This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for Sunday 06 September 2015:

Today, quite rightly is a day of celebration here at St. James.

We are celebrating with two people who have stepped forward to profess and confess their faith. We are celebrating with yet another who has agreed to work as a leader (Elder) in this congregation. It is a great day for our church.

Yet in the heart of our celebration there is a hint of sadness, a hint of confusion, a hint even of disillusionment.

After all, most of us grew up with the great hymns of conquest on our lips: “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun”; “Soldiers of Christ arise”: “Ye armies of the living God”. The Billy Graham mid-century campaign had a tremendous effect on our churches, even through the Sixties, and there was a genuine belief that nothing could stop Christianity conquering the world by the year 2000.

Now, of course nothing could be further from the truth.

Christianity stalled or in decline

While the church is still growing at a very fast pace in Africa and other developing nations and continents, it seems to be in full scale retreat in Europe and America. The confidence that spawned these hymns has been replaced by disillusionment and despair even, in some circles. Indeed there is in many ways a confusion in many church circles about what constitutes mission in the world today. It is a confusion borne out of our multi-faith society and a realisation that the language of battle and conquest just do not fit in a worldview where we try to promote peaceful co-existence.

The kingdom of death

One author, Douglas John Hall, describes our current culture as being “the kingdom of death”.

The context has changed a little from when he first coined the phrase, but it still remains true, I suspect. When he wrote about this, six million Ethiopians were starving to death, death squads in central America were killing fairly indiscriminately and there were various dictators ruling their own little patch with secret forces taking out all opposition.

Now we have Isis and Al Qaida, we have refugees dying in their hundreds trying to escape from the Middle East and Africa and we are looking to spend billions on an upgrade to a weapon we hope never to use.

How do we become stewards of life?

In this arena, hymns such as “Soldiers of Christ arise” are seen as incendiary, as pouring petrol on the situation and are certainly not a help. Jesus said he came to bring life, and that in abundance, so how do we become stewards of life in this kingdom of death? How do we promote mission in a way that promotes life and not death?

What Jesus said about mission

Let us look at what Jesus himself said about mission in Luke 10: 1-12:

10 After this, the Lord appointed 70 others, and He sent them ahead of Him in pairs to every town and place where He Himself was about to go.2 He told them: “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest. 3 Now go; I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Don’t carry a money-bag, traveling bag, or sandals; don’t greet anyone along the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’6 If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they offer, for the worker is worthy of his wages. Don’t be moving from house to house. 8 When you enter any town, and they welcome you, eat the things set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there, and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near you.’ 10 When you enter any town, and they don’t welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘We are wiping off as a witness against you even the dust of your town that clings to our feet. Know this for certain: The kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.

This scripture is a wonderful counter to triumphalist Christianity that is such an anathema today.

Those who are sent out, are sent out with….nothing!

They are to travel light, not even carrying a change of clothes. No sword, no pistols, no physical defence of any kind. They are to be defenceless in a violent society, vulnerable to strangers and dependent upon the generosity of those to whom they are sent. They have only their words and their prayers. Their only power is the message itself, and it is not even their message. And their ability to articulate the message doesn’t even matter.

The message has power because there are, in the world, in the very towns and villages to which the seventy are to go, people who have already been moved by God’s Spirit, who are already, in some real sense, connected to God’s Kingdom. The children of peace are already actually there, in their very infant stages and when they hear the seventy’s message of peace they will welcome them, receive them, commune with them and work with them.

God’s mission always precedes ours

In fact, what the seventy discover, to their astonishment, is not how effective they are or how glorious they are as evangelists but that God was already there before them.

God’s mission always precedes ours: we are just the follow-up to the work of God’s Spirit.

We only confuse matters when we talk about our mission, for it is not ours. It is God’s mission and we only participate in the mission as we promote and pray peace, shalom, upon the world in which we live.

This is not about promoting ideological armies. This is the antithesis of all oppression, domination and manipulation. This is about peace, but not as the world gives, for this is about a condition of well-being, justice, mutual concern, harmony with creation and, as we pray so often (usually without even considering the impact of the words), it is about God’s kingdom coming, on earth as it is in heaven. God’s Kingdom, his mission, which should be our mission, is about the nurture and enhancement of life, and that in abundance.

Our mission is about the stewardship of life

That is what this church is here to promote, what Scott and Mandy have joined, and what Paul has said he wants to help lead: the stewardship of life.

Death is all around us. Religion, by removing itself from the areas of darkness, has even contributed to the kingdom of death. It would be considered scandalous if you saw a church member, an elder, or even worse, a minister, in some places, in some establishments. Yet how can we shine Christ’s light in the darkness if we will not enter the dark places?

The need for us to shine our light

Have you ever entered a bright, sunlit room and then turned on a torch? It has no effect, zero. Others will see the torch is switched on, but it does not illuminate the room any more.

But now take that torch, with the same brightness of bulb, into a dark room, with no windows or any other light source and see what a difference that torch makes.

We do not shine our light by going to church or by attending a Bible study. That is where we plug the torch in, to renew its light and its power.

We need to shine our light in the dark places of society, not by going in with tracts and speeches prepared – evangelical guns blazing, as it were – but just by being present, by silently offering a prayer of “peace be upon the place”.

Imagine what might happen, for example, if on a given Saturday night every church was given a pub, so that, for example, St. James’ would have The Beach Bar and then we all went on that night and sat in there, having whatever drinks we felt were appropriate, while The Baptists took the Steamboat, St. Gerardine’s took the Skerry Brae etc. and we all just filled the pubs with our folk and brought peace to these establishments, brought life and light.

I wonder how the atmosphere might change in each one of these places. It wouldn’t be about domination or aggression but simply about being a presence.

Our power to bring life into our society

We have the power to bring life into our society, by keeping alive the spiritual dimension of life in a society which only thinks in terms of material gain, by promoting a global awareness and vision that transcends national identity and class concerns.

We can be stewards of life by looking out for and supporting the victims in our society, the marginalised, the poor, yes, even the the asylum seeker. We can promote life by looking at what is possible and promoting hope in a world which only seeks to dull the hopes and aspirations of people by keeping the status quo and the way things have always been done.

I promise this to every one of you. If we did become true stewards of life, as those seventy did, in the midst of society’s decline, apathy and spiritual death, we would never run out of opportunities to tell our story or to witness for life and hope – for I can promise you that there are countless thousands in the world today who would love to know the reason for the hope that is in us.