Saving Civilization Matthew 5:13-16 A sermon preached by Rev. Teresa Holt First United Methodist Church Hot Springs, AR 71901 July 11, 2010 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 In the early 5th century, a man name Patrick was growing up in what we now call Great Britan. His family had been greatly influenced by the Romans, and therefore were Christians. In fact, his Grandfather was a priest, though it is said that Patrick himself lived a life on the wild side. At 16 he was kidnapped by Irish Celtic pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Patrick was sold to a tribal chief name Miliuc. During his captivity, he reconnected to God and became a devout Christian, learned the language and culture of the Irish people (becoming an intricate part of the culture), and truly began to passionately love the land and people of Ireland. After six years, he had a dream where he heard God speak to him telling him that he was going home and needed to wake, because there was a ship to take him home. He awoke, ran to the seacoast and found the ship and negotiated his way on board. He spent some time possibly at a monastery at Gaul, but eventually returned to England and became a priest in England for many years. (George Hunter, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Abingdon Press, 2000) How do you live in a world that is unfriendly, unsafe, and foreign? How do you grow to love a world that is unchristian, that has different morals and perspectives on life? What is our role in such a world? Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth. In his day, salt was so revered, that soldiers were paid partially in salt. There was a saying among Romans, “There is nothing more useful than sun and salt”. It represented purity, preservation and flavor. Purity, because it came from the purist of all things: sun and sea. It has a glistening whiteness to it. Preservation, because it kept meat from going bad (i.e. Salt cures meat). Flavor, because it allows food to taste like more of itself. If you are a cook, you know that you add salt to sweets as well as savory food. It makes the sweet taste even better. I have a friend that has lost some of her taste buds due to radiation therapy. The interesting thing is that she can no longer taste sweet. When she tastes chocolate chip cookies – she only tastes the salt. Salt in sweet is something our taste buds can rarely discern. Jesus says that we are the light of the world. Light represented openness, radiance, and joy. Lamps were utilized as nightlights in the ancient world. The higher the light in the house, the more the light would flood the house. You never extinguished the light, unless you were leaving. Then you put the light outside under a protective cover. It was easier to cover it, than to re-light when you returned. If a house had light, people knew that there were those inside who were sleeping. A dark house represented an empty house. Light was so important, that oil would be bought, many times, before food. Apparently if society thought that there was nothing more useful than sun and salt, Jesus thought we were representatives of usefulness in the world. So as useful people, how do we perceive the world? Is it good? Is it evil? As a saved people, is our mission to save a lost world? Hard questions, and yet some of the most crucial questions we can ask ourselves as the Body of Christ today. What is the role of the church in today’ culture? How do we influence culture and bring glory to God? Charles Colson has said that we many times talk about “saving grace”, but rarely acknowledge “common grace”. Saving Grace “is the means by which God’s saving power, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, can redeem people from their sin and give them new life in Christ and throughout eternity.” Common Grace is “the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation. This common grace is available through and to all of His creation.” We might, as Methodists call this prevenient grace (the grace of God that we receive before we are even aware of God). This common grace calls us not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God. “As agents of God’s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty, and to heal and help those suffering.” (Charles Colson and Nancy Pearce, How Now Shall We Live, Wheaton, IL, Tyndales House, 1999). Common grace allows us to see the beauty and good in the world. Because of God bestowing his grace upon all in the world, we can appreciate that the world in so many different ways gives Glory to God. So acknowledging the goodness and grace in the world, how does the church that has experienced a “saving grace” make a difference? At the age of 48 (an old man in that time) Patrick had another life changing dream. An Angel called Victor brought him letters from his captors in Ireland. As he read the letters, he heard his captors crying out in one voice to come and walk among them. When he awoke, he perceived the dream as a call to take the Christian gospel to the people of Ireland. He asked the church if he might be sent on a mission to the people. Patrick was ordained a bishop and appointed to Ireland to minister to the “barbarians”. The Catholic Church considered these people as in need of ministry and that they were emotional and hot headed people, unlike the Romans who were “civilized”. The Irish were known to behead their enemies and practice human sacrifice. Patrick had had twenty years to think about how the Irish might be reached. (George Hunter III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Abingdon 2000). So when he returned, he ministered to the people of Ireland with discernment and sensitivity. He and his followers “sensed what was good in a community and blessed it accordingly, or they sensed evil, in which case they sought to combat it with prayer”. (Michael Mitton, Restoring the Woven Cord, pp 90-91) The mission teams would visit a settlement, befriend the people, engage them in conversation, eventually share the good news and encourage the building of a church. There was no manipulation, coercion or force. They did all this, building on the Irish people’s current religious beliefs. They didn’t ridicule, but instead used their beliefs as a starting point. They took the pagan monuments and rituals and encouraged the people to transform them to Christian Worship of God. Through this process, they began many monasteries and schools preserving much of the Christian writings of the past. When the Barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire, it was the Irish (due to their geographic location) that saved the writings and art of Christianity, therefore saving the “Roman culture” and allowing us to have these writings and art today. Because of the spread of Christianity in Ireland, it is said that the Irish saved Civilization. Of course we would have had civilization if they hadn’t preserved the writings and art of the era. But they perceived the beauty of things. They didn’t separate the world into the sacred and secular. In less than 200 years after Patrick’s death, Ireland was a devoutly Christian land which historians say ushered in a “Golden Age”. Now, don’t get me wrong. We cannot “save” the world from its sins. That is the saving grace that God is responsible for. A lamp cannot light itself. The light that we have in our lives comes from Jesus Christ. We radiate God’s grace to others and therefore give Glory to God. We are instead called to go into the world – saving civilization – as the Irish did. We need to be in politics, in schools, in the workplace, in the arts, in science. We need to find as many opportunities to be in culture. We need to understand the world today. Just like St. Patrick, we need to begin to speak the language, understand the culture, and love the people, so that we can be salt and light. As salt, we need to bring purity. Our lives need to be those of holy living. We need to be the purity that makes society better. Our very presence among the community should encourage others to be better people. We need to be people, who by our holy lives, raise the expectation of others. We need to be preservation that keeps culture and society from rotting. We are the flavor that helps society be the best it can. We bring out the true “image of God” in others. Just like salt brings out the flavor of other foods. “Our role in society is not to be over against it, so much as it is to enrich or purify the social order, making it more truly a realm of blessing for humanity.” (Myron S. Augsburger, The Communciators Commentary, Word Publishing 1982) As light, we need to radiate God. We are not to hide from society, but be a witness; to point to God. This cannot occur if we are not in the daily world as Christians, seeking to make a better world. We cannot separate our lives from this church building and the rest of our week. We must seek to discover where God is at work in the world and find ways to point to God as the author of the good and beautiful. There is nothing secretive about light. Our light should dispel the darkness just by being in the world. But, if we are not a moving force in our communities, either individually or corporately, we might as well be under a bowl, telling everyone that no one is home. N.T. Wright tells that the early church truly understood this idea of saving culture. In the Roman Occupation, many people lived far outside Rome (like Patrick), but still considered themselves Roman citizens. Their job was to make the community more Roman by sharing the ideas and culture of Rome. They were to make civilization Roman. The early Christians saw their role in the same way. They were serving in outposts on earth, but they were citizens of heaven. It was their job to become a part of their communities and through their influence make it more like heaven. (N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope, Zondervan) John Wesley, our founder was also a “saver” of civilization. Some say that it was the Methodist movement that prevented a revolution in Great Britain like that which occurred in France. John Wesley’s England had horrible working conditions (due to the growing Industry of the time). There was a two tier system of the rich and poor. The poor, who came from the surrounding agriculture society, experienced the indescribable cruelty of the factories and would seek release in cheap rum and gin. Drunkenness became a way of life. Crime became rampant among all classes and murder and robbery were predominant. The religious life was one of apathy. John Wesley and the Methodists sought to save English civilization. John Wesley himself, “visited English prisons many times, preaching to their inmates and commenting bitterly in his letter on the misery of prison conditions. He set up a simple loan society among his Methodists to help keep his poor followers from the clutches of the pawnbrokers and out of debtor’s prisons. He fought hard liquor as much for economic as for moral reasons. He edited a Christian Library, fifty volumes of extracts form Christian literature, for popular use. He established a free medical dispensary and wrote a book of simple home remedies for sickness, called Primitive Physic, which ran to twenty-three editions. He established a home for widows and a school for poor children”. (S Paul Shilling, Methodism and Society in Theological Perspective, Abingdon Press, 1960, pg 62). As United Methodists today, this is our legacy. We have a strong history of social justice and holiness. So are you saving civilization? Are you being the salt and light to the world? Are you making this world a better reflection of God’s glory? Jesus says that when a salt loses its saltiness, it is thrown out and trampled under. Interestingly enough, it was used on the floors in the temple to keep it from being slippery during winter rainy months. Are we being salt that is only good for our church building? Are we giving light to the world, or are hiding our light under a bowl and telling the rest of the world, “no one is home”! St Patrick wrote a beautiful poem, “Deer Cry” that reflected how he lived in the world. I think this poem is a wonderful way to show us the way today – reminding us that Christ is in the world ahead of us. “Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me, Christ in the eye of every man who sees me, Christ in the ear of every man who hears me.” I think it is time that we as citizens of the kingdom of God, become residents of the world. May the Holy Spirit guide our feet, give us words to say, and gifts to glory God; so that we can point to Jesus’ saving grace, love and forgiveness. Amen ************************************************************ ****************************************** God: We thank you today, that we are citizens of your kingdom. A kingdom that is both in this world, and a world yet to be. We are grateful for your never failing love, forgiveness and grace. We rejoice that when we fail to be the holy citizens that we should, your grace and forgiveness is there for us – we know you will always take us back into the family. God, we pray today for those who are sick, who are hurting, and who are in need of forgiveness and healing. I suppose that would be us all. We lift to you now those fears and hurts that we are nursing. God take these prayers and heal us – give us new life in you God, though we are citizens, we confess that we rebel. We become self absorbed and our world becomes one that becomes cloudy and focused on our needs. Forgive us. Forgive us when we have hurt others in anger. Forgive us when we have deliberately disobeyed you. Forgive us our self-destructive behaviors. Today we ask that you convict us of our sin. Show us our true selves. Soften our hearts so we can give in to you. Then God, create in us clean hearts – renewed right spirits. Free us – to joyful obedience. God, through we are citizens of your kingdom, we are residents of this earthly world. Do not let us forget our roles on this earth. Show us how we can be in relationship with others. Give us the words and actions that reflect your glory and grace. Make this church an instrument of your love to Hot Springs. Let us be the light on the hill and the salt of the earth. Give us courage to reach out and the determination to continue through failure. Let us be the yeast that gives rise to a better world – starting in the places that we work, play and go to school. For all these prayers today God, and for those that were named in our hearts, we give thanks that you have already heard and responded. Give us ears to hear – whether they be those small voices in our souls, or the spoken words of our friends and family. Give us mouths that speak your holiness. Give us eyes that see your wonders at work. May we truly be the body of Christ this week that points to you. Amen