Sermon of the Month - December 2009
Series Introduction: Changing World; Constant Faith
Readings: Isaiah 43: 14-19; Zechariah 4:1-10; 1 Corinthians 9:16-27
Welcome to 2010! The twentieth century is over; the so-called Noughties of the 21st century are also behind us. Now we’re in what the media will inevitably call the Teenies. 2010-2019: time for a bit of teenage angst in our culture?...
The world has changed; it has changed enormously. And we are facing a new series of major issues today. The Copenhagen summit is over, but the issue of global warming will not go away. Meanwhile technology continues to advance. What were your Christmas presents? An iPod? Mobile? Digital Radio? PC? Some DVDs? Or Audio CDs? Game-boy? Or some new vidoe games? Blu-Ray, HD, flat-screen? And the techies in the world wonder whether the technology which has added to global warming will also solve it. Today we are all used to computers, e-mail, the internet, mobiles, and the younger minded are well into blogging, texting, tweeting and the rest. What will another decade of change bring us?
Christians are of course affected; churches are affected. We have data screens, amplification for our musicians and speakers, our computers in the Office and here can access Broadband and so on.
The issues of the world change and we change with them. What does it mean to be a Christian in such a changing world? Over the next few weeks, we will try to gain some perspective as Christians. For I believe we live in a changing world, but we need a constant faith. Our faith must and will help us to adapt and respond to the issues of our times. But what are these changes?
Technological change is so visible we can immediately identify it. But other changes can be more far-reaching. We live in a globalised world: if something happens in one country, others are increasingly affected. If we have major recession, a credit crunch caused initially by problems with the Sub-Prime market in the United States, in short order we are all affected. So far, the actions taken have prevented a major recession escalating into a 30’s style slump. But we are in uncharted territory here. Will we slowly emerge from recession, gradually but consistently rising from economic downturn, or is there worse to come? We don’t know yet. What happens in China may hold the clue to how well or how badly we do in Britain during this decade. That’s a reminder we live in a globalised world now, whether we like it or not.
Globalisation has been affecting the military factor for some time now. In the 20th century we had World War I and World War II; then, from 1945-91 we had the Cold War, a battle fought not directly but indirectly, in Latin America, Africa and Asia – as in Cuba, Angola Korea and Vietnam for example. In many ways that old battle is over. But we have a new global battle today. President Bush called it the war on terror. Others called it ‘the clash of civilisations’. Since 9/11 and 7/7 we have become increasingly aware of the way religion and politics mix in this. What should we make of Islam and the Islamist radicalism which we see in Al Qa’eda, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the rest of them?
Then if you want to talk of massive change in the last 100 years, think of the changes in the rôle of the sexes. 100 years ago women did not have the vote in Britain, and only among Quakers and the Salvation Army were women equal in leadership in the churches. The changing political and economic rôles of men and women are only part of the chnage of course. We have had massive changes relating to sex and sexuality, gender issues and sexual orientation. These changes shape the world we now live in, and certainly affect us as Christians and in our churches.
Meanwhile, for all the advances of technology, and all the scentific breakthroughs, actually our society is far more uncertain, sceptical even about science. The old certainties that science would blow away all the fog of confusion have not proved true. When it comes to the question of truth, what is true, we have seen a growth in a consumerist culture in conflict with science. Surely the truth is what the majority of people say it is. Right? Wrong? A democratic, consumerist mindset says that the truth is what most people say it is. And scientists are fighting a reaguard battle against that just as much as people like us, believers in God. You can see this in the debates such as they are, about global warming. If most people don’t believe in global warming, that means it won’t happen?
That’s our changing world. Our readings from Isaiah and Zechariah will help us respond. But first, another reading – from 1 Cor.9:16-27.
#1: We’re All So Different Now
1. Changing Church?
We could speak about so much more in the world. But we need to see that the place of Christians and the Church has changed too. From about 400 to about 1967, the majority of Christians looked like us – European; white. But over the last 40 years, the majority reflect the Two-Thirds World – darker-skinned than us. We tend to think of Christians as a small, dwlindling minority. But in the world, Christians are growing. Well over 2 billion people globally see themselves as Christian, over a third of the world’s population. Actually Europe is broadly the only part of the world that has not experienced a global revival over recent decades. There are more Baptists in Burma than in Britain; there are more Christians in China than there are people in Britain! The world is changing.
We live in Britain, however, and what God gives us will help us for our changing situation here. In the 19th century, Liberal ideas grew. People tried to be both modern and Christian by ditching things they found difficult. In the 20th century, that way collapsed, and we saw the growth of first evangelical and then charismatic forms of faith. These grew as believing in something and experiencing something that the secular world couldn’t give was far more relevant than watered-down secularist religion. Now in the 21st century, yes I am sure that elements of this evangelical and charismatic dimension will shape our faith, but there is a recongition we will need something new to reach a new post-Christian culture.
2. Changing God?
It may come as a surprise, but the answer to our need for change – “Change we can believe in” if I can pinch President Obama’s catch-phrase – comes in God. But God in unchanging, we rightly say. Yes. But he is the Creator and the Creative God who can help us respond to all changes. Isaiah 43:19, God says through the prophet: See I am doing a new thing. These words were spoken to a broken, exiled, defeated people. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. In the place where there is no life, life will spring up.
That is certainly a message for us today. God wants to do a new thing in our lives, in our churches, in our countries, in our world. The old things are no longer good enough. Isaiah 43: 18: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing!
The most important thing about this is that it is God’s new thing. This is not a call to arms, a call to us to convert the world, to take on an unbelieving world, not a call to us to implement the kingdom of God on earth, to enforce a heavenly take-over of the earth, as if such a thing were possible. The new thing is God’s. It is God. First and foremost we need God, need to know God, we need to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind; we need a God-centred, God-focussed, God-inspired people. Let us be a people of prayer, a people who love God, a people who learn once more to long for what God wants to give us.
Zecharaiah 4: I did not select that because of the famous words in verse 6 – though they are important too, but for verse 10, which I believe is a word for our times: Who despises the day of small things? In Zechariah’s time they despised the day of small things. The good old days were far better. In the older days, before the exile, Jerusalem was great, the Temple was great, Judah was great. Now it was a day of small things. But God was rebuilding his people from these small beginnings. We tend to despise the day of small things. Can’t we just have a fantastic new form of evangelism to blast the world with? After all, God’s got infinite power. What could we do with the infinite power of God in our hands to bring in the kingdom of God! It’s because we are tempted to think like this that God is so counter-cultural with us. He will start something, so small we don’t notice it. But he will change the world. He wants us to see that the real changes, the real victories don’t come from us and our big armies, our big campaigns, and our big ideas. Zechariah 4:6: Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord God Almighty.
Gideon had an army of 32,000 to defeat the Mideanites, but God persuaded him to whittle it down to just 300, so they could see it was his work not theirs. 300 people to defeat an entire invasion? Just 120 people on the day of Pentecost. You won’t find it mentioned in the secular histories because it was too small. But through these 120 – and the Holy Spirit – 2000 years later we have 2 billion honouring the name of Jesus. I don’t think if you read the London Times for 24 May 1738 you would find any mention of a meeting at Aldersgate Street, or of an unremarkable Anglican priest named John Wesley, but that day, one of God’s small things changed the world: Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed and the revolution that God brings about, the change of a man’s life happened. And through him thousands were changed. And God is acting today.
3. Fresh Expressions
Time does not permit me to do more than simply flag up some headlines. In dozens of churches God is starting a new thing. These are too small to catch the media’s atention just yet: Fresh Expressions of church, pioneering experiments in new ways of reaching people who are spritiually hungry, but disconnected from church in both its traditional and its contemporary charismatic and evangelical forms. New experiments with unlikely names – like “Mind the Gap” in the North-East – reaching out to people in all sorts of imaginative ways.
We’re all so different now. And one response to this is to recognise that a ‘one size fits all’ version of church won’t attract anything like the number of people the diverse approaches will. There will be a few megachurches, because some people will be strongly attracted to and helped by such communities. But far more people will not find them helpful. And we need to learn to diversify. One way will be to support a range of new Fresh Expressions.
In the last month Costa Coffee opened up in Hinckley. They have ben open to their places being used for Café Church, as have Starbucks. Already some Christians in Hinckley are talking about attempting to have a go at a kind of Café Church here on Catsle Street. Will it happen? Will it succeed? We don’t know yet. These are today’s questions.
But another response to this need to diversify will be to diversify within worship. Already you can see within Spring Harvest. If like me you went along in the 80s or early 90s, you will have seen a major Big Top service, and smaller versions of the same thing on the site. The only diversity came with Family Services. But by the “Noughties” a growing range of worship services and opportunities was provided, including the Celtic approach, and so many others.
I believe that in our church, both through the week and within Sunday worship, as the 21st century progresses we will find it helpful to diversify – as much as our resources permit.
And in all this, we need to keep the focus absolutely dead centre on God. I have found that if you want to stay true to God and do what he wants, you need to look at what he is already doing. What is God doing? What is the Spirit already doing? What is God already blessing?
Here in HBC, we have found God profoundly at work. He is already at work among our young people; let’s pray for more of that, and pray that the rest of us can see and know the Spirit powerfully at work in our lives too. He has strongly blessed us through Pathways. Let’s see what God is saying to us through that, and join in his work.
Later:
The sermon was followed later in the service by an update on the work being done through the Pathways Centre, led by Sue Steer, and including Mandy Wright speaking on the developments in train for the launch of our own “Fresh Expressions”, and then I invited all those involved in the Pathways Centre, Silver Surfers, Community Café and the rest to come forward for us to pray with and for them. A large group of our supporting workers came forward for that time of prayer support.