Many people hold two contradictory ideas about our world. One is that sin is an outdated concept. One rarely hears public figures talk about failure or regret. I remember someone who was being interviewed about his life. He had made many bad choices, with the result that he had walked a path of brokenness and failure, but, when the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets, he said, “None! All of these problems have made me what I am today!” Exactly! But no regrets. Somehow, we have abdicated responsibility for the consequences of our own choices.
At the same time, there is a widespread sense of unease about the condition of our world – a sense of something almost like panic. We recognize that the world around us is in bad shape and that we live in critical times. I don’t need to illustrate this uneasiness; you can supply enough examples without my help.
The truth about reality, according to Scripture, is that the world is in desperate shape – it always has been and that we are responsible for the choices we make and their consequences. Further, the root of our bad choices is the human decision to try to be like God. We try to take God’s place in control of our own life and often of other people’s lives as well. This rebellion inevitably leads to trouble, an illness so deep that only God can heal it. Developing this theme, with the related task of persuading people that our problems come from our rebellion against God, falls outside the scope of this message, but we assume it as our starting point this morning.
Genesis records several further renewals of this covenant. In Genesis 15, God promises, “Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” This covenant then is sealed by a “smoking brazier and blazing torch” passing through several animals and birds that Abraham cut in half and laid out on the ground.
In Genesis 17, God repeats the covenant with the circumcising of all males in Abraham’s family. Then in Genesis 22, God calls on Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar. When Abraham prepares to do so, God says, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.”
- The covenant depends on God. In Genesis 12, we read, “I will bless …. I will make of you ….” In Genesis 15, the smoking pot and blazing torch represent God passing between the animals, which have been cut apart and laid out on the ground. This covenant ritual was well known in Abraham’s day. The two parties making a covenant with each other would walk together between the dead animals and repeat, “May it be done to me as it has been to these animals if I break this covenant.” God knew that Abraham and his descendants would fail, so God put Abraham to sleep and went between the animals to seal the covenant. When Abraham’s descendants would rebel, their rebellion would then fall on God. We have here a foretaste of the cross.
- The covenant requires our complete commitment. In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarah leave everything to follow God. In Genesis 17, circumcision is a sign of obedience. In Genesis 22, that difficult story of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his own son, his willingness was essential to God’s work in carrying out the covenant.
This background in Genesis prepares us to hear the covenant at Sinai that God makes with Abraham’s descendants, the Children of Israel. Hear these words:
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
God speaks to Israel through Moses. God’s words assume that the covenant – to make of Abraham a great nation – has been fulfilled in them, and now God gives more substance to what “being a great nation” will involve. God has set Israel free for a specific purpose: To be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
This is the point of the covenant, but what does it mean? Consider what it is to be a priest. In Israel, prophets were “the mouth of God.” Typically, the prophet uses the phrase, “Thus says the Lord.” Prophets represent God to the people. The role of priests is the other way round. Priests made sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. The priest’s task was to represent the people to God. Therefore, when God makes Israel “a kingdom of priests”, God says to them, “You represent the world.” Israel’s task in God’s covenant was to represent the world to God. Put this insight together with the two points above – that the saving covenant depends on God, and that the saving covenant requires our complete commitment. What do you get? God’s people respond with total commitment to embrace God’s saving covenant on behalf of the world.
This holiness will attract people to follow Jesus, but our first task is to be “a holy nation” representing the world. People may ask us how to come to Jesus, and we tell them; but our first task is to come into God’s presence ourselves and worship God. We should and do tell people around us who God is. We invite them to follow Jesus. But first and foremost we ourselves model what it means to follow Jesus. We show people what God’s saving covenant does, and our participation in God’s mission grows out of that demonstration.
You may think I am playing with words. It comes to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? We still tell people about Jesus? Why do I make such a big deal about representing the world and living as a holy nation?
Consider the history of residential schools in Canada. Whether the missionaries involved meant to do good or not, they were complicit in a destructive system, which in turn has seriously damaged the church’s participation in God’s reconciling mission. I know missionaries from the history of my own mission who saw the indigenous people of Zimbabwe as children who needed guidance rather than as fellow adults who needed Christ. They learned this racist view from the colonial rulers and, by absorbing such views, they hindered our participation in God’s reconciling mission.
I note that often such people are themselves not bad people. They – or should I say “we” – are often loving people who really want to serve God and follow Jesus. The trouble is that the world around us sees our flaws and our sinfulness clearly, especially when we start telling the people around us how bad they are. If our lives do not show the purifying and reconciling work of the Holy Spirit, on what grounds do we call them to repentance?
I am not suggesting that we should pretend to be good. Our transparency when facing our own evil is a more powerful witness than any pretence could be. Consider the great Korean revival of 1907, which fueled the growth of the church in South Korea so that it is one of the great mission forces of the 21st Century. The revival had several different roots, but one important event stands out in my mind at its beginning. [I found the account that follows online at https://www.byfaith.co.uk/paul20102.htm]
Transparency and repentance are the hallmarks of holiness. Such holiness was a basic ingredient in the Korean revival, and such holiness is a necessity for the church today to carry out God’s reconciling mission in the world.
If you want to be part of God’s mission, you must be part of God’s people. If you want to mediate the gospel to the world, you must speak and act the gospel. If you want to invite people to follow Jesus, you must yourself follow Jesus. When God’s Spirit flows in us individually and communally, we will find ourselves mediating the gospel to everyone around us. Missions is not a separate activity of the Christian life; missions – our participation in God’s reconciling mission – is as automatic in the life of the Christian as breathing or your heart beating is in physical life.
I think of the example of a Mennonite missionary in East Africa. Some of you may know him personally. I will use only his first name, David. David and his wife, Grace, went to Tanzania in the early 1960s with the Eastern Mennonite Board. They worked later in Somalia for 10 years under a Muslim government and then in Nairobi, Kenya, teaching about Christianity and Islam in a university there. They have worked also in Eastern Europe and in Pennsylvania, but what impresses me more than David’s vita is his spirit.
I don’t know him well, but I know him well enough to have sees God’s Spirit shine through him in ordinary conversation. In one of his books, he tells how he sat with a group of Muslim leaders. One of them embraced him afterwards, pleading with him to become a Muslim. “You love God so much you should join us!” Their awareness of God’s love present in David opened the door for him to talk also about the love of Christ that filled his life. It is that deep love that draws us into God’s mission.
Paul said it this way: “The love of Christ compels me!” Adoniram Judson sang it in the hymn, “Jesus! I am resting, resting, in the joy of what Thou art; I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart.” We started with the idea of covenant; we end wrapped up in God’s love.” Because covenant is above all else the action of the Divine Lover seeking the Beloved, all the people of the world.
Texts
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. 6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
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16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’
Focus Statement: Mennonites don’t often talk about the theological theme of covenant, along with its related theme of election; but we have lived out these themes through our emphasis on service. Doing God’s work, however, means that we must be fully God’s People.
2. Holiness is another big churchy word. What do you think we might mean when we talk about “holiness”?
3. How does pursuit of God’s presence in our lives lead us to participating in God’s reconciling mission to the world?
4. Given that missions has become a bad word to many Canadians, should we even be involved in God’s reconciling mission? I assume the answer is “Yes!”, but why?
