February 11 2023
IMPOSSIBLE: YET…..
Last Sunday I was the reader in our struggling Presbyterian Church, built 135 years ago, with 250+ pews. I counted the attendees: 25, mostly older folk! My reading concluded with Matthew 5: 20, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The preacher did not comment on that passage, so it remained a mystery to me, even though my most ardent aim in life is to be part of that kingdom, and enjoy eternity there.
What sort of righteousness Jesus refers to?
Jesus abhors the Pharisaic legalism. In Matthew 23 he curses the church- rulers so violently that they later kill him. However, Jesus had the last word: his final miracle, just before he died on the cross, was something extraordinary: at the precise moment when He said, “It is finished”, the curtain in the temple was torn into two, from top to bottom, signifying the end of religion, rejecting it forever.
What then does Jesus want us to do?
He came to bring LIFE. (John 10:10). That’s why I do believe that the Christian teaching is all-inclusive: it’s essentially a ‘way of life’, a 24/7 affair. That’s what Jesus really is saying when he stated that ‘our righteousness’ must exceed the utterly regimented religion prescribed and practised by the Pharisees, a regimen ridiculed by Jesus who openly defied their prescriptions, yet He wants us to go beyond that!
Augustine, the celebrated church father, was right when he said 1600 years ago, “Many who God has, the church does not have; and many who the church has, God does not have.
Think about that!
Going to church does not guarantee salvation, even though some churches still maintain that: “There is no salvation outside the church”.
What is Jesus really after?
I owe it to Bonhoeffer who perceived God and Creation as one. Creation is forever, is God’s most precious gift, for which he sacrificed his Son. Revelation 22 categorically states that “There is no altar in the New Creation”, indicating that both the church and the Bible will not be part of eternal life with Christ: God’s law will be written on our hearts.
That situation is already evident today: the church is disappearing, and the Bible has become a closed book The Belgic Confession, when asking how we know God, points to Creation as God’s primary revelation.
Jesus has creation in mind, when he stated that “our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees”. In our day-to-day life we face the IMPOSSIBLE task that the welfare of creation must ‘always’ – 24/7 – be our aim, goal, and desire. Always. With every undertaking, eat, sleep, think, act, we must ask ourselves: “does it promote or hinder God’s Creation?” No wonder we are saved through grace! We prayerfully and in community must perpetually pursue the welfare of God’s creation.
When Adam and Eve were selected out of the then human race, God endowed them with his breath, so that their body/soul/mind became a unity in and with the Holy Spirit. Their sin was that they failed to see God’s Creation as Holy, also our collective sin.
Can we still find our way?
Now our structures are breaking down. We now are continually searching without maps, playing around in half-belief: deploying, against what remains of Christianity, symbols that invoke multiple spiritualities at once. As Amos has written, “People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”
J. H. Bavinck, taught me that “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal”. That means that our salvation and the salvation of creation go hand in hand.
I adapted a song for this purpose. Yes, you can sing it in church! Or in the kitchen!
Look, what has happened to the Earth.
Where are the birds that sing in tall-tree-towers?
Why are the woodlands now full-soaked in ash?
Why do our eyes see only fire-showers?
Where are the tears when deer no longer dash?
Refrain: How clean the water, how tall the grain
How green the forest: can the earth renew again?
When will the deserts stop their massive spreading?
Where will we plant so food can freely grow?
Where do we go, where is our planet heading?
Why do we cause but misery and woe?
Refrain
When will the sea be free from human binging?
Safe for the whales that frolic in the deep.
Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?
Now is the time for our voice to weep.
Refrain
Tune: TIDINGS 11.10.11.10 with refrain.
“Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?
Will we? Try to live the life of the new creation. Pray for Christ’s return!