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My kingdom is not of this world.
Matthew 4:8
Again, the
devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the
world and their splendour. 9"All this I will give you," he
said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
10Jesus
said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord
your God, and serve him only.'"
John 18:35-37 (New International Version)
35"Am
I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests
who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"
36Jesus
said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would
fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another
place."
37"You
are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in
saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came
into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens
to me."
Sadly
300 years after the resurrection of Jesus, The Emperor Constantine, having become
a Christian, tried to set up a Christian Kingdom on earth. The Holy Roman
Empire was the result with all its intrigue and corruption.
Martin Luther thought there was a dualism.
Our personal practice was to be different from our national behaviour so
killing is wrong for a Christian but it is Ok for the state. But then he messed
up good and proper on the subject of the Jews and gave religious credence to a
later generation justifying the Holocaust.
Calvin
was given the task of writing a constitution for a protestant state. He used
the tools of government to suppress the Anabaptists – which we call Baptists like us these days. So there is a
constant danger that in taking up politics we forget that the Kingdom of God is
not a political, economic, geographical entity but the people in whom the
Spirit of God has moved. In my lifetime we have seen in Northern Ireland
Christians confuse themselves and think that the kingdom of God is their own
political powerbase.
We
will have convictions about how our government ought to govern and rightly so.
We may use the political machine to win others to our way of thinking and make
change whether it is in 3rd world Aid, Climate change, freedom of
religious expression and proclamation, a shared morality or economic model. We
must be clear that this is in the dynamism of the kingdoms of this world. They
do not build the kingdom of God here. That is done by faithfully telling what
God has done, sharing the Good News of Jesus, explaining the Bible and its
teaching and praying for the Holy Spirit to convince people of sin and
righteousness and judgement.
Love your enemies, do good to those who do you harm.
"But I tell you who hear me: Love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Luke 6: 35
But love your enemies, do good to
them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward
will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the
ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is
merciful.
This
lies at the heart of our gospel. Let me remind you our gospel is that God seeks
out his enemies, Jesus died on a cross for his enemies, that’s you, so that you
could become his friends.
It
is therefore wrong for us to be wanting to use the propaganda of hate and the
weapons of war to our ends. Christians have long debated this and the second
world war was argued to be right on what is called the just war principle, that
it is right and proper for a state to defend itself, just as it is right and
proper to act in self defence. However, we are still in Iraq having wreaked the
nation and found no weapons of mass destruction to justify our actions. It is
not always straightforward to identify the just war principles. The can see
that WW2 had a good objective – to free Europe from tyranny but it began with
guaranteeing the independence of Poland.
Thirdly we must understand how porpadanda is used to generate hate.
During the Faulklands war “Argies” were held in contempt, just as “jerry” and
“”Ities” and ‘the Japs’ were in the WW2.
Today
we are persuaded to hate the Muslim, the East European immigrant and anyone
whose skin colour is different to ours. For the Christian that has to be wrong
because God created all men and Jesus died for the sins of all the people of
the world. But also we need to apply this love your enemy principle to everyone
who is a threat to us. It will make us vulnerable but it is the solution to war
itself. Peace is only the temporary cessation of war. In South Africa to end
the war Desmond Tutu set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to
bring about forgiveness and love of former enemies. Only a fool would think
that easy. The world carries a great burden of past atrocities, Jesus is the
only way to heal them.
Secondly
we must recognise that this love your enemies has to be worked through in party
politics. It is not acceptable for a Christian to hate even their enemies. Love
and respect are always under threat in the heat of debate and close to an
election. That is not to say we somehow have to agree with our political
enemies. There is no case for a Christian to vote for parties like the British
National Party because of its explicit antagonism to immigrants. But we will
find Christians in most political parties and they hold different
interpretations of how the word of God is interpreted in the political arena. A
good place to start is a book about Christians views of all the main party.
Love your neighbour as you love yourself.
1. Care for the widows and fatherless, the aliens, the poor
Exodus 2221 "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in
Egypt.
22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If
you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.
Deut 14 28 At the end of every three years, bring all the
tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that
the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens,
the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be
satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your
hands.
Deut. 24 17 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of
justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. 18 Remember
that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there.
That is why I command you to do this.
There
is no doubt that God knew what humans were like so this is here to tell us that
we are called to be different. Not for us arguments about them getting all the
advantages, jumping the queue, taking our jobs, whether they are immigrants,
one parent families or fatherless. Today this is a challenge because a
significant proportion of children are fatherless in the sense that they do not
live with theit fathers. God is the champion of those whose parents have messed
up. He is highly defensive of the weak and vulnerable in society and we, his
followers should be to.
2. The Golden Rule.
Matthew 7:12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
In the context of our nation these are key statements we have to challenge our political thinking. Modern democracy is all about what I can get out of the system. We see it in MPs and their greed, we see it as a foundation of capitalism, And we are called ot be different. We have to look at policies and laws in terms of would I pleased with them applying to me not just others. Put the other way round we should be looking to see who the losers are and what protection there is for them. So was Alistair Darling right to prop up the banks, with their wealth? It is not a simple question because it is not easy to see the consequences of the collapse of English banking on the pensioner and the unemployed.
1Everyone
must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority
except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been
established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the
authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so
will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for
those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from
fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For
he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does
not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring
punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit
to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of
conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are
God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give
everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then
revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.
Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God
That is quite clear, we pay our taxes we show respect to those in authority which means we support the police and the judiciary, the civil service and the local authorities.
Psalm 33:16-22
16 No king is saved by the
size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot
save.
18
But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing
love,
19
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20
We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
22
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.
This
is a challenge against militarism. The USA added In
God we trust but has the largest army in the world. We have our nuclear weapons
to guarantee mutual- assured destruction that is if you use nuclear weapons
against us, we will use ours and we all end up death or deformed and dying. And
it costs millions. But this is not a
call for ending the military but depending on God and his values in society
instead of the new morality of post modernism.
John the Baptist and Jesus both assumed that military people were in
rightful employment but John challenges them not to take advantage of others
because they are soldiers.
When it comes to style of government the Bible has Tribal
Patriarchs
Despotic rulers like the Roman Empire
Judges
Kings
Governors under foreign powers.
NO Democracy
Christian
in all walks of life – Joanna was in Herod’s household; John had access to High
Priests House; so there is few areas of employment where you would not expect
to find Christians. But we are watched to see if our calling makes a
difference, we are expected to be holy.
I
want to raise some issues which seem to be relevant to this coming election. No
doubt the press and the political machine will try to reduce it to
personalities but we need to be aware how being called to be different changes
our thinking.
Issues of
1.
Morality
a)
Integrity
This is headline news and we all want our politicians to be men and women of integrity. But in th rush to make a story and sell papers and make market share for TV companies, much has been made of politicians employing their wives or husbands in Westminster. If we believe in marriages being reserved then we would encourage them to be an example of working together rather than being separate and taking comfort in adultery.
Given
the revelations we must insist that any vote we give is on the clear undertaking
that expenses are publically accountable but how the spend their salary is
their own private business.
A
politician is constantly being pressured to promote one issue or another, to
vote according to the whip or pressure group or sponsors. Then there is a
selfish electorate which wants its politicians to be charismatic, exciting and
self-assured and never change their minds and make my life better regardless of
how we pay for it. So when you write to your MP is it self interest that drives
you or the interests of others? Are you different?
b)
Personal
holiness
Power attracts immorality. Westminster is a wasps nest of people selling themselves to gain the benefits of power, interns, staff and politicians are suspect to all forms of temptation, sexual, monetary, honesty, compromise.
c)
Euthanasia
We need to be awake on this issue. There is a small number of committed atheist with an agenda constantly pushing for change. We must be careful to understand that while some of their arguments are plausible and there are grey areas such as at what point do we accept that there is a choice to withdraw medical intervention and who makes that decision. But given these problems we must assert the right of every man to life as full a life as God gives and that suicide, assisted or not is wrong because our lives are in God’s hands not our own.
d)
Abortion
I don’t wish to discuss the subject here, but to say that in our politics, there is a consensus that abortion should be less and one way forward would be to reduce the acceptable period where abortions can legally occur. We might want abortions to end, except when the mother is likely to die without one, but what we may be able to get is a limiting period. I will come back to this under the issue of compromise.
e)
Crime
and punishment
We do have a bizarre situation in this country with constant complaints that the courts are soft on criminals and overflowing prisons at the same time. We have very limited alternatives to prison. And that is a major problem as prison is rarely a fitting punishment and is a poor deterrent to crime. Many of the more sensible punishments get very poor press. I refer to community service, tagging, curfews and the like. At heart we have to favour dealing with the causes of crime – drug addiction, deprivation and the absence of a spiritual life in the nation.
2.
Paternalism
– how much should the state do for the individual
David Cameron makes much of this and so he should. It is a key balance to be made. One the one hand we want individuals to take responsibility for their lives and provide and care for their families. On the other hand we believe that the state should care for the weak, the vulnerable and those who have fallen out of the system. Locally we have relatively high employment but in areas of this country such as the old mining towns most working people are unemployed. They get headlines, not for the investment in them but for the social disasters. The balance is never right . It is a constant balancing act. Sometimes to get our vote politicians have to play up to our simple solutions, like “If a man does not work , he should not eat.” I know, its in the Bible but it was said in the context of people refusing to work not unable to find work.
3.
Idolatry
– the cult of personality
The cult of celebrity is the all-invasive disease in a TV oriented world. Every politician is groomed by his PR man to act out a part. We worship personality. Look at the way the Ghurkas won their political battle. Not by having convincing arguments, although they had them, but by having a celebrity take up their cause and create a media circus. Gordon Brown is blind in one eye so he is belittled against the two-eyed opponent. Would you recognise your MP, do you know who your local councillor is. Have you any idea who your MEPs, all 10 of them are? Scandal is good for an MP because it gets them noticed. Truth, real compassion, real commitment for change gets lost in the battle to attract a following and gain the PR advantage and pull in the votes at the election. So in the next election, those of us in the new constituency of ‘Uxbridge and South Ruislip’ will need to do some work to find out what the candidates really are like and believe.
4.
Compromise
– a democracy only works by compromise.
We tend towards orthodoxy. We are , after all, conservative evangelicals who believe God’s revealed word as true. It tends to make us arrogant and uncompromising. That is fine if you are a dictator but has little good in a democracy. In a democracy the law comes from finding an agreed rule, which the majority abide by and the few can be punished for not doing. For example, Seat Belt law is largely obeyed; Mobile phone law is largely ignored.
To
get agreement, we have to make compromises in our expectations. We might want
an end of abortion, but we may only be able to get a reduction in the period
where it is legal. We might want the end of debt for the poorest countries, but
we may have to settle for reducing the payments. To be elected to parliament
you would probably join a political party. You would not agree to all its
policies so you will be compromised. But you may not be able to do anything
unless you agree with others. It is uncomfortable and sometimes Christian MPs
don’t look very Christian to us but remember they are struggling to interpret
God’s rule in a very complex situation. If you think they have got it wrong
occasionally, do not be arrogant, you are also a sinner saved by grace. When
you fail, you have a forgiving father, who calls you to forgive. So pray over
Christian MPs and forgive their faults. In this area we have seen Richard
Dannant, president of SASRA recently being used as a political gimmick. It has
somewhat compromised his recent statements on the armed forces when we find he
is in opposition having been a servant of the government. Whatever you views,
prsy for him to be able to act righteously in an environment of compromise.
5.
Identity
a)
Nationalism
b)
Race
The
question here is one which we are often stared to think about. But in closing I
want to leave a few to mull over. The question I want you to ask, is which does
God call you to be? To what extent do
we accept the others.
Well
you may say, I’m Christian, of course. But does that mean you would impose your
beliefs on others? I believe this is another area of balance. Ted Heath took us
‘into Europe’ because he did not wish to be part of another European war and
thank God, we have not. But is the growing Europe able to satisfy the demands
of its individual nations, will it become a federation of nations of a new
power block imposing the majority will on minorities? We enjoy England winning
at football, although some here wouldn’t be happy if they beat Brazil! But how
much do we want of our nationalism? We have recently used a DVD in Razz which
comes from the far right Christian community and sets patriotism as a Christian
virtue and citizenship as fighting for one’s country. We Three factors play a very big part in
dividing people and we must understand them. Ethnicity – that is which tribal
group you identify with, religion, and political grouping. Nationalism is growing in Scotland and still has its
problems in Northern Ireland where ethnicity, religion and nationalism combine
into a potent mix of hatred and violence.
Christians are called to be members of the
kingdom of God, where There is neither Jew not Greek, slave nor free, male
nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
So we have here some pointers to challenge
our own thinking.
Jesus
said My kingdom is not of this world,
Jesus
said, love your enemies,
Jesus
said, love your neighbour as you love yourself,
The
Bible says submit to the authorities.
We are called to be different. do not let the
world squeeze you into its mould, but let God change the way you think.