Christ for the World 5/16/48
Scripture: I Corinthians 3: 10-23
The Christian faith brings a great comfort to the soul of each person who lays hold upon it and, through it, knows God’s saving grace. And it is right to bring assurance of Christ’s incomparable peace to the faithful, and a witness of it to those who do not know Christ.
But this incomparable comfort is not promised, or given, to those who sin and go after “other gods.” Nor is it assured that Christians shall know it in the physical and social level of the world. The joyful, renewing peace, that passes all mortal understanding, is for the soul that has sincerely sought and found forgiveness of sins and renewal or rebirth in the unbelievable grace of God.
Because the holy spirit of God has such endless and urgent things to say to a wayward and heedless world, the voice of the prophets -- uncomfortable, uncompromising -- must be raised generation after generation. Our generation - and all in it - are no exception.
I believe that the voice of God’s judgment speaks to our day with the same urgency it has been proclaimed to people of other days. And so some prophecy is uncomfortable. Some of the thought I believe we should consider today comes under the heading of the uncomfortable.
There are conditions in our own souls, and in the world of our shaping, that ought to bring us to our knees in a plea to God for forgiveness and renewal - in a search for spiritual rebirth.
Are we a “Christian nation” in the United States of America? Is it not a strange and paradoxical thing that a supposedly Christian nation should be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to seek out and suppress the evangelists of a new faith? And that our nation should spend hundreds of millions of dollars in war-like preparation for a possible struggle with the powerful nation that is politically motivated by that new faith? In one sense, it has a ludicrous side. Leaders of this, the self-confessed and perhaps generally acclaimed, “greatest nation on earth” get excited, even panicky, over a relatively small number of well-disciplined men and women advocating a new way of life.
This is not to belittle the menace of communism to the present American way of life; it is very real. What is more important is our reaction to the menace, and the fact that the menace even has a chance to appear! Our situation has a resemblance to the Roman situation of nineteen hundred years ago when civil leaders of that empire were saying, “What shall we do? Those who are turning the world upside down are infesting this city also. How can we stop these Christians?”
The leaders of a decadent and declining Rome, for all their stern suppression of the Christian revolutionaries, were spiritually quaking in their boots. There are certain signs that our leaders are doing the same thing over the zeal of a minority which has grown up in our nation.
We are the spiritual beneficiaries of that little band of Christians who defied Rome. It is almost funny, as such beneficiaries, now rich in worldly goods, powerful in material wealth, that we should get so exercised before a numerically insignificant band of zealots. It is tragic, too, because these zealots are supplied and encouraged by another great and powerful nation. Worst of all, the whole world is dependent upon the outcome of this struggle.
Do we lack the resources of a vital faith? There are some signs that we do. That is the uncomfortable word I want to speak this morning. When Christians had nothing but faith, they were fearless and aggressive. Now that they have so much of possessions, they become alarmed before an organized mob!
Christians in the United States ought to be shocked into awareness of the seriousness of the present situation. We hear some voices calling for a crusade - a sort of “holy war.” That is not the answer! If there ever was such a thing as a holy war (and I doubt it) we are not holy enough to wage it! A peaceful world is not built under force of arms. If we don’t look sharply to ourselves and our cause, we shall find that our recent war, and the suggested warfare to come, are mere attempts to escape from fundamental problems of life itself. We must not be fighting for a decadent culture. Such a struggle would be vain.
There is such basic conflict between the Christian faith and communism (at least the political communism that we see) that I doubt they can ever be reconciled. Fundamentally, their basic approaches to God and man are not compatible.
But the forces that drag us toward war are not religious. True, the leaders of one powerful church are making it plain that there is a state of war between that church and communism, and have already engaged in political warfare and probably even local skirmishes of arms. But that seems to me to be a war of power rather than a testing of the Christian spirit. And Christians ought not to be dragged into it as a “holy war.”
Basically the struggle is one of economic and political positions. Europe has seen, and fears, the proletarian dictatorship and enslavement of the Russian system of communism. Europe has also experienced the enslavement of a Fascist dictatorship built on the support of big business - and fears that. Europe does not seem convinced that American intentions are free from the threat of economic enslavement.
Most of the maneuvering since the war ground to a close has been at the economic and political level. We Christians have had more than two years to lead out in a program for the world that might look toward the building of the Kingdom of God. Thus far, we have shown little or no resemblance to the piteously small band of first century Christians who were turning their world upside down.
A great majority of us would fight for the “American way.” But we are not so greatly concerned with the Christian faith. Comparatively few Americans will do anything aggressive about proclaiming the Christian faith, or will gave anything really substantial for the propagation of the faith. We bear too strong resemblance to a decadent generation, quite wealthy in worldly goods, physically comfortable as anybody and more so than most, but without the divine fire that builds a soul in person or society.
If this be true, let us look for the reason. (1) One is that we are a generation that is ashamed of Jesus Christ - or at least embarrassed to proclaim our allegiance to Him. We are more ready to say openly that we are a Republican or a Democrat; an engineer, farmer or lawyer; a Daughter of the American Revolution, a Veteran of Foreign Wars or an Odd Fellow; than we are to say that we are Christian! When it comes to Christ, we put on soft slippers and hope that somebody else will speak up. We woo and coax everybody who tries to be respectable to join the church -- practically everybody who is not positively unkind to us. And Christianity tends thus to become allied with things as they are, rather than being a revolutionary determination to help God make things as they should be!
The technique of the communists is to purge their ranks of all who are not singularly devoted to their principles. They are purged and purged until they have that “lean and hungry” look that means willingness to sacrifice for their program. And has anybody noticed any timidity on their part to speak up?
Where are the multitude of voices that ought to be speaking up for Christ? If such vigorous voices were heard from one tenth of Christian church members, the piping of communists in our nation would be drowned out!
(2) Another reason for our listlessness as Christian apostles is our over-emphasis on an ethic. For a couple of generations we have talked long and loud about the ethic of Jesus, but have been silent about the living Christ! Men and women, within or without the church, say: “Well, I try to pay my debts and do right by everybody and that is Christian enough for me -- in fact it is better than a lot of the hypocrisy in the churches.” Even earnest and active church folk bear down hard on the good works -- busy with better living conditions, justice for all. But the perfect ethic is never achieved and people still suffer from a sense of sin.
How can we find forgiveness? A broken promise can be forgiven only by him to whom the promise is made. A broken ethic can be forgiven only by him who gave the moral law. We can not worship abstract right. We can worship only the giver and the revealer of right. The good order has no other foundation than Christ. Christ for world is the foundation of a new order.
Our good works ought not to be lessened, but greatly increased. But how can this be unless we are guided, inspired, fired by Christ? Saved through him! Forgiven by the grace of the Father he revealed!
We may falter at the thought of spending our lives for and dying for good works. But Christ is worth suffering for, living for, dying for. I wonder if we recognize Christian conviction when we see it! -- or if we see it at all, part of the time.
A few weeks ago we heard that the American Command in Korea had ordered a change in the date for the Korean elections from May 9th to May 10th, because of some Korean superstition concerning the moon on May 9th. I can give you a better reason than that! Korean Christians --- and they are a remarkable spiritual body --- objected to having an election set for Sunday! Perhaps it was the sun instead of the moon that influenced the American military government’s decision.
By the way, why is not press and public in American interested enough in analyzing the outcome of that election to demand more news of it? Who were elected and what are their policies? Are they Christian, or just reactionary? To assume that the communists were defeated, and that is sufficient, is the most foolish of follies unless something as aggressively right is being done in Italy and Korea as might be done wrong had the elections gone the other way.
There ought to be a war all right. But not a war in hell between one pagan force of selfishness against the other. There ought to be an uprising of the Christian spirit set against all sorts of paganism. The Godless world should be set upside down “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.” [Zechariah 4: 6].
It is not so funny as it sounds to pray for the conversion of Stalin, but if Stalin and the rest of the communists should ever be converted it will be by a more effective brand of Christianity than they think they now see.
In August of this summer the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches is scheduled in Amsterdam. 135 churches, including the Eastern Catholic churches, will be represented by delegates. The Roman Catholic church will not be present. Will something occur there of a momentous nature? Our foremost Christian leaders deserve our prayers. We should all be praying for these men, that God may speak through them to the world.
We should all pray for them on this Sunday - Whitsunday, Pentecost - the day the apostles suddenly came to a realization of the tasks Christ had left them; when Peter became vocal and converted 3000 to an understanding of God’s grace.
[Acts 2: 14-42].
We do not need a new organization but we do need a renewed faith, a better understanding of the spiritual values. What we shall hear may not be comfortable in a material way but our spirits may still rejoice.
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, Faith Reformed Church, May 16, 1948
Wisconsin Rapids, Congregational Church, May 16, 1948