Sermon by Rev Dr Max Champion, Lent 2, 21st February 2016

Lessons: Genesis: 15:12-14; Philippians 3:17- 4:1; Luke 13:31-35

'But our citizenship,' says Paul, ' is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20). ... 'Know this for certain,' God says to Abraham, 'Your descendants shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs …and they shall be oppressed for 400 years’ (Gen 15:13).

The description of people of faith as 'aliens' whose loyalty is 'in heaven' is jarring. Christians see themselves as honest, hard working, moral citizens who contribute to the common good. It goes against the grain to think of the church as a 'colony of strangers' (Moffatt), a community of 'resident aliens' (Hauerwas) who are 'citizens' (Good News Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, JB Phillips) of such an unworldly 'commonwealth' (Revised Standard Version) or 'homeland' (Jerusalem Bible).

Such images are unsettling! 'Heaven' seems so remote from earth. Who wants to belong to a church that, like visitors from outer space, is so unearthly, unintelligible, scary, off-putting? Not wanting to be an alien community with higher duties, we fit snugly into mainstream society.

Many Christians still think that the church is a natural part of Western society. Until recently, it was an important centre of community life. It was widely supported or tolerated for encouraging respect, decency, honesty, good works and compassion. Since colonial days, it has been widely regarded as useful to civilize convicts, no-hopers and indigenous people and bring a measure of dignity to the poor and unloved. At the same time, religious pretension and doctrinal debates have been mercilessly lampooned.

The church's influence has been significant. And it is good to laugh at ourselves. But, without realizing, we have become almost indistinguishable from other well-meaning community groups glad to be thought helpful and pleasant. Hardly the profile of a 'colony of heavenly aliens.' ...

We forget that, throughout history, Christians and Jews have suffered because they didn't give their complete loyalty to earthly rulers and human ideals, but to God and heavenly ideals. Millions of Jews died because they didn't conform to political, social and religious beliefs. In the early days, many Christians were killed because they wouldn't bow down to Roman gods. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries many people, including today in the Middle East, have suffered persecution, torture and death because they dared to challenge arrogant rulers and citizens in the name of ‘heaven.’

This should remind us that the church is not a group of people who are 'so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good, but a body of people shaped by beliefs, values and hopes not shared by the surrounding culture. It is a 'colony of heaven on earth' that has already been embodied in the 'humanity of Christ.' Because 'heaven' has come to earth in him, the church is to be an outpost of his worldly grace!

This is the opposite of what Christianity's harsh critics think. Freud regarded 'heaven' as an illusion. Marx derided it as the 'opiate of the masses.' Nietzsche mocked it as the refuge of cowards. Today, it is dismissed from public life as if it were the enemy of a mature, humane, secular society. No longer a hub of community life. No longer thought useful to shape community standards. No longer a curiosity to be tolerated or humored. This strange colony of heaven is now treated as a dark force of ignorance and bigotry to be banished from the earth.

What, then, does it mean for Christians to live fully human lives as 'resident aliens’?

We are called to be citizens of the world by reflecting the strangeness of Christ’s self-giving love for the world. The church should oppose values and life-styles that are ‘alien’ to God’s goodness and mercy. We are to be a communion of 'heavenly love' already embodied in Jesus' ministry, and widely rejected. That is why we must always think of our calling as a 'community of heaven' in relation to our task as the 'Body of Christ.' Seeing 'heaven' in his 'body,' we are summoned to see that 'heaven' is honored in the bodily life of the world.

Paul had this in mind when, in distress, he pleads with the Philippians to stop copying their neighbors who are obsessed with ‘earthly things’ and ‘bodily desires’ (literally, their 'bellies' v19) too shameful to mention

or so well-known that they don't need to be! ... But they are not to retreat. As 'resident aliens,' they must live in the world with a love for the earth and humanity that reflects ‘Christ’s crucified and risen love for the sinful world.’ (v18; Lk 13:32) ...

Being a colony of heavenly aliens means taking our earthly responsibilities very seriously. Inevitably, it involves unsettling popular opinion and State sanctioned 'community values.'

First, it means that our ‘heavenly work’ is to ‘honour the body.’ We are:

 to enjoy our bodies, the beauty of the earth, friendship, work etc without being self-indulgent.

 to uphold the dignity of everybody in work, family, leisure and church and demand integrity in business, politics and church.

 to re-affirm the splendour of creation as male and female and resist pressures to redefine our sexuality.

 to work for peace and reconciliation and against terrorism, the brutality of war, abuse of refugees, etc..

 to heal the sick and troubled, feed the hungry and destitute and denounce those who ignore, maim or kill the weak, including the frail elderly and the vulnerable unborn.

Second, we mustn’t under-estimate the increasing power of the State to sanction values and rights that shape society in ways that denigrate our God-given glory. We must pray for courage to resist relentless community pressure to conform to such values. As Paul says, we must ‘stand firm in the crucified and risen Lord’ (4:1).

Third, we are to be a community of hope. The context in which Paul reminds the Philippians to be a community of 'resident aliens' is his hope in Christ’s coming again in power to transform their ‘broken bodies’ into the image of his ‘glorious body’ (3:21). In Christ, there is hope for everybody and all bodies, including those who have been damaged by self-indulgence or abuse by others.

Finally, we are to called to worship and follow the incarnate, crucified, risen Jesus who, in the whole of his ‘earthly life,’ embodied God's 'heavenly' goodness by healing our broken humanity. We should never lose sight of the fact that what we do in worship is a response to what God has done for us is wonderfully strange.

To a 'stranger,' our meeting for worship on Sundays must look like a tiny colony of pious folk clinging to the hope of heaven hereafter and turning our backs on the world! Once familiar to our fellow-citizens, and tolerated or supported as a means to uphold personal integrity and social wellbeing, 'church' is now treated as an outdated, discredited activity that is 'alien' in a secular society. ... No wonder many ministers are tempted to dumb-down liturgies so that they can be immediately understood!

But what if the strangeness of these 'resident aliens' is the very thing that a truly secular society needs in order to keep it from destroying the earth by becoming self-satisfied, self-indulgent, authoritarian?

As a little ‘colony of heaven,’ we are called to confess the glory of God, to participate in the community of Christ’s broken and re-made body, and to oppose every attempt to retreat from our worldly vocation, either by forming 'holy huddles' or equating the Gospel with beliefs and lifestyles that the majority of our fellow-citizens have settled on.

This incredible calling is only possible when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to see in Christ – incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended – the embodiment of ‘heaven on earth’ and the sign of the 'new heaven and new earth' that awaits humanity in the fullness of time.

If we see ‘heaven’ in Christ, then, as members of his Body, we will see our own situation in Australia with greater clarity. And we shall be free from nostalgia about the so-called halcyon days of Christendom and the illusion that we can settle-down to a quiet life of faith that dodges the demand to unsettle the status quo.

Rev Dr Max Champion