How Does The Church Balance A Changeless Message In An Ever Changing Culture?
Good Morning Friends,
Some argue that Jesus came to initiate a New Covenant, not to improve the Old Covenant. Jesus came to give us new life, not to change our old life.Top of FormBottom of Form And to some extent that is true. Life with Christ is not like putting patches on an old tattered garment – it is like getting a brand-new outfit. Life with Christ is not like adding some new wine into an old wineskin – it is like getting a brand-new wineskin to receive the new wine of His Holy Spirit. But if this is going to take place, we need to be willing to part with that old comfortable shirt and if the old wine tastes better because it has matured, then we have a challenge.
Interestingly the Jewish New Year is celebrated on this coming Monday and there is a tip of the hat to the thought of a little out with the old and in with the new lectionary scripture. And so, we ask, How Does The Church Balance A Changeless Message In An Ever Changing Culture?
Scripture: Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
1 Corinthians 4:1-5 (NRSV)
Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink. Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.'”
Luke 5:33-39 (NRSV)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
Matthew 5:17 (NRSV)
So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:19-31 (NRSV)
Message: In Jesus and through him something new and amazing relationships had come into the life of the people who experienced him. Fisherman laid down their nets to follow him…people were healed. But the power and the message of his life and love could not be expressed in traditional terms of the Law and Prophets alone. He made the experience culturally relevant. However, Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was viewed as an attempt to take the old way… the Law… and trash it to bring in a new way…grace. The only problem with that thinking is that this is not what Jesus was about doing at all. Jesus is clear that he came not to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. We need to think in a new way. The Old Testament practices of sacrifice and fasting on the day of atonement were meant to teach people that God loves to forgive our sins more than anything. The problem was what the problem always is. Along the way the means to the end became the end. The purpose of fasting has always been to remove the physical to focus on the spiritual. But somehow the act of removing the physical became how we defined the spiritual. And how much you did that was the measurement for how much you loved God. The problem is about change and culture. And perhaps there is a better course of action rather than going with the winds of evangelical church culture experience by many in the 1950’s and 60’s in the United States for now all of those converts are in their 70’s and 80’s and dwindling in numbers in the pews. Something new is needed for a bridge to the next generation. We find a Biblical answer to this problem in Acts 17, which recounts Paul’s visit to Athens and the narrative clearly exemplifies Paul’s engagement and understanding of the culture. He quotes Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and poets, and then intentionally builds a bridge to the Gospel. Perhaps there is a better course of action rather than going with the winds of evangelical church culture. Paul beautifully portrays a timeless strategy for evangelism that does not overreact, under-react or counteract. Instead, it is a prayerful choice to consistently have a discerning ethic of engaging culture. It is about being a bridge. We need to follow Paul’s example and build bridges so that we can preach the Gospel in our own age.
Pray we are good stewards of the time we have been given. Pray we find joy in the experience of life. Pray we risk enough to try something new in ministry to others but at the same time not forget that Jesus came to the Jews first. Pray we appreciate that which has been aged and matured in the faith and that which has been brought to new life with the joy of the birth of a child. Pray we rejoice that in all the universe that God has found us and brought us to new life. Pray we realize that our culture can corrupt the church. Pray, despite this challenge that we live out our faith in the context of community with a clear vision of the background and the foreground of our place in history. Pray therefor the gifts we share build up the Kingdom to come. Pray we build bridges of faith between our everchanging culture and our biblical faith in a never-changing Gospel. Pray we be patient and less judgmental for we do not see the full scope of history. Pray our faith is expressed in a loving relationship with Christ as the cornerstone.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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