11^th March 2010

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley (28 February 2010)

Lessons -- Psalm 27:1-6; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

We are a colony of heaven, citizens who are strangers in the land. (Philippians 3:20, based on the translation by JB Moffat.)

Our text has a most 'unworldly' tone. The description of the Church as having its loyalty 'in heaven' seems outmoded and off-putting. Today, at least in the West, the Church fits into mainstream society so easily that such talk makes us uncomfortable. We don't want a faith that is 'other- worldly', but one that is responsible 'on earth'.

It is a pity that 'heaven' has been thought of in this way. The image of a 'colony of heaven' is really an invitation to be responsible in the world without being conformed to the world. As part of the British colonies since 1788 we know that a 'colony' is a body of people who settle down in a place that is not a 'natural' home. It is an 'outpost' of a distant 'empire' which doesn't necessarily share the values, beliefs or customs of 'the locals'.

The failings of 'colonialism' have been well documented. But this shouldn't deter us from using the image to help us focus on the essential character of the Christian community. The Church is a body of people called to speak an 'unsettling word' to communities in which they have 'settled'. Their first loyalty as citizens is not to the beliefs and practices of those communities but to the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. The 'body of Christ' is to be a 'colony of heaven' on earth!

In the past, we have thought about this only in relation to 'foreign missions'. We've been raised on stories of missionaries who have opposed infanticide, ritual prostitution, shamanism, cannibalism, widow-burning, slavery and the like in the name of Christ. We have been glad when these 'outposts of heaven' have brought healing and hope to tortured bodies suffering affliction, superstition and fear. We have also marvelled at the courage of missionaries who, as members of the 'Body of Christ', have suffered or died for faith in their heavenly Father for refusing to conform to local customs.

But when we think of the Church as the 'Body of Christ' in Australia, we don't think of ourselves as a 'colony of heaven' set in a community whose beliefs, values and customs we don't share. Our criticisms of materialism, greed, injustice, immorality and intolerance are usually based on what we regard as common values which all decent people share with us. The idea of the Church being a 'heavenly outpost' in an 'alien world' is unthinkable!

Our lessons should make us re-think our missionary calling. The Psalmist stands firmly against evil in confidence that God's goodness and mercy will triumph eventually (Psalm 27). Jesus is not diverted from the way of the Cross by Herod's murderous threats, Jewish stubbornness or believers'
bewilderment. He stands firm, confident that, despite unbelief, affliction, evil and death, his 'heavenly Father' will heal the 'earth'
(Luke 13:31-35).

We shouldn't think of the Church as a colony of heaven apart from the earthly ministry of Christ and God's calling of Israel to be a light to the nations. In them 'heaven' is 'embodied on earth'. In Christ's incarnate, crucified and risen body the redeeming love of our heavenly Father for every sinful and broken body is decisively displayed. In him God's mercy and healing is embodied for 'all the earth' and for everybody.

Therefore it is only as the Body of Christ that we are called to be a colony of heaven. Seeing heaven in his body, the Church is called to see that the kingdom of heaven is honoured in the body of the Christian community and in the communities among which the Church is settled.

Paul had this calling in mind when, in distress, he tells the Philippians to stop copying their neighbours who are obsessed with unmentionable earthly things and bodily desires which are harmful. But he doesn't advocate retreating from the nasty world to a peaceful heaven. We must not withdraw into a detached spiritual world but live in the world with a love for the fragile earth and our neighbours who like us are flawed. We must live in the light of 'Christ's crucified and risen love for the sinful world' (Philippians 3:18; Luke 13:32) .

Being a colony of heaven means taking seriously our earthly responsibilities so as to unsettle beliefs and practices which have come to be widely and uncritically accepted by the majority of citizens.

What does this heavenly calling mean for us as the Body of Christ?

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

* to enjoy our bodies, the beauty of the earth, friendship, work and more, and not to despise 'the flesh';

* to enjoy the fruits of the earth without being greedy, gluttonous or drunk;

* to uphold the dignity of every-body in work, family, leisure and church and demand integrity in dealings between employees and employees;

* to support good government and business in the body politic and condemn corruption;

* to re-affirm the splendour of creation as male and female and the sanctity of marriage;

* to work for peace against terrorism, torture and brutality of war which disfigure bodies;

* to feed and clothe the hungry and the destitute;

* to oppose people who traffic the bodies of asylum seekers, sex slaves or itinerant workers;

* to heal the sick and the troubled and oppose medical procedures that allow us to claim a 'right' to kill the vulnerable (whether they be young or old, others or ourselves).

Second, we must pray for courage to withstand the community pressure to conform to such 'values'. As Philippians says, we must 'stand firm in the Lord' (4:1) who has been crucified and raised for us!

Third, we are to be a community of hope. The context in which Paul reminds the Philippians to be a colony of heaven is his firm hope in Christ's coming again in power to transform 'broken bodies' into the image of his 'glorious body' (3:21). In his crucified and risen body there is hope for everybody and all bodies -- not heavenly comfort that ignores or denigrates the body!

Finally, as members of the Body of Christ, we are to worship our heavenly Father as we follow the incarnate, crucified and risen Jesus who in the whole of his earthly life embodied the goodness and mercy of God and redeemed our humanity.

At times faith can be so sorely tested by bad people who would destroy the body (Psalm 27:2; Luke 13:31) that we (and our fellow Christians around the globe) experience the absence of God. Yet we are enabled to stand against the stream because God has committed himself to the nations in the covenant made with Israel and embodied in the risen Christ.

We may not see the end to particular evils or afflictions but still we may 'wait' (Psalm 27:14) not with resignation but with confidence born of hope that what God has begun in Christ's body will be brought to completion for everybody.

Meanwhile, as a little colony of heaven, we are called to worship God as our heavenly Father, to allow ourselves to be unsettled by the Word of grace, to participate in the sacrament of Christ's broken and re-made body and to protest every attempt of leaders in Church and community to equate the Gospel with the false values and beliefs of the world. Such a calling is only possible when, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to see in Jesus Christ the embodiment of 'heaven on earth'.

It is essential that colonies of heaven (like ours) gather as the Body of Christ to worship God in the body of the congregation as a sign of hope for 'everybody' that 'heaven' has taken up residence among us in Christ to heal the earth of affliction, evil and death.

Whether such vital Christian discipleship is possible today in a Church which (over hundreds of years) has comfortably settled into Western society will depend on our willingness to radically re-think what it means for us to challenge contemporary ideologies which demean human dignity and trivialise the magnificence of the Gospel.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.