“Moulding Culture” is the sermon title for week 6 of “Fruitfulness on the Frontline” from Rev. Graham Crawford:

In our list of things that we should be doing in order to be fruitful where we are, this is perhaps one of the hardest.

It is the one which, as a church, we are probably failing at most dramatically.

We know scriptures such as Romans 12: 2. You read it most times you come into church – even if subconsciously. And yet we still allow our culture to shape the mission and attitudes of our church.

2 Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

How the church is being moulded by culture

You just need to look at the time wasted, the money and commissions that have been set up in the last ten years alone over the issue of ministers in a same-sex civil partnership to see how the culture around us is moulding our own particular denomination.

For so long, the church was the political voice of Scotland. Until the Parliament was set up at the bottom of the Royal Mile, if people wanted the view of Scotland on an issue or to bring change, it was to Church and Society they came.

But as a result of that the church forgot that it was more than that: it is the theological voice of Scotland.

Church and nation day used to be the high point of the General Assembly, with politicians jetting in to hear what the church was saying on behalf of its people. And the church enjoyed the adulation. It enjoyed the limelight – to the extent that it forgot what it was really about.

When the church spoke, people listened.

Now the Scottish parliament is the voice of Scotland and so, when the church speaks, very few people listen – to the extent that we have now got a quite substantial publicity department, where very little was needed before, and the church moves further and further away from positions of theological integrity in order to try and become politically relevant.

This is making our task of moulding culture more and more difficult as, in repeated attempts to become politically relevant, we become more and more theologically irrelevant, while letting the culture around us mould us, instead of the other way around.

When you start submitting the Word of God to a democratic vote, as The Church of Scotland has done over the last few years, the church is heading down a very slippery slope.

How the Bible calls the Church to be a moulder of culture

So let us hear the word of God for today, that we might reflect upon it theologically.  Matthew 5: 13-16 –

Salt and light
13 ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14 ‘You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

The call to the Old Testament people of God had always been that they were to be those who would represent God’s plan for the whole world.

They would be different not for the sake of difference, but that they might reveal God’s plan for the whole world.

It’s no surprise that, when Jesus begins his sermon outlining how people of this new kingdom will live, he begins by establishing their identity.

This is the theme that stretches back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus calls his disciples to himself and then shares with them the characteristics of those who live according to the new kingdom. It’s a blessing to those who are living in that way – at this point Jesus is not asking them to do anything.

So when he announces that these disciples of the kingdom are salt and light, he is urging them to see themselves differently.

To everyone looking on, they might have appeared so ordinary.

To Jesus, they are the ones through whom the love of God will be shared with the world.

They act as salt in places that are missing a vital ingredient, and as light in places that are dark.

Salt was used for many purposes:

• as a preservative to stop food rotting,
• as flavouring to enhance flavours,
• as fertilizer to enable fruitfulness.

Light is a metaphor which highlights the fact that, in dark places, not only does light reveal what is there, it also offers a new perspective for everyone.

In this passage light is related to actions – the everyday actions which demonstrated that these people had a different view of life (5:16).

Jesus suggests that people would see these actions and realise that there must be some other source for these lives.

Ways in which we fail to be salt and light

However, all too often we hide our light.

All too often we do nothing to add flavour to the world around us.

In an attempt to be hip and relevant, we hide our light so that we do not appear odd.

We hide our light by being silent when we should speak out:

• If we are aware of injustice yet say nothing, we are hiding our light.
•  When we go along with the crowd, instead of standing up for what we believe to be the principled Christian action, we hide our light.
• When we deny the light, saying we just go to church to keep our spouse happy or because it is advantageous in business, we hide our light.
• When we make a mess of things and sin, we hide our light.
• When we do not let the light shine by telling others about the light and the blessing that having Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour is in our lives, we hide our light, and
• When we walk through life with our spiritual eyes shut, not seeing the needs of others, we hide our light.

How to add salt and shine our light more

Letting our light shine is not hard.

In some ways, if we are truly living in Christ, it would appear that it almost takes deliberate action not to let the light shine through us – it has the feel of it flowing naturally from our identity as God’s people.

However, although it seems to flow through us, it does not make life easier.

This life we have received is lived out in the midst of a culture that has decided it wants to live a different way; one that largely lives without any reference to God.

How do you live in such a culture?

How do you live alongside people who may think that belonging to church and believing in Jesus are somehow quaint activities, good for some, but not for them?

How do you work for organisations whose practices may leave so much to be desired: using people, wasting resources, fearful of change, ruthless leadership?

If your workplace culture is one where everyone is simply out to get what they can, where it is cut-throat and back stabbing, how do you change it?

If you are the boss it is much easier to change the culture, but if you are simply one of the army of office workers it is very, very hard.

You have to take a stand and say that you are not going to get involved in the office politics, the mind games.

We need to take what we know about Jesus, what we believe and the fruits of the Spirit dwelling within us, to bring about change.

We have to stop being blown about like leaves on an autumn day by the fads and fashions of a corrupt society.

One of the biggest fallacies being preached today is that the church needs to become relevant by embracing culture and yet as soon as we do embrace culture we become irrelevant as we have then got nothing to say to culture. We only remain relevant to culture as long as we question culture, reject culture sometimes, but always when we challenge our culture’s presuppositions.

Not only that but, since culture itself is such shifting sands, any system we construct on those sands is doomed to fall. We need to stop letting culture mould us and instead be the transformers that we have been called to be.

In Tuesday morning’s Glasgow Herald, there was an editorial, by Colette Douglas Home, who was astounded by research which shows that, if a couple wait to get married and then have children, they were much more likely to stay together and the child or children were much more likely to grow up in a stable environment.

Now this particular commentator has no love for the church or for the Gospel. She was not about to admit that maybe, just maybe, Christian morality actually has something to say in today’s society. So she was desperate to put any sort of spin on it she could. However, it is interesting that, quite frequently, the liberalisations brought about by popular culture are shown to be harmful in the long run.

Your choice: between society and God

Jesus suggests that we act differently, but that it will begin because our identity is rooted in our relationship with God our Father.

Anything and everything is possible, if that is the case.

But you have to decide which is more important to you: your relationship with society or your relationship with God.

For it is the relationship we feed that will survive.

Jesus could not have expressed it any better. Paul could not have put it any plainer than he did in Romans 12:2. Why is it then that we still are allowing our culture to bully our church?

Only you can prevent it. Only you can say: “Enough is enough”. Only you can live in such a way as to say: “No, it is my relationship with Christ which will govern the cultural space around me”.

Do not conform, but be transformed and – in your own transformation – transform the world around you.