A New Creation

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

17 June 2018

I. Introduction

• We have all heard it – I am sure that many of us have said it – and quite likely most of accept it as true: seeing is believing
• We say that because we trust our senses – because we can see, hear, smell, taste, touch a thing, we believe it is real – there have been philosophies and philosophers who have told us that nothing is real, that unless we perceive something, it does not exist – our senses only tell us what our minds say they tell us – our senses are no more real than anything else about us
• Perhaps as a mind game, we could go along with such an idea – after all, there is no way to “prove” that if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, that it makes a noise – but while that might be an interesting intellectual exercise, it is really little more than that
• One response to such exercises was a philosophy that came to be known as Common Sense Realism – at its heart, the philosophy says that it is simple common sense to think that if a tree falls in a forest and we hear it fall, then it still makes a noise when no one is there to perceive it – it is common sense to think that when we leave this building, its interior does not cease to exist because there is no one here to perceive it – our senses do not simply tell us what our minds say they tell us – our senses tell us what is real, what is actually in the world around us
• As the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian Jesus People, he is challenging their common senses – he challenges them to move beyond what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch – he challenges them to live in a new creation – and that is his challenge to us, too

II. The Way It Was

• I have spoken before of the pride of the Corinthian Jesus People – they, or at least the ones who cause the apostle trouble, seem to think that they are simply better than others – they are smarter – they are more gifted – they are better looking than other – in fact, they are better in every conceivable way
• Thus, they challenge the apostle’s right as an apostle – they challenge his position as the apostle to the gentiles – they push back when he tells them to get rid of their divisions – they do not listen when he tells them that they have made a mockery of the love feast
• Just before today’s portion of the letter, you will recall, Paul tells them that they are missing the point of the gospel – he tells them that it is not about the messenger, but about the message – he tells them that the message is a priceless treasure that God has placed in breakable and often broken clay jars (I Corinthians 4.7)
• In the face of the Corinthians’ challenges, Paul asserts his confidence – but, of course, his confidence is not simply in himself, in his abilities, in his good looks or charm – his confidence is in the message that he proclaims and in his relationship with Jesus
• Here is the thing – that relationship is a relationship of trust, not of his senses – he says that he walks by faith, not by sight – the relationship depends not on what he can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, but upon trust – he trusts in his experience of God, both in his past and in his present – he trusts
• With that trust in his heart and in his life, he carries on with his ministry – and he trusts that the Corinthian Jesus People will have an answer for those who look only on outward appearance – and that answer will be that God looks at the heart
• With that trust in his heart and in his life, Paul holds on tightly to the idea that since Jesus died and was raised, that all have died and are raised – and now, all who have died and been raised live no longer for themselves but for Jesus
• Paul certainly knows about having looked at Jesus from a human point of view – when Paul saw Jesus in that way, Paul hunted down and persecuted Jesus’ followers – he was merciless – he was unforgiving – his devotion to what he understood to be his duty to God was unwavering
• Than something happened – then Paul had an encounter with the risen Christ and can no longer view Jesus from a human point of view – Paul generalizes from that experience – if anyone is in Christ, Paul says, there is a new creation
• Do you hear that? – Paul does not say that the person in Christ is a new creation, although that is implicit in his argument – he says that if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation – that is a fundamentally different idea – not only is the person in Christ a new creation, but the world is a new creation – everything old has passed away – everything has become new
• All of this is God’s doing – in making a new creation, God has reconciled the world to God’s self – not only that, God has given Jesus’ friends and followers the ministry of carrying that work forward – Jesus’ friends and followers are now ambassadors for Christ, Christ’s representatives, Christ’s messengers – it is a new creation indeed

III. A New Creation

• In this new creation, Jesus’ people see the world’s power and the world’s ways for what they are – they are nebulous – they are empty shells – they are dead and dying things because they are passing away – everything has become new
• As followers of Jesus, we participate in this process – every time we stand and speak against injustice, we embody a new creation – every time we hear the cries of the oppressed and act in ways to set them free, we embody a new creation – every time we feed the hungry, we embody a new creation – every time we clothe the naked, we embody a new creation – every time we give drink to the thirsty, we embody a new creation – every time we welcome the stranger and the alien, we embody a new creation – every time we welcome the outcast, the other, the ones who are different, to the table of Jesus’ family, we embody a new creation
• The day is gone when we can look at this world only from a human point of view – now is the day to see it as God wants it to be – now is the day to see it with new eyes, because it is and we are a new creation
• This will not be an easy job – our human senses will tell us again and again that seeing is believing – but the Holy Spirit of God tells us that we are in Christ and everything old has passed away, that everything has become new – our human senses will tell us that we cannot stand against injustice, against anger, against hatred, against persistent racism, against misogyny, against Islamophobia, against homophobia, against the powers of this world – but the Holy Spirit of God tells us that we are ambassadors for Christ, that we have the ministry of reconciliation, that in Jesus we can become the righteousness of God – not the righteousness of ourselves, which will only and wrongly justify our selfishness – but the righteousness of God, which draws all people together in love, grace, and mercy

IV. Conclusion

• In Christ, we are not only new creations ourselves, but we live in a new creation, friends, sisters, brothers – this new creation is not bound by our senses – it is a creation of trust and light – it is a creation of unity and love – and we are its messengers – we are its ambassadors
• Let us go and live in this new creation – let us go and be a part of God’s Vision for this new creation, a Vision in which God breaks down every barrier, in which God heals every broken place in every broken person, in which God removes and reconciles every division
• Let us go and make a new creation everywhere we go and in everything we do