In, But Not Of The World: A Spiritually Enriching, Liberating Experience
Sermon
A Word That Sets Free
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Last Third) Cycle C
"What's important to me in my walk of faith is my relationship with God. Next comes my family. Christianity is about things of the spirit, not about the ways of the world." Many American Christians (perhaps some in this parish) feel this way. How about you? Does a Christian have a responsibility for society? Should the Church play a role in trying to turn American society around?
Let me try to answer those questions by asking you a question. Do you believe what the Bible teaches? If so, let's see what our First Lesson from the book of Jeremiah proclaims.
The text we are considering from Jeremiah for this Sunday is part of a letter written after Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and many Hebrews had been sent into exile in the foreign land of Babylon. Life for these exiles was not excessively harsh. They were not prisoners of war, but were allowed to meet and confer freely. They were treated like resident aliens. (Our lesson from Jeremiah implies this [vv.4-7].)1
The life of the Jewish exiles in Babylon might even be compared to the status of Christians in the world. They (we) live in the world, but are not really of the world (John 17:14-16). That is precisely the point. This text, written to the Babylonian exiles who were both residents of Babylon, but not of that empire, is a text that speaks directly to us Christians. We share with the ancient Hebrew Babylonian exiles a very similar situation.
Essentially Jeremiah wrote to the leaders of the exiles to tell them that they needed to make plans to stay in Babylon a long time. (Apparently they had heard from others that they could expect a speedy return home to Judah [Jeremiah 27:14].) We Christians have been dwelling in this "foreign land" of ours for nearly 2,000 years; Christ's Second Coming to bring us "home" to the fully-realized Kingdom of God does not seem to be something that is going to happen soon. Like the Hebrew exiles in Babylon. we need to build our homes in the world, make arrangements to support ourselves, and think about the possibility of our sons and daughters marrying outside the Christian family (Jeremiah 29:5-7).
All right, these are the sorts of things you do when you are a resident-alien in a foreign land. However, God had Jeremiah give the Hebrew exiles and us Christians some advice that really blows your mind. Listen to the actual words of Jeremiah, as God gave them to him. They are spoken to you: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (v. 7).
Work for the welfare of the city in which you find yourself, and pray on behalf of that city. In one sense this does not seem like very sensible advice. It certainly must have gone against the grain of the Hebrew exiles. After all, for them the one place on earth where God had decreed them to live was Israel. The one place where God dwelt was there (in the Temple in Jerusalem). But now they were being told to redefine these religious commitments. They were directed to seek God and serve him in new territory, not on sacred turf, but in the secular realm.
In this Bible lesson is God asking you and me to redefine our Christian commitments too? He seems to be telling us that, although as Christians our real home is in the things of the Spirit, we not only need to live in the world, but we will also have some of our richest spiritual experiences and opportunities to participate in God's liberating work, in worldly moments. The Church is not the only place for spirituality and for hearing God's freeing Word. Let us carefully reconsider Jeremiah's words in order to see very clearly how spiritual our immersion in worldly affairs can be.
First, note that Jeremiah wants the Hebrew exiles and us to pray on behalf of the welfare of the world. Praying for yourself or just for your friends is selfish prayer. To pray for others, especially those who take no account of our wishes or our rights, is a powerful antidote to combat our selfishness, which is the essence of sin.2 Prayer for others, especially for those not of the family of faith, helps us crucify our sin, and so is a wonderful occasion for practicing the Christian life!
Remember that Paul teaches in Romans 6 that in our baptism the old self filled with sin has been crucified so that our new Christ-like self could rise (or emerge). Christian life involves living this baptismal experience -- saying, "No," to your sinful selfish self in order to rise to a life full of Christ and your neighbor. That denying of yourself and your selfish desire begins to happen when you pray for others, especially for others who do not belong to you or are not part of your kin. In such prayer you put God and the welfare of God's creatures ahead of yourself.
That is a very freeing experience, when you are not so hung up on yourself that you come to care about God and others. At those times your personal anxieties are not so binding as they used to be; you are a little freer. Living fully in the world, caring for it so much that you pray for it, is an opportunity for enriching your spiritual life, for living out the self-denying lifestyle that your baptism lures you to embrace.
To this juncture I have been talking more about what being in and not of the world can do for you and me as individuals. But the kind of lifestyle that Jeremiah and I are extolling can do a lot for the world, and for our community, too.
The sixteenth-century founder of Lutheranism, Martin Luther, went so far as to say that Christians keep the world afloat. In a sermon in 1537, he put it this way:
... in both the spiritual and the temporal realms the very greatest works in the world -- even though they are not recognized and acknowledged as such -- are continually performed by Christians ... Consequently, the Christians are genuine saviors, yes, lords and gods of the world ... God does not want it forgotten that whatever possessions and power the world has it holds in fee from the beggars described by St. Paul (2 Corinthians 6:19) "as having nothing, and yet possessing everything." Everything that God grants the world he gives because of Christians.3
I am not sure that I agree entirely with Luther at this point. There are plenty of non-Christians who contribute profoundly to our world and to the well-being of our community. However, the reformer has a real point in calling attention to the contributions that we Christians can and do make to society. We do it through our prayers.
We have been talking about that. As we try to bring the Good News of Jesus to the world so that the world may be saved, we also make a contribution to the world. Our Second Lesson makes this point, claiming that this concern is what kept Saint Paul going (2 Timothy 2:10). The Christian contribution to the world also surfaces in less clearly spiritual, more worldly ways. When you get to work tomorrow, you have a great opportunity to contribute to society. You do that by undertaking your job to serve the whole human community. Work in that spirit, doing it to glorify God, and you will be making a profound contribution to the world. We have previously talked about this. (See the sermon for Proper 21.)
We Christians can also contribute to the welfare of the world in a very special way by virtue of our status of being in, but not of the world. Because we are aliens in the world, sort of like those exiles in Babylon to whom Jeremiah wrote, we may be less prone to work only for ourselves. After all, as aliens we can never make the world our own, just as a Hebrew could never have become the Babylonian Emperor. To the degree that we don't get sucked into the world, and keep on being Christian in our outlook, we will not so readily get lured into the world's power games. Society needs people like that. A community's health depends on some checking of individual egoism in order to comprehend the interests of others and enlarge areas of cooperation.4
Think of that when you drive home. Road safety depends on drivers suppressing their egotistical desires (to get home quickly) in interests of the greater good (road safety for everyone). I need to stop at that red light in order to protect everyone's safety, even though my ego tells me to run that light so I can get home sooner. Society needs people who will not get into ego satisfaction at the expense of the good of the whole. Christians are people who, when they live their faith, will say, "No," to themselves for the sake of their neighbor. We are like those Hebrew exiles in Babylon called to forego a narrow focus on returning home to Israel in order to seek to enhance the welfare of the land in which they were living (Jeremiah 29:7).
The world, American society, is certainly caught up in self-seeking, in the quest for self-fulfilment. It is why the family structure and other moral standards are breaking down. There is a sense in which all societies are rooted in or held together by such self-seeking. When it gets out of hand, though, Christians and their Church need to get their hands dirty in social and political movements, advocating and witnessing to an alternative lifestyle -- to a life that does not care about self-fulfilment or power. That is the kind of lifestyle to which Jeremiah is calling you.
Work for the good of society as a whole, not just for yourself or your own group. Seek the fellowship with all human beings for which Martin Luther King, Jr., called, one beyond your race, tribe, class, and nation. Be like an apple tree that Martin Luther wants Christians to emulate, one that offers its fruit to everyone, even to swines.5
Christian, get your hands dirty in the affairs of society and of your community. Get out of this building, out of your family and network of friends and coworkers, then go and serve! This church needs to become more active in this community, to support community organizations, for the same reason. The world is depending on us. It needs more people who do not give into themselves and their egos.
Are Jeremiah and I asking you to forego the spiritual quest, to put them on the back-burner for the sake of worldly pursuits? No way. We ask you to be in the world, not of it. Get in the world, but don't do the world's egocentric "thing."
An ancient African theologian, Augustine, says that when you get into community affairs in a selfless loving way, trying not to feed your ego, you will see God more clearly than if you had not. Because God is love, if you do not have a self-emptying agape love for all your neighbors, you will not recognize God when he comes to you. But when you do practice loving all God's people, you must love love itself, and because God is love, loving God's people will make you love God more.6 Again it is obvious how and why getting involved, getting this church involved in the affairs of the world, can facilitate a closer walk with God.
Of course I do not want to give you the wrong impression. You and I cannot make ourselves live the sort of in, but not of the world lifestyle about which Jeremiah speaks. On our own we cannot live the baptismal life that involves the daily crucifixion of sin and selfishness and the freedom that comes from living for all our neighbors and for Christ. Those things only happen because God makes them happen to us. Remember you did not baptize yourself; God did it. The ancient Hebrews who lived in, but not of the world (of the Babylonian Empire) did not place themselves in that situation. It was all God's decision and work that brought them to Babylon. Likewise it is the same with you and me and our efforts to live in but not of the world. God puts us in that situation.
The vision of Christian life that Jeremiah and I have extolled in this sermon has not been a demand that you start living differently. We have just been describing who you already are. You see, Christians, you are not of this world. But you are in it. You may as well be yourself, be the person you are. This world is not really what you want. You'll only be happy, only be true to the "you" that God has made you to be, when you live a life for the world (a life dedicated to making things better in the world).
No, Jeremiah and I as God's mouthpieces and puppets are not telling you what you must do. You are too free for more rules. We just want you to be aware of the situation in which God has placed you, as a creature who is in and not of the world. When you recognize that you do not have a real stake in the things of the world except to see it as an opportunity to love God by loving his creatures and the things he has made, you will not be able to stop showering love and compassion on the world and its creatures. You will do all that for the glory of God. Being in the world, engaging in activities that can help the world, is a fulfilling, liberating, spiritual experience that will make God more real in your life. Christians, get out of here and get in the community, in the world, where you belong!
____________
1. G. W. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 141.
2. For this insight I am indebted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1968), p. 160.
3. Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of John (1537), in Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 82.
4. For an elaboration of these themes, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Men and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), pp. 274-276.
5. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); Martin Luther, Sermons of 1532, in Weimar Ausgabe, Vol. 36, pp. 456-457.
6. Augustine, Homilies on the First Letter of John (415), IX.10-11.
Let me try to answer those questions by asking you a question. Do you believe what the Bible teaches? If so, let's see what our First Lesson from the book of Jeremiah proclaims.
The text we are considering from Jeremiah for this Sunday is part of a letter written after Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and many Hebrews had been sent into exile in the foreign land of Babylon. Life for these exiles was not excessively harsh. They were not prisoners of war, but were allowed to meet and confer freely. They were treated like resident aliens. (Our lesson from Jeremiah implies this [vv.4-7].)1
The life of the Jewish exiles in Babylon might even be compared to the status of Christians in the world. They (we) live in the world, but are not really of the world (John 17:14-16). That is precisely the point. This text, written to the Babylonian exiles who were both residents of Babylon, but not of that empire, is a text that speaks directly to us Christians. We share with the ancient Hebrew Babylonian exiles a very similar situation.
Essentially Jeremiah wrote to the leaders of the exiles to tell them that they needed to make plans to stay in Babylon a long time. (Apparently they had heard from others that they could expect a speedy return home to Judah [Jeremiah 27:14].) We Christians have been dwelling in this "foreign land" of ours for nearly 2,000 years; Christ's Second Coming to bring us "home" to the fully-realized Kingdom of God does not seem to be something that is going to happen soon. Like the Hebrew exiles in Babylon. we need to build our homes in the world, make arrangements to support ourselves, and think about the possibility of our sons and daughters marrying outside the Christian family (Jeremiah 29:5-7).
All right, these are the sorts of things you do when you are a resident-alien in a foreign land. However, God had Jeremiah give the Hebrew exiles and us Christians some advice that really blows your mind. Listen to the actual words of Jeremiah, as God gave them to him. They are spoken to you: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (v. 7).
Work for the welfare of the city in which you find yourself, and pray on behalf of that city. In one sense this does not seem like very sensible advice. It certainly must have gone against the grain of the Hebrew exiles. After all, for them the one place on earth where God had decreed them to live was Israel. The one place where God dwelt was there (in the Temple in Jerusalem). But now they were being told to redefine these religious commitments. They were directed to seek God and serve him in new territory, not on sacred turf, but in the secular realm.
In this Bible lesson is God asking you and me to redefine our Christian commitments too? He seems to be telling us that, although as Christians our real home is in the things of the Spirit, we not only need to live in the world, but we will also have some of our richest spiritual experiences and opportunities to participate in God's liberating work, in worldly moments. The Church is not the only place for spirituality and for hearing God's freeing Word. Let us carefully reconsider Jeremiah's words in order to see very clearly how spiritual our immersion in worldly affairs can be.
First, note that Jeremiah wants the Hebrew exiles and us to pray on behalf of the welfare of the world. Praying for yourself or just for your friends is selfish prayer. To pray for others, especially those who take no account of our wishes or our rights, is a powerful antidote to combat our selfishness, which is the essence of sin.2 Prayer for others, especially for those not of the family of faith, helps us crucify our sin, and so is a wonderful occasion for practicing the Christian life!
Remember that Paul teaches in Romans 6 that in our baptism the old self filled with sin has been crucified so that our new Christ-like self could rise (or emerge). Christian life involves living this baptismal experience -- saying, "No," to your sinful selfish self in order to rise to a life full of Christ and your neighbor. That denying of yourself and your selfish desire begins to happen when you pray for others, especially for others who do not belong to you or are not part of your kin. In such prayer you put God and the welfare of God's creatures ahead of yourself.
That is a very freeing experience, when you are not so hung up on yourself that you come to care about God and others. At those times your personal anxieties are not so binding as they used to be; you are a little freer. Living fully in the world, caring for it so much that you pray for it, is an opportunity for enriching your spiritual life, for living out the self-denying lifestyle that your baptism lures you to embrace.
To this juncture I have been talking more about what being in and not of the world can do for you and me as individuals. But the kind of lifestyle that Jeremiah and I are extolling can do a lot for the world, and for our community, too.
The sixteenth-century founder of Lutheranism, Martin Luther, went so far as to say that Christians keep the world afloat. In a sermon in 1537, he put it this way:
... in both the spiritual and the temporal realms the very greatest works in the world -- even though they are not recognized and acknowledged as such -- are continually performed by Christians ... Consequently, the Christians are genuine saviors, yes, lords and gods of the world ... God does not want it forgotten that whatever possessions and power the world has it holds in fee from the beggars described by St. Paul (2 Corinthians 6:19) "as having nothing, and yet possessing everything." Everything that God grants the world he gives because of Christians.3
I am not sure that I agree entirely with Luther at this point. There are plenty of non-Christians who contribute profoundly to our world and to the well-being of our community. However, the reformer has a real point in calling attention to the contributions that we Christians can and do make to society. We do it through our prayers.
We have been talking about that. As we try to bring the Good News of Jesus to the world so that the world may be saved, we also make a contribution to the world. Our Second Lesson makes this point, claiming that this concern is what kept Saint Paul going (2 Timothy 2:10). The Christian contribution to the world also surfaces in less clearly spiritual, more worldly ways. When you get to work tomorrow, you have a great opportunity to contribute to society. You do that by undertaking your job to serve the whole human community. Work in that spirit, doing it to glorify God, and you will be making a profound contribution to the world. We have previously talked about this. (See the sermon for Proper 21.)
We Christians can also contribute to the welfare of the world in a very special way by virtue of our status of being in, but not of the world. Because we are aliens in the world, sort of like those exiles in Babylon to whom Jeremiah wrote, we may be less prone to work only for ourselves. After all, as aliens we can never make the world our own, just as a Hebrew could never have become the Babylonian Emperor. To the degree that we don't get sucked into the world, and keep on being Christian in our outlook, we will not so readily get lured into the world's power games. Society needs people like that. A community's health depends on some checking of individual egoism in order to comprehend the interests of others and enlarge areas of cooperation.4
Think of that when you drive home. Road safety depends on drivers suppressing their egotistical desires (to get home quickly) in interests of the greater good (road safety for everyone). I need to stop at that red light in order to protect everyone's safety, even though my ego tells me to run that light so I can get home sooner. Society needs people who will not get into ego satisfaction at the expense of the good of the whole. Christians are people who, when they live their faith, will say, "No," to themselves for the sake of their neighbor. We are like those Hebrew exiles in Babylon called to forego a narrow focus on returning home to Israel in order to seek to enhance the welfare of the land in which they were living (Jeremiah 29:7).
The world, American society, is certainly caught up in self-seeking, in the quest for self-fulfilment. It is why the family structure and other moral standards are breaking down. There is a sense in which all societies are rooted in or held together by such self-seeking. When it gets out of hand, though, Christians and their Church need to get their hands dirty in social and political movements, advocating and witnessing to an alternative lifestyle -- to a life that does not care about self-fulfilment or power. That is the kind of lifestyle to which Jeremiah is calling you.
Work for the good of society as a whole, not just for yourself or your own group. Seek the fellowship with all human beings for which Martin Luther King, Jr., called, one beyond your race, tribe, class, and nation. Be like an apple tree that Martin Luther wants Christians to emulate, one that offers its fruit to everyone, even to swines.5
Christian, get your hands dirty in the affairs of society and of your community. Get out of this building, out of your family and network of friends and coworkers, then go and serve! This church needs to become more active in this community, to support community organizations, for the same reason. The world is depending on us. It needs more people who do not give into themselves and their egos.
Are Jeremiah and I asking you to forego the spiritual quest, to put them on the back-burner for the sake of worldly pursuits? No way. We ask you to be in the world, not of it. Get in the world, but don't do the world's egocentric "thing."
An ancient African theologian, Augustine, says that when you get into community affairs in a selfless loving way, trying not to feed your ego, you will see God more clearly than if you had not. Because God is love, if you do not have a self-emptying agape love for all your neighbors, you will not recognize God when he comes to you. But when you do practice loving all God's people, you must love love itself, and because God is love, loving God's people will make you love God more.6 Again it is obvious how and why getting involved, getting this church involved in the affairs of the world, can facilitate a closer walk with God.
Of course I do not want to give you the wrong impression. You and I cannot make ourselves live the sort of in, but not of the world lifestyle about which Jeremiah speaks. On our own we cannot live the baptismal life that involves the daily crucifixion of sin and selfishness and the freedom that comes from living for all our neighbors and for Christ. Those things only happen because God makes them happen to us. Remember you did not baptize yourself; God did it. The ancient Hebrews who lived in, but not of the world (of the Babylonian Empire) did not place themselves in that situation. It was all God's decision and work that brought them to Babylon. Likewise it is the same with you and me and our efforts to live in but not of the world. God puts us in that situation.
The vision of Christian life that Jeremiah and I have extolled in this sermon has not been a demand that you start living differently. We have just been describing who you already are. You see, Christians, you are not of this world. But you are in it. You may as well be yourself, be the person you are. This world is not really what you want. You'll only be happy, only be true to the "you" that God has made you to be, when you live a life for the world (a life dedicated to making things better in the world).
No, Jeremiah and I as God's mouthpieces and puppets are not telling you what you must do. You are too free for more rules. We just want you to be aware of the situation in which God has placed you, as a creature who is in and not of the world. When you recognize that you do not have a real stake in the things of the world except to see it as an opportunity to love God by loving his creatures and the things he has made, you will not be able to stop showering love and compassion on the world and its creatures. You will do all that for the glory of God. Being in the world, engaging in activities that can help the world, is a fulfilling, liberating, spiritual experience that will make God more real in your life. Christians, get out of here and get in the community, in the world, where you belong!
____________
1. G. W. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 141.
2. For this insight I am indebted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1968), p. 160.
3. Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of John (1537), in Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 82.
4. For an elaboration of these themes, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Men and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), pp. 274-276.
5. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); Martin Luther, Sermons of 1532, in Weimar Ausgabe, Vol. 36, pp. 456-457.
6. Augustine, Homilies on the First Letter of John (415), IX.10-11.
