In an op-ed article in yesterday’s New York Times, David Brooks wrote of the way that ‘great powers’ have allowed ‘the global order to fray’ because of the loss of conviction and meaning.
He concludes by asserting the primary problem is mental and spiritual. Some leader has to be able to digest the lessons of the past 15 years and offer a revised charismatic and persuasive sense of America’s mission. This mission… would be… more realistic about depravity and the way barbarism can spread.
Increasingly I find people around us are looking for answers. Indeed over coffee or at dinner party the conversation often turns to concerns about the future and where the world is going. We need to consider ways we might respond.
LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE
It’s important we keep Jesus’s words before us: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
What we often overlook is that the world into which Jesus Christ spoke these words was a time of one of the most powerful and ruthless dictatorships – the Roman Empire. Most people had no vote and there was no such thing as free speech. Say a word against the emperor and you could be jailed.
In his Letter to the Philippians Paul the Apostle applies Jesus’ words when he writes: Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world (2:14f).
Shine like stars. God wants us to shine like heavenly bodies in a crooked and corrupt world, a world of darkness and despair. But, Paul notes, ‘as stars in the world’ or, to use Jesus’ words, as ‘the light of the world’, we face a danger: As we stand together and work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12), we will encounter difficulties, hardships and frustrations. The sacrifices we have to make in dealing with people around us will lead us, in tough times, to grumble, to complain, to be bitter, and even to fight amongst ourselves.
You may know the lines: ‘To dwell above with saints we love, oh yes, that will be glory. To dwell below with saints we know, well that’s another story.’
Grumbling and complaining will make us blemished. The blazing witness of our lives and our church will dim or even be extinguished. Paul is saying that where the people of Israel failed, you ought to succeed for God is at work in you enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is a new feature of the new covenant. God’s Spirit is at work in us.
LIGHT OF THE WORLD
We are to shine as the stars of the sky, not in our own strength but in the strength of God himself. As heavenly lights, God’s people in Philippi and we today, are to shine in the world – a world that is crooked and twisted because it’s a world that is in darkness and despair, without ‘conviction’ and without ‘meaning’, because it rejects its God.
When people come to know we are Christian they will observe us. They want to know whether we are genuine, whether what we profess is changing us for the better – making us someone they might respect. For deep within many hearts is a cry for help.
We often forget a significant line in the Book of Ecclesiastes 3:11 – God has put eternityinto the mind of men and women, yet they cannot find out what he has done from the beginning to the end. God has given everyone a sense that life doesn’t end at the grave.
It’s a point I find that can be readily introduced into a conversation: ‘There’s more to life than what we have now’. And most agree. This in turn often opens up an opportunity to speak about God in a way that Paul did in his address to the Athenian intelligentsia (Acts 17:22-31). It’s worth working at this, for God has invited us to partner with him in revealing himself to the world.
Through the light of our lives others will be drawn to find out who we are and what makes us a dependable and joy-filled people whatever the circumstance of life. If we have taken Jesus’ Beatitudes to heart, and by his grace are living them out, others will notice. In turn, through the words of our lips people around us will come to hear God’s gospel, enabling them to glorify God on the final day. All of us have a part to play for we are called to be the light of the world.
Up until the 1970s there was an agreed morality in the West, grounded in the Judaeo-Christian ethic. As I indicated last week, this was the foundation for what developed, from the time of Alfred the Great, as the ‘Common Law’ of England and Great Britain. This was also influential in the development of laws in the United States, Canada and Australia.
At the heart of the ‘Common Law’ there was also something else. Monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, as well as justices of the courts of law, understood that they were accountable to a higher authority, the perfect lawmaker, God himself. Not that any of this made everyone Christian. But in bringing the light of God’s truth to bear it encouraged people to sort out their relationship with God.
AGE OF RELATIVITY
Now all has changed. Few leaders in government or in society today would challenge the prevailing assumption that there is no morally binding objective authority or truth above the individual. Today words such as true and false, right and wrong, good and bad, have lost their objective meaning. Everything is relative. We are in a world without compass bearings.
There is at least one person who is at odds with these ideas: Jesus Christ. Today we turn to a second command he lays on his followers: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house…”(Matthew 5:14f).
‘Light’ is a metaphor for truth. Because we live in an age of relativism and tolerance we easily lose the impact of this imagery. We don’t see the moral darkness of life around us, let alone in our own lives. Part of the problem is the prevailing ethos that there are no absolutes.
Into our world which reckons it has the answers, Jesus says to anyone who follows him: “You are the light of the world…” Two ideas stand behind his words. The first is Isaiah 9 where the prophet speaks of the people walking in darkness and seeing a great light. On those living in a land where the shadow of death falls, a light has dawned. A child will be born. He will be called “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Isaiah was foreshadowing the birth of God’s King. Jesus is the light our world desperately needs. We may treat him as a cute little baby at Christmas, nod our heads sagely when the words of Isaiah are read, but ignore him for the rest of our lives. Yet Jesus doesn’t remain silent. He calls upon those who would follow him to be as a light to the world.
Jesus’ reference to lightpicks up another promise from Isaiah: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you(Isaiah 60:1). This theme is taken up in John 1:14 – And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son,* full of grace and truth.God has come to us in Jesus Christ.
During the course of his public life, thousands were drawn to him. Following his death and resurrection millions upon millions continue to come to him, worshipping him as the Lord and Savior of the world. People everywhere have come to see him as the light of the world.
WALKING IN THE LIGHT
‘How then can we be the light of the world?’ we ask. The context of Jesus’ words gives us the clue: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven…” (Matthew 5:16).
‘Everything you are, everything you do,’ Jesus is saying to us, ‘must reflect all that I have taught you’ (the Beatitudes, for example). ‘Live your life as I command and others will be drawn to hear God’s gospel. It won’t happen otherwise.’ It’s an awesome thought. We’re all involved. No-one who calls themselves a Christian is exempt. All of us are commanded to reflect the light of Christ in our lives to the world.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer commented: ‘Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.’
The title of Woody Allen’s 2009 movie, ‘Whatever Works’ captures the mood of post-modern ethics. Starting with the presupposition that great thinkers like Jesus or Karl Marx were great teachers, the movie contends that religions work from the fallacy that people are inherently good. Life as we know it now, is all there is. There is no God; no final accounting. Part of life’s challenge is to find moments of love and joy. So, we need to do, ‘Whatever Works…’
The moral subjectivism of the movie seems so plausible, tolerant, and so mature. There’s no guilt in life, only disappointments. Because we all die we should do whatever works to make us happy.
One of the strengths of societies that have been framed by the ‘Common Law’, introduced in England in the 9th century by Alfred the Great, is that they have a moral framework. Much refined over the following centuries, this ‘Common Law’ is framed with reference to the Mosaic Law and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount’. This in turn has shaped the laws of England and Britain as a whole, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
King Alfred, a professing Christian, was not only a capable military strategist but also a wise and visionary ruler. It seems that because he knew the Christ who had taught the Beatitudes, he worked for peaceful solutions even with the most ruthless of his enemies. As one historian comments: Alfred had the wisdom to realize that the sword, though powerful to defend, could settle nothing permanently, and that only the conquest of the heart could endure (Arthur Bryant, The Story of England: Makers of the Realm, 1953).
SALT OF THE EARTH
Why did King Alfred respond the way he did? Clearly he understood not only Jesus’ Beatitudes, but also Jesus’ following words: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot…”(Matthew 5:13).
Salt. In Jesus’ day salt was used for a number of purposes – as seasoning to bring out the flavor of food, and also as a preservative. At a time of no refrigeration, salt was rubbed into fresh meat to prevent it from rotting. Jesus is saying that his followers are to act as a preservative in the world — to slow down the decay. This is what King Alfred was endeavoring to do in 9th century England. And as we look back over history, we see he was laying the foundation for a great nation.
COUNTER-CULTURAL LIFE OF JESUS
This becomes our challenge today. If we are to stand against the dehumanizing elements of our world, we need to be ready to understand the counter-cultural life Jesus calls us to live. We also need the grace and the wisdom to live it. Only when we are willing to stand up and do this as God’s people will we stop the rot. But this will only happen if we ourselves don’t become insipid. That’s why Jesus goes on to warn against salt losing its saltiness.
Now, strictly speaking salt can’t lose its saltiness. NaCl is a stable compound. However, in the ancient world salt was obtained from salt marshes rather than through the evaporation of sea water. There were many impurities in it. And there’s also a play on words here that Jesus’ first hearers would have picked up. ‘Salt’ in Aramaic is Tabel. And there’s a word very close to it, Tapel which means fool. ‘Watch out,’ Jesus is saying, ‘that you don’t become insipid, wishy-washy followers and so make fools of yourselves.’
What a warning. ‘If you call yourself a follower of mine,’ Jesus is saying, ‘your life will be different.’ So we need to ask: How do other people see us? Do we go to church but our life remains unchanged? Is our life shaped by the culture or by the Bible? Are we just as unforgiving, just as greedy and selfish as everyone around us? ‘If you call yourself a follower of mine,’ Jesus says, ‘let your life be transformed by my words, for You are the salt of the earth.’
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falselyon my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you’(Matthew 5:10-12).
With these words – a double ‘Beatitude’ – Jesus concludes his words of ‘Blessing’. And what a note on which to finish: suffering and persecution. In our relatively comfortable western world we might feel uneasy with
Jesus’ words here. Yet we know how true is the reality of persecution against his followers. We hear accounts of the barbaric cruelty perpetrated against God’s people by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
POLITICS
In November 2012, Dr. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, observed that Christians are the most persecuted religion in the world. Yet for the most part the western world remains either ignorant or silent – implying perhaps a desire not to get involved or a disinterest in matters of justice towards Christians.
There is nothing new in this. Many of Jesus’ early followers suffered persecution and even death for their commitment to him as the Messiah. Indeed under Nero, such were the atrocities perpetrated against God’s people that, according to the Roman historian Tacitus who was far from supportive of Christians, even many in the wider Roman society took pity on them (Tacitus, Annals, Book 15 [44]).
Persecution can take many forms. There’s the more obvious form of physical hardship, torture, imprisonment, death. But there are more subtle forms – mocking and personal rejection. In one way this beatitude is the most searching of all. If a follower of Jesus never experiences some kind of mocking or rejection, just how much of a follower are they?
Now we should notice what Jesus is not saying. He is not saying, ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because they are difficult or awkward people or because they are religious fanatics’. No. Jesus restricts the blessing to those who suffer persecution because of righteousness— people who are determined to live as Jesus lived.
PLEASING TO GOD
It is significant that Jesus calls for a commitment to righteousness, for this is something that pleases a righteous God. Martin Luther, who himself faced persecution and threat of death, observed: ‘The command to you is not to crawl into a corner or into the desert, but to run out, if that is where we have been, and to offer your hands and your feet and your whole body, and to wager everything you have and can do.’ He continues, ‘What is required is a hunger and thirst for righteousness that can never be curbed or stopped or sated, one that looks for nothing and cares for nothing except the accomplishment and maintenance of the right, despising everything that hinders this end. If you cannot make the world completely pious, then do what you can.’
It is only when we can sit light to the things of this world and do all that we can do serve the righteousness of a righteous God that we will receive the blessing of joy of which Jesus speaks. As John Stott has commented, ‘Commitment to Jesus Christ means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that we should be called upon to suffer. In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace.’
Who then are the really ‘blessed’? Who are the ones who have God’s approval? As we look at what Jesus is saying with these ‘Beatitudes’, he is expecting his followers to undergo radical changes. ‘Instead of feeling proud of your relationship with God,’ he is saying, ‘understand your poverty before God. Instead of being indifferent towards unbelievers feel the pain for a world that is thumbing its nose at God.’
‘Instead of adopting the power play and plotting of the world to achieve kingdom ends, walk the tougher path of humility and service. Hunger for truth and righteousness. Show mercy. Pursue purity. Work for peace. Reckon on the reality that life won’t always be easy for you as one of my people,’ he is saying. ‘But stay with me. It will be worth every bit of it.’
John Stott concludes: ‘The culture of the world and the counter-culture of Christ are at logger heads with each other… Jesus congratulates those whom the world most pities, and calls the world’s rejects, blessed.’
Two millennia ago angels sang “peace and goodwill to all” at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:14). But the world hasn’t got any better. Indeed, while peace is something we all long for, it is one thing the world does not have.
The reality is that everywhere there are tensions, injustices, and conflicts. It is estimated that more people were killed in the twentieth century in war than the total number in previous centuries. And now the twenty-first century doesn’t seem to be any better. Almost daily we learn of the most appalling atrocities being perpetrated in the Middle East and in other places. ‘Where then,’ we ask, ‘is the evidence of the fulfilment of the angels’ words?’
Before we charge the angels with false advertising, we need to remember the full text of their song: “Glory to God in the highest, peace towards all on whom God’s favor rests.” It is quite clear from this that the specific beneficiaries of the angels’ promise are the people of God.
THE PEACEMAKER
An important question for us to ask then is this, ‘What was the point of Jesus’ life?’ The night he was born the angels spoke of him being Savior and the Christ: a title meaning ‘king’. Was this prediction just another false hope? After all parents love to think that their babies are full of promise. In the United States many parents dream of their child being President one day!
So what kind of person did Jesus turn out to be? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all tell us that in his adult life Jesus displayed the kind of authority we would expect God’s king to possess. He healed the sick, the blind, and the paralyzed. He overcame the powers of evil. He offered forgiveness of sins and even raised the dead to life. No matter what was thrown at him he showed he was in control. But there was more.
Jesus knew that what men and women needed most was not a lawmaker or a social worker. We needed someone to deal with our deepest problem – our broken relationships, with God and with one another. He knew the only remedy for this was a cross where a sacrifice to address this brokenness would be made once and for all. It is the divine, costly work of Jesus’ death that enables the healing of our broken relationship with God, and with one another, making peace. No wonder the angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, ‘shalom’, ‘peace’.
When we consider these things we feel the impact of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.”Peacemakers have first found peace with God through Jesus Christ. They are God’s sons and daughters.
MAKING PEACE
Jesus now teaches us to make peace with those around us. He is anticipating that his people will be involved in the work of peace-making by telling others of God’s good news. He is also expecting his followers to be peacemakers in the sense that they are to be at the forefront of seeking solutions to ease tensions and reduce conflict, working so that people understand one another – within the church and in the wider community.
This task isn’t always easy, especially when we’ve been hurt by others. It’s often hard to forgive, to be reconciled, and make peace. When we are in the midst of injury and conflict, it’s easy to forget that ‘a soft answer turns away wrath’ (Proverbs 15:1), and that we should not let ‘the sun to go down on our anger’ (Ephesians 4:26).
Furthermore, to forgive does not necessarily mean being reconciled. If someone has wronged us they need to repent and ask our forgiveness. To be a peacemaker means that we do everything we can to bring about harmony. Usually a cost is involved. It also means we don’t bear grudges or nurse our anger.
And, there is something else: peace-making does not mean church unity at any price. Jesus himself said: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
GRACE AND PEACE
Making peace amongst God’s people requires us to understand God through his Word and, by God’s grace, to put this understanding into practice. As Paul the Apostle says in his Letter to the Colossians, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful (Colossians 3:15).
