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SERMONSalt and LightWe must repent of Christian pessimism and reaffirm our confidence in God's power.John Stott
Alienation was originally a Marxist word and Karl Marx meant by it the alienation of the worker from the product of his labors. When what he produces is sold by the factory owner, he is alienated from the fruits of his earned work. But nowadays the word alienation has a much broader meaning for powerlessness. Whenever you feel politically or economically powerless, you are feeling alienated. Jimmy Reed, the Marxist counselor in Glasgow and leader of the Clydeside Ship Workers when he was rector of Glasgow University said, "Alienation is the cry of men who feel themselves to be the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. Alienation is the frustration of ordinary people who are excluded from the processes of. Have we any influence? Have we any power? That's the question.
The word influence can sometimes be used for a thirst for power like in Dale Carnegie's famous book How to Make Friends and Influence People. But it can also be used in an unselfish way of the desire of Christians who are refused to acquiesce in the status quo, who are determined to see things changed in society and long to have some influence for Jesus Christ. And that is the question. Are we powerless? Is the quest for social change hopeless before we begin? Or can Christians exert some influence for Jesus Christ.
There is a great deal of pessimism around today that grips and even paralyzes people. They wring their hands in a holy kind of dismay. Society is rotten to the core, they say. Everything is hopeless, there is no hope but the return of Jesus Christ. I was sorry to hear Edward Norman, this year's wreath lecturer, dean of Peter House in Cambridge, say in an interview on radio "People are rubbish." But people are not rubbish. If I may respectfully disagree with the dean of Peter House, who isn't, I'm afraid, probably here to answer back. But then I'm answering him back.
But seriously, people are not rubbish. People are men and women made in the image of God. Oh, indeed they are fallen, but the image of God has not been destroyed. Are they capable of doing no good? The doctrine of total depravity, which means that every part of our human being has been tainted by the fall, does not mean that we're in capable of doing any good. Jesus himself said that although you are evil you are able to do good things and give good gifts to your children. Now of course we believe in the fall. We believe that when Jesus Christ comes again he is going to put things right. If you develop a Christian mind you don't concentrate exclusively on the fall of man and the return of Christ. You also think about the creation and about the redemption through Jesus Christ. And we have to allow the creation to be, as it were, qualified by the fall, and the fall by the redemption, and the redemption by the consummation. And the Christian mind thinks in terms of this total purpose of God, which includes the creation, the fall, the redemption, and the consummation.
So if we are pessimists and we think that we are capable of doing nothing in human society today, I venture to say that we are theologically extremely unbalanced if not actually heretical and harmful. It's ludicrous to say Christians can have no influence in society. It's biblically and historically mistaken. Christian churches had an enormous influence on society down its long and checked history. Listen to this conclusion of Kenneth Latourette in his work on the history of the expansion of Christianity:
No life ever lived on this planet has been so influential in the affairs of men like the life of Jesus Christ. From that brief life and its apparent frustration has flowed a more powerful force for the triumphant waging of man's long battle than any other ever known by the human race. By it millions have been lifted from illiteracy and ignorance and have been placed upon the road of growing intellectual freedom and control over the physical environment. It has done more to allay the physical ills of disease and famine than any other impulse known to man. It's emancipated millions from chattel slavery and millions of others from addiction to vice. It has protected tens of millions in exploitation by their fellows. It's been the most fruitful source of movement to lessen the horrors of war and to put the relations of men and nations on the basis of justice and of peace
Christ and his church have had an enormous influence. And if only we were out and out for Jesus Christ in the fullness of our commitment, then we would have far more influence than we do.
So, away with pessimism and away also with blind optimism as if we thought Utopia was around the corner. No, Christians are , biblical realists, who have a balance doctrine of creation for redemption and consummation. We are not powerless. I'm afraid what we are, rather, is often lazy and and unbelieving and disobedient to the commission of Jesus.
My text is Matthew 5. Here are verses becoming increasingly familiar to many of us who see their great importance today and began to look at them again. The Sermon on the Mount after the beatitudes, verse 13: "You are the salt of the earth." Verse 14: "You are the light of the world." Verse 16: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven."
In both these metaphors of the salt and the light, Jesus teaches about the responsibility of Christians in a Christian or Christian or Christian society. He emphasizes the difference between Christians and Christians, between the church and the world, and he emphasizes the influences one ought to have on the other, normally Christians on their Christian environment. The distinction between the two is clear. The world, he says, is like rotting meat. But you are to be the world's salt. The world is like a dark night, but you are to be the world's light. This is the fundamental difference between the Christian and the Christian, the church and the world.
Then he goes on from the distinction to the influence. Like salt in putrefying meat, Christians are to hinder social decay. Like light in the prevailing Darkness, Christians are to illumine society and show it a better way. Now it's very important to grasp these two stages in the teaching of Jesus. More Christians accept that there is a distinction between the Christian and the Christian, between the church and the world. God's new society, the church, is as different from the old society as salt from rotting meat and as light from darkness. But there are too many people who stop there. Too many people whose whole preoccupation is with survival, that is, maintaining their distinction. The salt must retain its saltness. It must not become contaminated, they say. The light must retain its brightness. It must not be smothered by the darkness. That is true. But that is survival. Salt and light are not just a bit different from their environment. They are to have a powerful influence on their environment. The salt is to be rubbed into the meat in order to stop the rot. The light is to shine into the darkness. It is to be set upon a lamp stand and it is to give light to the environment.
That is an influence on the environment that is quite different from mere survival. And I want to talk for the rest of my time on this influence. What is it? Let me suggest to you a few ways in which we have power.
Christians must use the power of prayer
One, the power of prayer. I beg you not to dismiss this as a pious platitude. It isn't. The power of prayer. There are some Christians who are so social activist that they never stop to pray. They are wrong, are they not? Prayer is an indispensable part of the Christian's life and of the church's life. And the church's first duty toward society and its leaders is to pray for them. We had it in the epistle for today. "First of all," Paul says, "I urge that supplications and prayers and petitions be made for all men and for those who are in authority that we may lead a quite and peaceable life in all godliness" and so on.
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