation and evolution are not opposites,
            any more than science and faith are opposites.
 
So, if you want to know how the earth was formed, as a geologist,
            if you want to know how life came to be, ask an evolutionary biologist.
 
But if you want to know how you, and other humans like you,
            might live in peace and harmony with the natural world,
and how we might together address the collective sins of exploitation,
            perhaps that’s the point to ask a theologian!
 
Because the biblical insight is that God is not divorced from creation,
            standing over it, or above it,
            but is rather integral to it.
God is in all things,
            and by God’s hand are all things sustained (cf. Hebrews 1.3)
 
In fact, I would want to go further than this.
 
It’s not just that we worship a God who sustains creation,
            but by observing creation we gain a revelation of God.
 
My friend Noel Moules has written very powerfully
            on the interconnectedness of all things. He says:
 
            ‘I personally believe that absolutely everything is sacred:
            the whole material universe, visible and invisible.’
 
He continues:
            ‘The whole of creation is saturated in the sacred.’[2]
 
Throughout the Psalms, we encounter awe-inspiring praise for God the Creator,
            and the majestic creation that envelops us.
 
Psalm 145:9 affirms,
            "The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made."
 
This Psalm reveals that God's compassionate character
            is one we should strive to mirror
as we engage with our fellow beings and the earth itself.
 
God's creative work is not to be restricted
            to some pseudo-scientific theology of forming the heavens and the earth.
 
Instead, God's role as Creator
            is an eternal and unchanging part of the divine identity,
continually imbuing life and vitality into all existence.
 
As Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg so eloquently describes,
            "God's voice in nature is ceaseless and enduring.
            God's speech is the invisible pulse
            which ceaselessly imparts vitality to all existence."
 
There is a rhythm of growth, transformation, and renewal built into creation,
            and this is a living testament to God's enduring presence within it.
 
This dynamic, ever-evolving world
            serves as a profound reminder of our Creator's deep connection
            to every living creature and ecosystem.
 
If we are to genuinely experience the fullness of God's love and grace,
            and if we wish to help others do the same,
we must celebrate and honour our God as Creator
            by extending divine compassion to all creation.
 
In Genesis 1:26, we are told that human beings were created in the image of God,
            and this ancient narrative conveys a theological truth
            which is that we too reflect the divine nature.
 
This profound responsibility compels us to ask ourselves
            whether we are faithfully reflecting God's nature
            in how we care for the world around us?
 
Do our activities as disciples and as a church
            demonstrate a genuine commitment
to safeguarding and nurturing the Creator's magnificent work?
 
As Ruth Valerio so insightfully observes,
            "There is a need to rebuild our relationship with our planet
            so that we might rebuild our relationship with its creator."
 
In light of this challenge,
            there is a call here for us to deepen our appreciation for God as creator,
and to renew our dedication to caring for
            the incredible world we have been entrusted with
—not only for our own sake
            but also as a testament to the divine love and compassion
            that encompasses all creation.
 
Which brings me to my second point: CHRIST
‘He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation’
(Colossians 1:15 NLT)
 
In this verse we are presented with the astonishing claim
            that Christ existed before all creation and stands supreme over it.
 
This divine pre-eminence calls us to expand our understanding
            of Christ's role in our lives, and the world around us.
 
As Shane Claiborne suggests,
            Christ's reconciling work extends not only to our relationships
                        with God and fellow humans
            but also to our relationship with creation itself.
 
The passage reveals Christ as the source, sustainer, and saviour of all things
            — the divine life force incarnated to reconcile and restore,
            holding all of creation together (Colossians 1:17).
 
This cosmic role reminds us that Christ's presence
            has been deeply rooted in creation from the very beginning,
and this is a truth that was ultimately embodied in the incarnation.
 
To quote Noel Moules again:
 
‘It is vital to remember that when we say, ’everything is sacred’,
            we understand this sacredness is two-fold.
First, that tree, that rock, that person, is sacred in their own right,
            and so recognised for who they are within themselves.
Second, because it is the Spirit and Creator who enables them to be sacred,
            so sacredness should deepen our relationship
                        with every particular expression of creation,
            as well as with the Creator.
Jesus’ incarnation does not make matter sacred.
            Matter is already sacred.
Jesus’ incarnation simply and powerfully confirms this truth.’
 
Throughout the Gospels, we witness Jesus
            demonstrating a deep attentiveness and connection to the natural world.
 
His teachings are enriched by vivid references to fig trees, foxes, and flowers,
            while in the parables he revealed a keen understanding
            of the intricate relationships found within creation.
 
Jesus urged his disciples to consider the birds and flowers
            as models of trust in God's provision (Matthew 6:25-34),
and even in the wilderness, he is described
            as being "with the wild animals" (Mark 1:13).
 
Christ's relationship with nature
            challenges our conventional understanding of power and dominion,
offering a contrasting vision of leadership
            that is marked by humility, compassion, and interconnectedness.
 
Rather than seeking to dominate the natural world,
            Jesus modelled a different way of ruling
            —one that extends to all of creation, not just humanity.
 
As followers of Christ in the 21st century, we must ask ourselves:
            Do we share the same deep connection to nature that Jesus exemplified?
 
How are we actively following his example in our daily lives,
            and how can we contribute to the reconciliation
            and restoration of our broken climate?
 
The call to "take up our cross and follow him"
            must be considered within the context
            of our responsibility as stewards of creation.
 
Much as I love our cross here at Bloomsbury,
            soaring high above us in the sanctuary,
            suspended in mid-air half-way between heaven and earth,
and much as I love lifting my eyes to it in adoration and worship,
            sometimes I think we just need to remember
            that the cross of Christ would have been a wooden post,
            with its base deep in the soil of the mount of crucifixion.
 
Just as the tree from which it was shaped had grown in the earth,
            so by planting the cross of our theology firmly back into the earth,
            we commit ourselves to reconciling with the world around us,
healing the wounds inflicted upon it,
            and seeking a harmonious relationship
            between humanity and the environment.
 
The cross of Christ is for the redemption of all creation,
            and as we remember and embody this truth,
            we honour Christ's supreme role within creation
and strive to emulate his profound love
            and compassion for all that God has made.
 
Which brings me to my third point: CREATION
‘And through him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things’ 
(Colossians 1:20 NRSVA)
 
Here we are reminded of God's divine intention to reconcile all things.
 
This profound truth extends beyond personal salvation
            to encompass the vast and intricate world that God has created
—a creation that serves as a primary means
            for God to reveal the divine nature to us.
 
Creation communicates the beauty, creativity, and diversity of God's character
            through the rich tapestry of life on earth, in the skies,
            and within the depths of the sea.
 
The natural world offers a grand and awe-inspiring display of divine artistry,
            inviting us to contemplate the magnificent handiwork of the Creator.
 
Furthermore, the earth provides a blueprint
            for God's harmonious plan for the Kingdom of heaven
—a vision of interconnectedness and interdependence
            that underscores the inherent value of each living creature and ecosystem.
 
This divine balance of nature
            is a testament to the wisdom and love of our Creator.
 
However, our actions as humans have disrupted this delicate harmony,
            resulting in the current climate crisis
            that threatens both human and non-human life.
 
Our excessive consumption of resources
            has led to the destabilization of ecosystems
            and widespread ecological degradation.
 
Yet, despite the gravity of these consequences,
            we are reminded that God's intent is ultimately to reconcile of all things.
 
The tension between God’s intent, and our current situation,
            is where we are called to be agents of change and hope.
 
By working to restore and protect the beauty and balance of creation,
            we actively participate in God's reconciling work
            and honour our Creator's divine purpose.
 
So what can we do, what are we called to do?
 
I think the primary calling for Christians
            in relation to the created world is one of: CARE 
‘The Lord God took the man and put Him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it.’ (Genesis 2:15)
 
The creation story from Genesis
            reminds us of humanity's divine mandate
            to care for and steward the natural world.
 
This responsibility is emphasized by Tom Wright,
            who suggests that all of creation eagerly awaits
                        the restoration of God's wise order
            through the stewardship of redeemed humans.
 
However, our current trajectory of rising global temperatures
            threatens the delicate balance of our planet.
 
Despite the ambitious goal set at the 2015 UN Climate Conference in Paris,
            current national commitments still fall short
            of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
 
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
            warns that achieving this target requires immediate and radical changes
            across all sectors of society.
 
In order to rekindle our connection with God as Creator
            and honour God's role as the source and sustainer of all things,
we must critically examine our relationship with the natural world
            and the impact of our actions upon it.
 
By recapturing a view of creation as a reflection of God's beauty and majesty,
            we can begin to realign our priorities with those of our Creator.
 
As followers of Christ and members of the Church,
            we are called to embody God's character in our actions and decisions.
 
This includes embracing our divine mission
            to exercise godly rule over creation through service and protection.
 
Let us heed the words of Chris Wright,
            who reminds us that our Christian mission
                        is inseparable from our primal human mission
                        to care for the world around us.
 
On this Environment Sunday, the invitation is for us
            to recommit ourselves to the task of nurturing
                        and preserving the wondrous gifts of creation,
            to ensure our efforts serve as a testament to our devotion to the Creator
                        who has entrusted us with this sacred responsibility.
 
Conclusion
 
In conclusion, then, I think our engagement
            with Paul’s hymn to the cosmic Christ raises some key questions for us:
 
How often do we truly contemplate God as Creator,
            and how might we better emulate divine creativity
            as beings made in God's image?
 
Moreover, how can we deepen our relationship with God
            by caring for creation
and recognizing God’s presence within the natural world?
 
We are called to unite all things in heaven and on earth under Christ,
            but what does this look like for us,
            and how can we contribute to its realization?
 
To answer these questions, we must examine the role of creation care
            within our understanding of mission.
 
As we broaden our concept of mission to encompass the whole of creation,
            we challenge ourselves to consider how our efforts
            can address the pressing issue of climate change.
 
It is vital that we recognize the importance of tackling climate change
            as a critical component of our values and beliefs.
 
By integrating environmental stewardship into our missional activities,
            we not only serve as responsible custodians of God's creation
but also demonstrate our commitment
            to the holistic message of the gospel.
 
As we move forward, we need to consider
            how we might adapt our approaches
                        to evangelism, discipleship, community engagement, and social action
            in order to better reflect God's care for creation.
 
By doing so, we embrace our divine calling to care for the world around us
            and to work towards a future in which all aspects of God's creation
            are reconciled and united under Christ.
 
So on this Environment Sunday, may we embark on this journey
            with dedication, passion, and a renewed sense of purpose,
remembering that our labours are a testament
            to our love for God and His magnificent creation.

---

[1] This sermon is based on resources from the Salvation Army, produced for Environment Sunday 2024 https://www.salvationist.org.uk/resources/key-dates/environment-sunday
[2] https://www.christianity.org.uk/article/opinion-sense-of-the-sacred-in-all-things

Teacher, teach us how to pray

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

Sunday 26 May 2024

Luke 11:1-13  

Genesis 18:20-32

One day, some disciples asked their teacher,

            ‘Teacher, teach us how to pray.’

 

And their teacher told them:

            ‘It’s easy, you just pray your deepest desires before God,

            because that which you most desire

                        will most surely give shape to the world you are bringing into being’.

 

The disciples replied,

            ‘Teacher, could you be a bit more specific?’

 

And their teacher told them:

            ‘You should pray today

            that the world above becomes the world below,

            that the world beyond you becomes the world beneath you.’

 

The disciples asked a third time, saying,

            ‘Teacher, could you say that again?’

 

And the teacher told them as clearly as he could:

            ‘You should pray the coming kingdom until kingdom come.’

 

Then the disciples decided to try another tack,

            and they asked their teacher,

            ‘Teacher, teach us why we should pray’

 

And the teacher answered with a riddle,

            saying to them:

            ‘You should pray because Mummy now walks the dog every morning’.

 

And the disciples started to think they were never going to get anywhere,

            but one last time, they said to their teacher, most earnestly,

                        ‘What?’

 

And he told them a story,

            which went something like this:

 

‘Christmas was over for another year,

            the turkey had been eaten, the drink has been drunk,

            and the presents had been well received by the children.

Except for little Megan, who was still unhappy.

            It wasn’t that she didn’t like her Hello Kitty three wheeled scooter,

            and it wasn’t that she didn’t like her Peppa Pig makeup set

But they weren’t the little puppy she had set her heart on.

 

For months she had looked longingly

            at every puppy they had passed in the park.

She had put posters of puppies on her bedroom wall,

            and talked about how people with puppies apparently lived longer

                        and had happier lives

 

She had carefully written to Father Christmas,

            asking for nothing except a puppy of her own,

            which she would walk every day, and feed, and love for its whole life.

She had even promised that it would be the last thing she would ever ask for

            if she could only have a puppy for Christmas.

 

And they had so nearly bought her one,

            but then they knew that it would be hard work,

                        and daddy had a new job and was working long hours,

            and mummy wanted to go back to work now the children were at school,

                        and who would look after it during the day,

            and who would take it for morning walks

                        when Megan was struggling to get ready for school in time as it was.

 

And so they hadn’t bought her one,

            thinking that by next year, she would have set her heart on something else.

 

But Megan didn’t waver,

            she started getting up earlier sometimes, to prove she could do it.

She started saving some of her pocket money to put towards the costs of a puppy.

            She seemed to grow up, to become more responsible.

 

And next year she got a puppy for Christmas,

            and it was hard work, and it was expensive, but it was also lovely,

                        and Megan was very happy.

But she still struggled to get up early,

            and so Mummy now walks the dog every morning’.

 

And the disciples looked at each other,

            and they looked at their teacher,

and they waited, patiently, for an explanation.

 

And the teacher said,

            ‘If even Megan’s parents, who didn’t really want a dog,

                        gave her one because she kept asking,

            how much more does your father in heaven

                        long to give you desires of your hearts.’

 

‘It’s like I told you already:

 

            ‘When you pray, you just pray your deepest desires before God,

                        because that which you most desire

                        will most surely give shape to the world you are bringing into being’.

 

            ‘You should pray today

                        that the world above becomes the world below,

                        and that the world beyond you becomes the world beneath you.’

 

            ‘You should pray the coming kingdom until kingdom come.’

 

And the disciples pondered long and hard on the teacher’s words,

            because they still found the whole idea of praying

            something that they really struggled to understand.

 

And I don’t think we’re any different, are we?

 

Which of us truly understands prayer?

            Which of us truly knows why we should pray?

            Which of us truly knows how we should pray?

 

These are difficult questions,

            and there are no straightforward answers.

 

But there may be helpful perspectives,

            and one perspective that has stayed with me,

            as I’ve been pondering the subject of prayer,

has been the idea that

            prayer ought to tell us more about the nature of God

            than it tells us about ourselves.

 

I think what I’m getting at here,

            is that when we pray,

                        our focus should primarily be on God,

                        rather than on us.

 

Often when we come before God in prayer,

            particularly prayers of intercession or petition,

            we quite rightly bring our concerns before God.

However, the danger here can be

            that we also come with our own solutions in mind,

            and so then we seek to pray those solutions into being.

 

And danger of this,

            is that any attempt on our part

                        to persuade God to do what we want him to do

            is actually an attempt by us to create God in our own image.

                        Or, to give it it’s theological title, it is to engage in the sin of idolatry.

 

Prayer is not about us getting God to do what we want him to do,

            because prayer like that is focussed on us, and not on God.

 

Neither do we pray to make things happen in the way that we want them to happen,

            because that is an attempt to use spiritual means

                        to manipulate the universe according to our will.

            Or, to give it it’s theological title, it is to engage in the practice of magic.

 

Prayer is not about us bargaining God

            into submission to our will.

Rather it is an exploration of the nature of God

            in order that through our prayers

                        we might align the fallen world that we inhabit

                        with the revealed nature of God.

 

Let’s think for a moment about our Old Testament reading,

            where Abraham has his infamous engagement with God

            about the number of righteous people necessary to save the city.

 

Abraham’s conversation with God about the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah

            isn’t the story of a hostage negotiator,

                        talking down an unpredictable and violent terrorist.

Rather, it’s a story designed to explore the very nature of God,

            and which specifically pushes the boundary

                        of God’s capacity for mercy in the face of human sinfulness.

 

The picture that emerges from this ancient story

            is of a God who is, as Walter Brueggemann puts it,

                        ‘more attentive to and more moved by

                                    those who obey than those who do not.’ [1]

The God of Abraham, it seems, is not an indiscriminately wrathful deity

            in the style of other ancient near eastern gods.

Rather, he is a God of justice;

            and also a God of righteousness and mercy.

 

The act of prayer on the part of Abraham

            is not Abraham seeking to control or limit God’s actions

but is rather an exploration by Abraham of the nature of God

            when God is confronted with the hellish depths of human sinfulness.

 

I’m certainly not proposing to get into a long discussion this morning

            on the nature of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah,

but it is worth noting in passing that they are not primarily sins of sexuality,

            but rather are sins of injustice, irresponsibility,

                        inhospitality, and indifference.

 

What Abraham discovers, possibly to his surprise,

            is that it is within the nature of God

            for righteousness to override evil.

And having discovered this,

            he has no need to push his questioning to the final step,

                        and ask of God, ‘If only one righteous person be found…?’

            because he has already received his answer.

One righteous person can indeed save the city of sinners.

            It doesn’t take a Lot, if you’ll pardon the pun,

                        to save Sodom.

 

And this insight that one righteous person

            can be the salvation of many

is something that Paul returns to in his letter to the Romans,

            where he compares the sin of Adam with the righteousness of another.

 

He says:

So then, it goes like this: just as the result of one man’s transgression issued a verdict of ‘guilty’ on all human beings, so one man’s righteousness issued in a verdict of ‘not guilty’ and of life. To put it another way: just as that single man’s disobedience resulted in many peoples being made sinners, so, because of that other man’s obedience, those many people are made ‘not guilty’, or ‘righteous’.[2]

 

The one righteous man, for Paul, was of course Jesus Christ,

            in whom the righteousness of God was made fully known.

 

What Abraham discovered through his prayer

            was the same thing Paul discovered through his encounter with Jesus Christ,

which is that God’s nature tends towards mercy.

            God’s desire is for the release of the human world

                        from the destructive forces of evil.

            The one righteous man, Jesus Christ,

                        is sufficient to spare the whole world from God’s judgment against sin.

 

So those of us who pray to God through Christ Jesus,

            are entering into God’s great work for the salvation of the world,

because in prayer we align ourselves

            with his in-breaking kingdom of righteousness and peace

and in prayer, the desire of God that the world be transformed

            becomes our own desire that the world be different,

            not on our terms, but on the terms of the coming Kingdom of Heaven itself.

 

And so the kingdom breaks in upon this world of sin,

                        and justice and righteousness are found once more upon the earth;

            as the humble are lifted high,

                        as sinners are forgiven,

                                    as the poor are fed,

                                                and as debts are cancelled.

 

And so we find ourselves back at the Lord’s prayer

            joining our hearts and minds and voices

                        with the longing of God;

            and when we pray together,

                        we long together for a world transformed;

            and when we long together for a new world,

                        we share in its inauguration,

                        as it comes into being in our midst.

 

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray,

            he told them to start with God:

                        ’Father,’ he said, ‘hallowed be your name.’

 

If the starting point for prayer is us, our needs, and our desires,

            then our prayers can become idolatrous, or sorcerous.

But if we start with God,

            then we begin to pray with our eyes fixed on the true centre of the universe,

            and our prayers find balance

                        because they are offered to the one in whom all things hold together.

 

All other principalities and powers,

            whether external to us or within the confines of our innermost being,

            are relativized when we declare the holiness of God.

In many ways, the opening line of the Lord’s prayer

            is one of the most politically potent phrases in all of human language,

            because it poses a direct challenge to all other claims on human allegiance.

 

And this is the where Jesus taught his disciples to begin.

 

Loving God, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

 

The prayer for the coming kingdom is crucial:

            It has been said that the phrase ‘your kingdom come’

                        is at the heart of intercessory prayer,

                        with everything else just commentary.

And in so many ways I think this is true.

 

We can pray for many things,

            we can bring all our concerns, big and small, significant or petty,

            we can bring our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our failings,

and in each case, we pray, fervently, ‘your kingdom come’.

 

There are times where we don’t know what to pray for.

            What do you pray,

                        for the person in the latter stages of a long and debilitating illness?

            What do you pray,

                        when confronted with the horrors of war,

                        the starvation of millions

                        or the tragedy of loss?

 

Sometimes, there is nothing else to say,

            except to give voice to a longing that the kingdom of God break in upon the earth,

            a kingdom where tears are dried,

                        where hope is rekindled,

                                    and where lives find their true value before God.

 

The prayer for the coming kingdom aligns our desires with those of God,

            as we relinquish our own sense of the way the world should be,

            and together we grasp for, and long for, and live for,

                        the world which God is bringing into being.

 

Jesus rejected the temptation to take possession of all the kingdoms of the earth,

            and so we are called to join all our desires with his longing for a new earth.

 

Loving God, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

 

The prayer for the meeting of human need

            is a legitimate request.

It is not right that people are hungry,

            it is not right that people cannot feed themselves or their children.

It is a crime against humanity,

            and a sin against God.

 

None of what we own or eat is ours by right.

            and a prayer for enough food to eat today

            is a prayer that asks us in turn

                        to play our part in ensuring that others have the same.

 

The gift of bread is a gift from God:

            whether it be manna in the wilderness,

            or bread broken for you for the forgiveness of sins,

            or bread shared with the starving,

            or bread on the table of the messianic banquet to which all are invited,

the sharing of bread is the giving of the gift of life.

 

In the Lord’s prayer, the context for the request for enough food,

            is the proclamation that God is at the centre of the universe,

            and a commitment to seeing the kingdom break in upon the earth.

 

And it is only when self is removed from the centre of our world

            that the other becomes humanised.

 

And it is only with the humanisation of the other

            that the will emerges to act to see the prayer come into reality.

 

Prayer, you see, has the capacity to restructure the world,

            because in prayer we speak into being an alternative narrative,

            to the selfish, idolatrous, sorcerous narratives

                        that can otherwise so dominate our lives.

  

Loving God, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

 

The fusion here of the language of sin and debt is interesting and profound,

            and it gives us a perspective on sin that can easily be lost.

 

According to Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer,

            sins are to be thought of as debts against God,

            and the forgiveness of sin is to be equated to the forgiveness of a debt.

 

The root cause of all sin is, I think, idolatry.

            It is when we displace God from the centre of our lives

                        that we act in ways that place ourselves out of kilter with God

            and it is when we place our own selfish desires at the centre of our lives

                        that we incur debts to the one who created us to be free.

 

And so we ask for forgiveness,

            that we might be free again,

no longer living under the obligation to repay,

            no longer living with the uncertainty of the penalty of defaulting on the debt.

 

But from our own forgiveness must spring acts of forgiveness to others.

            Where we are owed, we must forgive,

            just as we have been forgiven.

 

Loving God, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial.

 

As Jesus says in Mark’s gospel, at his own time of trial,

            ‘The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.’ (Mk 14.38)

None of us know how we will react if we face our own time of trial,

            none of us knows what pressures might unlock our weaknesses,

                        and expose our frailty.

 

And so we pray to be spared,

            and in our prayer we express our hope

                        that if we are called to face the time of trial,

            we will find strength in Christ

                        who was himself tested in every way as we are. (Heb 4.15)

 

So then, how should we pray?

            It is as the teacher said to his disciples:

 

‘When you pray, you just pray your deepest desires before God,

            because that which you most desire

            will most surely give shape to the world you are bringing into being’.

 

‘You should pray today

            that the world above becomes the world below,

            and that the world beyond you becomes the world beneath you.’

 

‘You should pray the coming kingdom until kingdom come.’

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 172.

[2] Romans 5.12-21 – translated by Nicholas King.

Resurrection?

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
12 May 2024

1 Corinthians 15.1-26, 51-57

Germain Pilon (French, d. 1590), Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Marble, before 1572.

Well I wonder, what do you think the solution is,

          to all the ills of our society?

 

Will our newly elected mayor resolve our city’s problems?

          Will the housing crisis end,

                   with people able to afford to live in their own neighbourhood?

          Will our manual workers and cleaners and bar staff

                   earn enough to feed their families and avoid poverty?

          Will the refugees stranded at our shores

                   find fulfilment of their dreams for a better life?

 

Can our mayor solve this?

          Will he even keep the promises made in the run up to the polls?

          Would the other side have made any better job of it?

 

What about the General Election

          that will descend upon us at some point over the next year?

If we see a change of Government,

          will things really change?

 

And then there’s America, with Donald Trump resurgent

          and betting that fear and ignorance will give him a platform

          for widespread retrenchment and nationalist xenophobia.

 

But then there’s our churches, tearing themselves apart

          over who’s right and who’s wrong on issues like human sexuality,

          with each side convinced that the solution to church decline

                   lies in their interpretation of scripture.

 

And what, in all of this, is the solution?

 

Where are we to go to find an answer to the many, many problems

          that beset us locally, nationally, and internationally.

 

How are we to know what the right thing is to do?

 

The world seems ruled by powers so much stronger than we are,

          and our own choices in the middle of it all

          can seem utterly inconsequential and futile.

 

Perhaps it’s better not to vote, some people suggest…

          better not to participate in the dialogue

          about key and contentious issues.

 

Maybe quietism is the Christian answer,

          withdrawal from society and its structures

          in favour of devotion to a life of holiness and discipline.

 

Or maybe revolution is a better solution,

          devoting ourselves to the overthrow of the oppressive powers

          in favour of more benign regime made by us, in our own image.

 

Or maybe we just say to ourselves that this world is passing and corrupt,

          and our stay here merely temporary,

and so we resolve to do the best we can

          with the hand that has been played to us,

          whilst holding out for a better eternity.

 

Well, what do you think the solution is, to all the ills of our society?

 

One well-respected Christian position is to see resurrection as the solution,

          and this is something that Paul addresses

          in our reading this morning from his first letter to the Corinthians.

 

Did you know that Thursday just gone

          was Ascension Day? (9 May 2024)

 

According to Luke’s account,

          Jesus appeared to his disciples several times after his resurrection

          and then, on the 40th day, he ascended into heaven.

 

This means that, just as Easter moves around quite a bit,

          so also does Ascension Day.

 

And today, just a few days after the day of ascension,

          our reading from the Narrative Lectionary

invites us to turn our eyes once again

          towards the resurrected Christ.

 

In our reading for this morning,

          we encounter Paul offering the most extended theological exploration

          of the significance of resurrection that we find in the New Testament.[1]

 

In this chapter, Paul was responding to those in Corinth

          who simply didn’t believe in the reality of resurrection.

 

We know quite a bit about the early Corinthian church

          – and they appear to have been what, in ministerial terms,

          is technically known as a ‘nightmare congregation’.

 

They were a multicultural, multi-ethnic, extremely diverse group

          of recent converts to Christianity,

with religious backgrounds ranging from Torah-observant Judiasm,

          to Greek paganism, to Roman emperor worship.

 

So getting any kind of agreement on even key issues

          was always going to be something of a stretch

          for whoever aspired to offer this group some sort of leadership;

and we certainly see this in Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church,

          where he has to address everything from money, to sex, to theology

                   as he tries to help this group of people work out

                   what it means to follow Jesus in their context.

 

And at the heart of all this, for Paul, is the issue of resurrection.

 

His view is that the question of how one should be a Christian in the world

          what it means to live a life of discipleship,

is a second-order question which follows directly on

          from what one believes about resurrection.

 

Or, to put it the other way around:

          if you haven’t got your belief in resurrection sorted,

          you’ll never work out the right answers to any of the other questions

                   that those who would follow Jesus are going to have to grapple with.

 

Part of the problem was that the diversity of religious backgrounds

          in those he was writing to

meant that there was little common ground

          on which to build an argument

          for a Christ-centred understanding of resurrection.

 

The Jews had a variety of opinions about what happened when people died,

          with the Hebrew Scriptures tending to speak of death

                   as a place of rest, or void;

          with just occasional glimpses of the idea

                   that in some way the spirit of a person might return to the God

                   who had given the gift of life in the first place.

 

In Jesus’ own time, and we see some evidence from this in the gospels,

          there were debates between different Jewish factions

          on whether there was any kind of existence

                   for the individual beyond the grave,

          and for them, any notion of resurrection was tied up with the idea

                   of the resurrection of the whole nation,

                   and its restoration to its promised land.

 

For the Jews, the body and the soul

          were largely considered to be a united entity,

          and any resurrection involved the entire person

          – both their body and their spirit.

 

But then when we turn to the Greek and Roman context,

          the situation is even more confusing,

with an equally diverse set of opinions

          about the relationship of a person’s spirit to their body.

 

Probably the dominant view was that which we call Platonic Dualism.

          This is the idea, originating with Plato the Greek Philosopher,

                   that the soul is imprisoned in the body.

          In other words, the body and the spirit are not united,

                   but rather they are divided,

          forced together in an uneasy alliance for the duration of a person’s life.

 

Platonism taught that the physical world is merely a shadow

          of the true reality which lies beyond,

and so the physical body of a person is a poor shadow of their true self,

          which exists in its most real form as perfected spirit.

 

By this understanding, the corruptible body corrupts the soul,

          but one day the soul will be freed from its mortal shell:

                   when the body dies, the spirit is freed

                   to become most fully real and perfect.

 

So, we’ve got multiple views on mortality and immortality,

          and multiple views on the unity or separation of the body and the soul,

and all of these are in the background

          to what Paul’s trying to say about the resurrection of Jesus.

 

From a Jewish perspective,

          the resurrection of a person must involve their body,

          because the body and soul are a unity.

Whether the person is resurrected

          back into their old body to walk again on this earth,

          or into a new body walking on a renewed earth,

                   the point is still the same.

 

However, from a Platonic Greek view,

          any ongoing life of the Spirit must be about freeing the soul

                   from its corruptible and corrupting body.

So, for the Greeks any talk about resuscitating the corruptible body

          was hardly an attractive idea.

 

So Paul responds by inventing a concept

          to help try and draw together these two very different religious strands.

Listen again to what he says in verses 50-54 (translated by Nicholas King):

 

This is what I mean, brothers and sisters:

          flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

          corruption does not inherit un-corruption.

Look! I am telling you a mystery.

 

We shall not all fall asleep;

          but we shall all be changed, in a nanosecond,

          in the blink of an eye – at the final trumpet.

 

For the trumpet will signal

          – and then the dead shall be raised undecayed.

 

And for ourselves, we shall be changed.

 

For this decaying part must put on un-decay,

          and this mortal part put on immortality.

 

This is one of those passages that has been hijacked

          by the kind of Christianity that looks to a future moment of transformation,

                   when suddenly some heavenly trumpet sounds from the sky

                   and all the believers are caught up into the air…

 

It’s one of the famous ‘rapture’ passages, as they’re known;

          and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it!

 

I think that when it’s heard in the context of those he was writing to,

          Paul’s words make a lot of sense.

 

He’s trying to draw together

          the Jewish and Greek ideas about the afterlife

          and make sense of them in the light of Jesus.

 

One of the problems we can have,

          encountering Paul’s thinking on resurrection,

is that as Western Christians,

          we are the religious and philosophical heirs to Platonic Dualism.

 

And so we have a tendency to talk about body and soul

          from a dualistic perspective,

as if one glad day our Spirits will be freed from this mortal and corruptible shell

          to go and be with Jesus in heaven,

and then we think that this is what Paul is talking about

          when he speaks of resurrection.

 

A great example of this is the gospel hymn "I'll Fly Away"

          written in 1929 by Albert E. Brumley

and sometimes claimed as the ‘most recorded’ gospel song of all time.

 

I was torn as to which version to play today,

          and nearly went with Alison Krauss,

          but in the end Johnny Cash won.

 

https://www.youtube.com/atch?v=uA4JyAONd_I

 

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,

I'll fly away.

To that home on God's celestial shore,

I'll fly away.

 

I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away.

When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,

I'll fly away.

Just a few more weary days and then,

I'll fly away.

 

To that land where joy will never end,

I'll fly away.

I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away.

When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,

I'll fly away.

 

Oh I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away in the morning

When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,

I'll fly away.

 

 

 

Except, I think St. Paul would want to say to us,

          as he said to the Platonic Dualists of Corinth,

          that this isn’t what resurrection is at all!

 

For Paul, resurrection is absolutely NOT about escaping

          from the problems, trials, and tribulations of this present darkness

          to fly away to a better place.

 

Rather, resurrection, and specifically the resurrection of Jesus,

          is the defining and decisive moment

          where Christ destroys every ruler, authority, and power

                   that has ever held dominion

                   over the lives of human beings.

 

Listen to verses 24-26 again:

 

²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father,

          after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 

²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 

          ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

 

The primary context that Paul has in mind here,

          when he speaks of rulers, authorities, and powers,

                   is of course the Imperial rulers of the Roman Empire,

          but he clearly also has in view

                   the spiritual forces that lie behind them,

                   including, interestingly, death itself!

 

To understand what’s going on here,

          we need to remember that Paul wasn’t just

                   a Greek-educated intellectual,

                   he was also a Jewish apocalyptic mystic.

          And that what he certainly wasn’t

                   was a Western scientific rationalist.

 

For Paul, the resurrection of the dead

          wasn’t understood as a simple restoration

                   of ‘those who have fallen asleep’ (as he calls it)

          to some kind of walking-talking-living-and-loving

                   post mortem experience.

 

Neither, for Paul, was the resurrection

          the same thing as the zombie apocalypse,

where newly-undead corruptible and part-decayed bodies

          are reanimated and re-inhabited by their immortal souls

          to lurch the earth for eternity.

 

Rather, for Paul, the language of resurrection,

          so central to his Christian faith,

needs to be heard in the context of the historical problem

          for which God’s deliverance and resurrection was the solution.

 

In other words, for Paul, resurrection is about the end of imperial rule.

 

Specifically, it is about the end of Roman domination of the known world,

          although it is also about the ending of the underlying spiritual powers

that gave the Roman empire its force and motivation

          to distort, demean and destroy humanity in its own service.

 

And this is where and why, for Paul,

          it all comes down to the resurrection of Jesus,

          rather than just to the concept of resurrection more generally.

 

Resurrection matters,

          because Jesus was crucified.

 

For a Jew like Paul, the crucifixion of the Jewish messiah

          was a potent symbol

                   of the victory of the Roman imperial domination system

                   over the Jewish God.

 

Crucifixion was a Roman punishment,

          and it is not lost on Paul that Jesus died at the hands of Rome.

 

At the crucifixion, all the signs

          were that the Jewish messiah had lost

          and the Roman emperor won.

 

So to assert that Christ is risen

          is to make a profound statement about the power of the emperor.

 

The resurrection of Jesus is a potent symbol

          of the victory of God over the very powers that had killed him.

 

As Paul puts it, the resurrected Christ

          ‘has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power’

          including, specifically, the authority and power of the Roman emperor.

 

It’s almost as if, in Paul’s thought,

          God makes Christ the counter-emperor,

who will break the power of all earthly imperial rulers,

          beginning with the defeat of their spiritual power-base at the resurrection.

 

But Paul doesn’t stop there.

 

This isn’t just about first century Rome

          and first century Israel.

 

Rome and Israel are just the examples in his time and place

          of a far deeper victory.

 

To make this point, Paul borrows an image

          from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible,

and he says that ‘Christ has been raised from the dead,

          the first fruits of those who have died.’

 

This idea of the ‘first fruits’ comes from the book of Deuteronomy (26.2)

          and it was the idea that when harvesting,

                   the first fruit you gather, the first sheaf of wheat or whatever,

                   should be presented as an offering to God,

          as a symbol of the fact that the whole harvest

                   that is yet to come also belongs to God.

 

We have a similar practice here

          when we often pray that the gifts of money that we give to the church

          are symbolic of the fact that all we have belongs to God.

 

So if the resurrected Christ is the first fruit, what is the full harvest?

          If Christ is the first fruit of resurrection, what is still to come?

 

Well, it seems that Paul has set his sights rather high:

 

  ²¹ For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;  ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.  ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.  ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.  ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

 

The resurrection of Christ

          isn’t just about the defeat of imperial rule in the first century,

          it isn’t just about the overthrow of those earthly powers (in any age)

                   that take the imperial spirit and reinvent it in their own time and context.

 

Rather, it is about the resurrection of all things.

 

It is about the ultimate defeat of death itself,

          as all of humanity, and indeed all of creation,

                   is freed from the tyranny of death and made alive once again.

 

This is a view of resurrection which changes, literally, everything.

 

This world is not something to be endured,

          it is something to be redeemed.

 

It is not somewhere to escape from,

          it is somewhere to live in.

 

It is a world that is crying out for the life-giving spirit of the resurrected Christ

          which comes to those who are oppressed

          by the powers and empires of any day and age.

 

It is world that desperately needs the faithful witness and service

          of those who have themselves already received

          the gift of life eternal in Christ Jesus.

 

We need to move way beyond a view of resurrection

          that focusses on where we go when we die.

 

This passage from St Paul is not about that,

          it is about life lived now,

                    as the future breaks into the present

          in ways that transform the lives

                   of all those of us who long for restoration.

 

 

So, to return to the question with which I started,

          what is the solution to all the ills of our society?

 

Paul’s answer is quite simple: it is the resurrection of Christ.

 

Those who embrace this truth are empowered and enabled

          to do battle with the powers

          that would keep us in fearful subjugation.

 

Those who no longer fear death

          because they know death to be a defeated enemy

          are freed to live each moment of life in the light of eternity,

                   and so to see life come in all its fullness

                   to those who still labour under the burden of guilt and sin.

 

We are called, in the light of the resurrection of Christ,

          to live into being the new world

where oppressive powers are challenged

          and people are brought to freedom.

 

So the resurrection of Christ, by this understanding,

          drives us to political action.

 

At the very least we must engage the political processes of our world,

          speaking out for truth and justice and righteousness,

          making the case for the widows and orphans and refugees,

          standing up against the corporate self interest

                   that would pay the bare minimum to maximise profit,

          engaging in arguments about armament sales

                   and nuclear deterrents and drone warfare,

          fearlessly standing up for the marginalised and those discriminated against.

 

We cannot sit tight and wait until out our few more weary days

          until this life is over and we get to fly away

          from our corrupt mortal bodies.

 

That is not resurrection.

          Rather, resurrection challenges crucifixion;

          resurrection challenges oppressive powers;

          resurrection challenges the narrative of death itself.

 

Wherever the empire seems to win,

          wherever the dominant powers in this world

                   kill the innocent and oppress the vulnerable,

          resurrection is at work to destroy its power.

 

And we are the people of resurrection.

 

So do we want a world transformed?

          Do we long for a world renewed?

 

If so, then it begins with us, and our faith in the resurrection of Christ,

          and it ends in eternity,

as all things are redeemed in and through the love of God.

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[1] This sermon was based on reading the relevant section of ‘A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament’ by Segovia and Surgitharajah (eds.)