Social & Moral Issues

Social and Moral Issues

(Proverbs 6:16-19; John 3:16-21)

10:30 am, Sunday, July 28, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

It’s Sunday again.

One week ago today it was Sunday, the Lord’s Day, as Christians say.  Sharon and I had company coming for supper and overnight.  We were going to make potato salad, among other things – but, oops, we had no mayonnaise. 

Off to the grocery store I drove.  When I entered, I soon ran into one of my active church members.  We had a very pleasant chat.  There we were, shopping in the grocery store: on Sunday.  Neither one of us blinked an eye.

I bought more than mayonnaise; and as I went out and got back into my car, I met another happy member of Windsor Baptist.  We greeted; then I beckoned her over.  “Do you remember, a decade ago, when we Windsor Baptists were concerned that Sobeys and Superstore and Home Hardware were going to start opening on Sundays!”  Oh… we were again’ it! Now here we are, buying.  And buying into it.

She admitted she felt some guilt and regret.

Have we bought in to the “secular Sunday,” as our Covenant calls it?

Christian morals and ethics, social issues – these things are important.  Important because the ways we live our lives make a difference.  Make a difference to us, to others, and to our relationship with our Lord.

Social and moral issues are not simple, have never been, really.  But we seem to have more issues now than we did a century or more ago.  These matters are not simple, not cut and dried, no matter what scripture verses we quote, one at a time.  Thank the Lord there has been progress, through history, among believers.  We’ve seen more of the light, when it comes to slavery, women, racism, and so forth.  We have yet farther to go, I’m sure. 

We love John 3:16, and maybe 3:17; but today we read beyond… words about evildoers avoiding the light, doers of good living in the light.  Judgment.

Shining flashlight at night on raccoons at the birdfeeders.  They scatter!  So do we sinners when light threatens to shine upon our wrongdoing. 

You’ve heard how to tell apart the different Christian denominations?  The Roman Catholics don’t recognize the ministry of other churches.  The Anglicans don’t recognize the authority of the Pope.  And the Baptists don’t recognize one another when they meet in the liquor store! 

God, in His perfect goodness and holiness, graciously calls us into holier living in these days of our lives.  When we rely upon Jesus for Salvation, the Holy Spirit does His life-long work of sanctifying us – making us holy. 

Many still wonder, how possibly to be good enough, to become worthy, and to stop failing.  How can the Holy God accept us?

The late Rev. Robert Matthews introduced me to this hymn by Thomas Binney, c. 1826.

Eternal Light! eternal Light!

How pure the soul must be

When, placed within Thy searching sight,

It shrinks not, but with calm delight

Can live, and look on Thee!

O how shall I, whose native sphere

Is dark, whose mind is dim,

Before the Ineffable appear,

And on my naked spirit bear

That uncreated beam?

(Remember the scene in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the bad guys get the Ark of the Covenant, open it up, but then are melted by the holy energy that shines and is released?  This is the quandary… how can the impure not melt or burn up in the face of perfect Holiness?)

There is a way for man to rise

To that sublime abode:

An offering and a sacrifice,

A Holy Spirit’s energies,

An Advocate with God.

It is by Jesus, God’s Son who came and died and rose for us, that we are reconciled to God.  It is His sacrifice.  It is the working of the living Holy Spirit with our human souls.  Now, thanks to God, we can live in the light, and one day dwell in the pure light of God.  Today, the Lord shines the light, and shows the way.

Yet still, the saved of earth are imperfect, sinners.  And we do not agree on morals and ethics and social issues.  This is often tied to how we judge one another more than how we truly seek to live and make a difference in our global village. 

Ever notice that you have your own pet peeves when it comes to social issues.  Or, at least, maybe you see this in others.  One person is always getting excited about prayer and Christian stuff not being allowed in schools.  Another is often bringing up homosexuality, eyes flashing with anger.  Someone else is fixated on environmental issues.  And a few are always bringing up problems with Churchgoers and religion.  I used to visit a Christian fellow who always mentioned money, and seemed sure that I was always visiting to get his money for the Church!

Does the Creator hate one thing?  That bit from Proverbs 6 lists seven things the LORD hates, most are parts of the body that go astray: haughty eyes, lying tongue, bloody hands, wicked heart, evil feet, and then the lying witness and the sower of family discord.  God is comprehensive in His concerns: the Lord wants justice and rightness for all.  He doesn't really have six or seven pet peeves; God has the complete picture.  And it’s not about rules, it’s all about behaviour.  Our conversation about morals, ethics, social issues, must be with our God, and must be about everything.  Praise Him!  We have access.

Last week we heard Jesus teaching on divorce and marriage, in Mark 10.  As his opponents and students keep looking for loopholes in the rules for moral living, Jesus turns the subject back to God and God’s plan for wonderful life.  Christ is concerned with what really goes on among people – such as in marriage.  No matter what paperwork for divorce you get, that former connection stays with you, is part of your life, affects you and yours always. 

Jesus cares for us in our relationships.  Check out how he treated a foreign woman who’d had five husbands and was living with a new man – John 4.  He shines the light into her life, shows up everything she’s done, and she is totally impress by Jesus because of it!  She and her whole community seem to welcome Christ and put their confidence in Him.

Those things listed in our Church Covenant, some may seem vitally important, some may seem petty nowadays.  That strikes me as a cute phrase, “issues and questionable practices…”  It mentions in the list “literature, movies and TV programs which promote violence…”  Sharon and I rented and watched “Skyfall” last weekend – last year’s James Bond film.  I’m sure it promotes violence at least as much as buying mayonnaise on July 21 was part of a secular Sunday.  And what is left out that is just as dangerous as gambling, abortion, or neglect of the aging?  Questionable practices such as injustice for the poor, destroying the environment, or texting while driving? 

There are, as we know, new ethical issues in society, which the Scriptures do not address directly.  Stem cell research, nuclear power, global climate change.  But the God of the scriptures will address them, as we converse with Him. 

So the guidelines of our Covenant are very good.  We covenant together about how to be guided by the Lord in our morals and ethics, individually and in society.  We ask…

1.      Does this behaviour violate any particular part of Scripture?

2.      Does it harm my mind or body in any way?

3.      Will this behaviour hinder my witness as a Christian?  Will it be a stumbling block to others?

4.      What is God’s will?  Can I ask His blessing upon it?

5.      What would Jesus do?  Can I ask Christ to go with me?

As we ask these, me must also ask: how set are we in our moral standards?  Were our minds made up, long ago, about most things?  How then can we sincerely ask our God for guidance?  Are we ready to receive new answers?

Above and beyond what our minds and hearts think about moral living these days, it all comes down to our actions.  What we do.  As various Christian leaders wisely teach, the best way to show better ways of living is not to criticise those who are wrong, but to do things better, ourselves.  Show the better way, with the Lord. And keep learning from Christ. 

American activist and Christian author Shane Claiborne gives this example…

As Red Letter Christians, we need to be pro-life from the womb to the tomb.  Abortion and euthanasia, the death penalty and war, poverty and health care – all of these are issues of life and death.  And they are issues Jesus cares about because they affect real people.  (Red Letter Revolution, p. 85)

Claiborne is getting to know folks living in prison.

A friend of mine is spending life in prison for committing a terrible crime, which he says he has regretted every day of his life since then.  But when he went to trial, the victim’s family happened to be Christians, so they argued against the death penalty.  They knew that there is something wrong with killing someone to show that killing is wrong.  They said, “God may not be done with this guy.  It’s not going to bring our kid back, so we want him to think about what he did.”  Because of their witness in court, he was not given the death penalty.  He said, “So then I had a lot of time to think about grace.”  While he was behind bars, he kept hearing their words, that he was not beyond redemption.  He started reading the Bible and ended up having a powerful conversion.  Now he sees the point of his whole life and his vocation behind those bars as trying to continue to speak that grace to other imprisoned men and women.  (p. 88)

By the grace of God there is real hope for people in ‘hopeless’ failure and sin.  Good living does not save, Jesus saves.

By the grace of God we can be guided in our moral, ethical and social living.  Seek that Guidance from the Lord.

By the grace of our Loving God we can be empowered, and set free to do what is good and right.  Go, and sin no more.

The Lord is the light; the Lord shows the way.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.