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| May 28, 2006 David Beebe SERMON:
"Living in Two Worlds” Scripture:
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26, John 17:6-19 In the early days of the
Christian Church, an unknown Christian wrote a letter to a friend who was
curious about the Christian faith and about Christians.
It is known to us as the “Letter to Diognetus.” It reads in part: ... Christians cannot be
distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs.
They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar
manner of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. . . . Yet
although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each one’s lot has
been cast, and they follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and
other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the
remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth.
They live in their own country, but only as aliens.
They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as
foreigners. Every foreign land is
their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land.
. . . They busy themselves on
earth but their citizenship is in heaven. They
obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the
laws require. . . . To put it
simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. There are many things I
might preach about today from our scripture lessons today For instance, the passage
from Acts follows immediately on the story of Ascension. (last Thursday was
Ascension Day and today is the last Sunday of the Easter season.) This passage
has to do with how the Church chose a leader to replace Judas after his betrayal
of Jesus. So, I might preach about how choosing leadership demands that we seek
God’s will. The reference to Judas is
picked up in the great pastoral prayer of Jesus (in our Gospel lesson) about
“the one who is destined to be lost.” So
I might preach about the meaning of that betrayal. But I have chosen another
text: John 17: 15-16, 18: I
am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them
from the evil. They do not belong to
the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
... As You have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the
world. This passage reminds me of
that quotation from “Diognetus”: “They
busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.” This is a description of
dual citizenship, of people living in two worlds. Christians may look just like
other people, but they march to a different drummer.
They have another allegiance. They
belong to the world that has not yet been born: Their case is like that of
the Free French during the Second World War.
While the people of That is the case with us. We
live in this world, but we live in the hope of God’s new world, as we pray
each day: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are like an advance party of the We may look like others in
the way we dress and the way we act, but inside we are different.
We live by a different set of values.
Consider: ·
While
our world depends on exercising power, we know that the touchstone of God’s
reign is service. · While our world is filled with violence, we know that bearing the pain of others is the only way to change the world. That is why there is a cross. ·
While
the world looks to all kinds of idols for happiness, we know that true happiness
is found only in our faith. We are, in short, a colony
of heaven — like the mission compounds in foreign lands.
We are here to change our world. This means that though you
may think you live in If EvUCC is to find its
mission, it will do so as it understands that it is here as a colony of heaven,
founded in the vision of faith, gathered around the table of Christ, and sent to
the world around us to witness to God’s great and just love. This is expressed in our
mission statement, which is found on every page of our newsletter, “The
Evangelines.”
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