TEXT: 1 Peter 2:11-17 (The Message)
11-12Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.
13-17Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God's emissaries for keeping order. It is God's will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you're a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.
(Take box out and stand on it.)What do you see?
Yes, I am standing in a box. Let's say this box is my religion. It is the set of beliefs and perspectives, prejudices, values and hopes that I use to interpret and make sense of my world. As I grow, the box grows. Everyone has their own worldview, their own religion, their own box. Most of the time we see the world and ourselves from within our box of beliefs. Sometimes we change change boxes. We convert or adopt a different set of values and beliefs. Then we stand in a different religion box.
(Step out and step on the box). Now, what do you see?
Yes, I am standing on the box. I have stepped outside my box, my religious values hopes and beliefs, and am now standing on them. I haven't left them, but now I am viewing the world rather outside that perspective. Furthermore, I have turned my views upside down, and so the world looks different. This allows me to compare my values, beliefs and world view with other religions, other views. I have my own perspective on which I stand, but now it doesn't confine, but allows me to make comparisons, choices, changes, analyze and evaluate.
With this all too simple illustration, I want to make several quick points about the boxes we all have, and how they function in our lives.
- Most of us grow and mature in our religious beliefs and values and perspectives, and therefore we must often get larger or different boxes. Look back over your years, and you might see boxes you left behind. Our boxes offer peace, clarity and protection—but often when we are fearful we use the box of our beliefs to hide or to fight.
- Most religious talk, and religious confessions of faith are written from inside a box in order to make sense of the world outside. Theology and confessions are attempts to make the box and the world compatible for believers. Often confessions are written to strengthen the walls of the box when there is confusion, major threats or change. Such language is often used to teach and pass on the world view gained in the struggle to make sense.
- Learning how to stand outside and on top of the box enables analysis, evaluation, and change. Dialogue with other religions and views is most possible from this position. In fact it is what great reformers have done, in order to bring great changes. It is pretty much what Jesus did. It is also what good teachers do—they help people stand outside their box to see options, possibilities and answers that they can then bring into their box with new insight.
- If you don't know how to stand on your box, or don't know where to stand, it is hard to make change, make progress, to grow with insight and understanding. Christians need to be comfortable both standing in their belief box, and on their belief box. That is how we gain spiritual maturity in a changing world.
Now, I want to talk about one of the great struggles Christians have in dealing with the world, and one of he great church confessions written as a result.
Is there a time when we as Christians must say "No" as well as "Yes" to the culture and the government in which we live?
Is it harder to live as a Christian in a country where the Government and culture is contrary to the values of the Christian faith? Or where the Government and culture seems friendly to the values of the christian faith?
You read those words with me from the ancient text of 1Peter:
Friends, this is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it…
Make the Master proud of you be being good citizens. Respect authorities whatever their level; they are God's emissaries for keeping order. Exercise your freedom by serving God, and not breaking the rules….Revere God. Respect the government.
This is not your home so don't get cozy, but don't rock the boat.
Can you sense the tension between the first part and the second part of Peter's advice to the early church? It is the tension of the Christian living as an alien in a culture whose values do not conform to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That was the wisdom for the first century Christian church which was struggling to survive in a hostile culture. If you were Christian, you may lose your life. The apostle Peter was crucified--but he insisted on being hung upside down, not seeing himself worthy of dying like his Lord and Master.
Learn to say yes. "Don't rock the boat."
Live at peace with those around you. The government is there to keep order. It is how God works in the world to make life possible.
For the most part, you and I have grown up in an America assuming that American values and Christian values are the same. We have been raised to think that being a Christian and being a Successful American are the same thing.
It has not been hard to say "yes" to the American culture, or our political leaders.
But, this morning, we have a much more significant question to answer.
At what point in our life as a Christian, must we say "No"?
At what point do we say "no" to the authority of our leaders?
And at what point do we say "no" to the underlying cultural values of our society that empower our leaders? When and How do we say "no""
For all the Presbyterian Churches in the World--all the Churches that have their history in what is called the Reformed Faith, for all these churches, this weekend has a special meaning. For all of our Church family, we remember May 29-30 as the Anniversary of the Declaration of Barmen.
The Barmen Declaration is a part of the Book of Confessions which we Presbyterians use to define who we are as a Christian Community. It is part of our constitution, and it is part of the story we tell ourselves.
On May 29 1934, there were 139 clergy and lay persons who met in Barmen-Wuppertal in northern Germany. Because of the growing totalitarian reach of Adolf Hitler's government, and his hostility to the church, these Christians felt compelled to take a stand to resist. They needed to be clear about about several issues:
Who is Lord over our lives-God or the state?
What is the relation of the church to the state--servant or separate?
How is God revealed to us--in the bible or in history?
The Barmen Declaration is the statement they made in answer to these questions.
Most of you know the story of the rise of Hitler. As a young man in 1919 right after World War I he founded the National Socialist Party dedicated to "race, blood and soil."
As the Nazi Party gained strength, many Christians joined the party and formed a faith movement in 1932 under the Party, called "German Christians." They believed in the principles of the party, and in a strong German state. They did not seek God's revelation of truth in the scripture, but in history: God's saving work could be seen in Hitler, and the divine election of God for the place of the German people in history.
What did these Christians believe?
- Germany shall rise to new strength;
- Germany shall lead the nations into a world order;
- Germany has the divine favor of God on her side.
(If this sounds familiar to Americans, it should. These same ideas have been goals for our own country at different times in our history.)
In public Adolph Hitler was a strong advocate of The Christian faith and the church. Christianity and German culture were almost equated. In one of his speeches he promised,
"The national government ... will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality." - Adolf Hiter, The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872.
Later, he made an even stronger appeal to Christians, equating the Christian faith with the strong moral position of Nazi Germany, against the immorality identified in society. He said
"Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years." Adolf Hitler. Ibid, pg. 871-872. By Michael Hakeem, Ph.D.
One of the amazing realities of Nazi Germany was that most of the people, most of the Christians, bought this kind of talk making an alliance between Christianity and Nazi ideology. If you look at what Christianity teaches, you wonder how German Christians could support Naziism, Hitler's wars and the Holocaust. Not only did they occur, but with insignificant and wavering exceptions, neither theologians, clergy, nor ordinary Christians as individuals, nor churches as corporate bodies, objected. In fact they overwhelmingly supported them. Three of the most distinguished German Protestant theologians--Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanual Hirsch. were highly respected, extremely erudite, uncommonly productive, and internationally known professors, each at a different, first-class university. Yet these and other Christian leaders, each supported Hitler openly, enthusiastically, and with little restraint."
Kittel and a group of twelve leading theologians and pastors issued a proclamation that Nazism is "a call of God," and they thanked God for Adolf Hitler.
By 1933 Hitler appointed Ludwig Muller, who was the leader of the "German Christians" to create a State Church, the "German Evangelical Church." All Protestant Churches were united into this single Evangelical State Church.
In September, 20,000 German Christians gathered in the Berlin Sports Palace to affirm the alliance between the church and the Nazi Party. One of the tasks of the Church was to keep the Arayan Race pure and free Germany from all non-German persons. That excluded Jews, gypsies, communists, and homosexuals.
It was against this overwhelming and large-scale movement of the German Christians into a State Church that a few pastors and churches began to form resistance that resulted in the Barmen Declaration.
Already in January, 1933, 21 pastors met and begin to develop a dissenting voice to this whole "German Christian" movement. They called themselves the "Pastor's Emergency League." By the September meeting in the Berlin Sports palace, there were 2300 pastors who had joined this resistance; and by January, 1934 there were 7000.
So, 139 pastors and leaders met in Barmen, May 29-30, 1934 to organize and alternative church to the state church. At that meeting they would adopt their own position, and become known as the Confessing Church. Turn to the part in the Order of Service, and lets look at the Declaration.
The first and second affirmation of the Declaration center on Jesus Christ as Lord. In Jesus Christ we see God and understand who we are. It is Jesus Christ we trust and obey in life and in death. It is in Jesus that we learn who we are and what is true. It is in Jesus that we find the freedom to serve God and others. The second affirmation states that the claim of Jesus on our life is total. No area of our life is outside his claim. Not our spending, not our buying, not our schooling and intellectual life, not our sexual life nor our loving; not our political life nor our citizenship; not our church life, nor our values. We can not be Christians, and hold out parts of our living as out of bounds. Jesus Christ accepts you totally; Christ forgives you totally; Christ heals you totally.
In contrast, the Germans looked to history to discover their destiny. They looked to the Arayan race to restore their purity. They looked to the military to find their strength.
So, Barmen raises issue the of where we find authority to in our lives, and affirms that it is with Jesus Christ, and not with lesser authorities.
The Christians in Barmen lead us to affirm Jesus Christ as the Word of God and Lord of our life.
The second lesson comes from the last four truths in the document. The Declaration of Barmen reminds us that our biggest problem is not atheism, but idolatry. Presbyterians have always believed that every person knows God. We believe God plants that knowledge within every human heart. But it is our sin and brokenness that covers it and suppresses it. And so instead of worshiping God, we create idols. We fill our lives with other loves to worship: the nation, a political party, our ethnic heritage, our family, or money, or alcohol, or drugs, or our business. We love our idols, and the sin of idolatry is always tempting us.
Four times the Declaration says: "We reject the false doctrine that...." Four times it names the false gods that swept a nation under their influence and led them into evil and destruction. Four times it takes a stand on the only one and true God, known in Jesus Christ. Four times it says, we belong only to God.
In short, Barmen said, "There is No führer but Jesus. No authority but the Scripture, and the church shall not function as a part of the state.
What does it take for us to join those Christians who gathered in Barmen and reject the idols that crowd into our life to claim our allegiance?
The Declaration of Barmen is powerful not because it was a good statement, because in some ways it wasn't. For instance, they didn't even address the issue about what was happening to the Jews, or those who were gay or lesbian. It was much too late to be of any consequence to Hitler and Nazi power. Nor did it greatly alter the life of the church.
But its power comes from the struggle of those Christians to live up to their principles. Its power is in the struggle to put faith into practice in a concrete historical moment and then to move from words to deeds.
Ultimately, this is the importance of Barmen for us today. The lesson from the Barmen Christians is about making our faith come alive in our daily struggle against power and authority that suck us along paths we can not affirm, nor believe in. Barmen gives us a lesson about engaging the politics and culture we live in.
We tend to think that our freedom is a political gift from the state. No, the reality we learn from Barmen is that religious freedom is prior to political freedom. Our Presbyterian Confession teaches us that our freedom is found in the grace and goodness of God. That is the basis of political freedom, not the other way around.
Once we are clear about that, we have the basis to engage our faith with the political struggles in our nation, and with our culture.
I am now asking the the ushers to hand to each of you a more modern statement. This is called “A Social Creed for the 21st Century”. One hundred years ago in 1908 the Federal Council of Churches adopted a “Social Creed for the 20th Century.” Many of its goals and values were addressed and achieved in the past century. This new creed was put together under the leadership of the National Council of Churches for the American Church community as a response to the overwhelming social issues that we have at the beginning of this century. This is not a “confession” of our church like the Declaration of Barmen. But it is a statement of our values and beliefs that was adopted by our General Assembly in 2008. Like most creeds, it is offered from inside the Christian box to guide Churches and individuals as they struggle to make a strong witness to their faith.
Like all creeds, it is not perfect. Read this one and you will note some issues are not addressed. It has been pointed out that as inclusive as this statement is, it has nothing in it about the LGBT community. But it does focus on a wide range of social issues.
For instance, look at its statement of support for the rights of unions—a timely statement after the recent political attacks on labor union's right to bargain.
I commend this Social Creed to you for your study and guidance in the days ahead, hoping that as Christians we can make a difference in the outcome of so many of these issues. Notice the power of the final paragraph;
We — individual Christians and churches — commit ourselves to a culture of peace and freedom that embraces non-violence, nurtures character, treasures the environment, and builds community, rooted in a spirituality of inner growth with outward action. We make this commitment together, as members
of Christ's body, led by the one Spirit-trusting in the God who makes all things new.
Our opening scripture today said, This is not your home so don't get cozy, but don't rock the boat.
So, where do you stand on the tough issues of today? Do you have a good box to stand in, and a good one to stand on? How does your box of faith prepare you to handle the many voices of our day pushing against us?
May this anniversary of the Declaration of Barmen inspire you to take a stand
that is not cozy with the world but a strong witness of your faith.1 Peter 2:11-17 (The Message)
John 14:15-21
15”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
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