“Why do Christians thank they can stick their noses in to
politics!!”
This is a common enough rant from the daily mail and others
when Christians or “the Church” say things that upset the great and the good
I would argue that if the church was doing its job right, it
would be the touchstone for politics in our society – the bench mark political
parties would be judged by.
When Jesus returned to Nazareth after his baptism, he
returned with a reputation and he went
to the synagogue, stood up to read as was the practice in those day, he was
given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he opened it and read out these
words
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the
poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the
blind,
to let the oppressed go
free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
He sat down to speak to this text, and said - Today in your hearing
this has come to pass!
Jesus did two things at the moment
Firstly he claimed the messianic mantle and secondly proclaimed a God
centred society.
In making this statement he said yes the rumours are true - God has
touched me and raised me high, I am the
anointed one. He also said God wants a
just world, free from oppression, good news for all.
Jesus never separated the social from the spiritual in his teaching (nor
the spiritual from the social), when he stood on the mount and gave his big sermon
he spoke of society and our personal relationship with god, he dealt with the
issues of the day and also spoke of prayer and your relationship with God, piety and probity and two sides of the same
coin as they were in much of the Old Testament, as they are in James’
letter. A positive response to the
needs of our communities is the outward sign of the inward change that being a Christian
involves.
In Pauls letter to the Romans ,
Paul contrast’s the prevailing self-centred
attitude to the way of Christ and asks us
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may discern what the will
of God— what is is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Once we have allowed that change
and renewal to begin , we truly do begin
to see more clearly what God wants his world to be like and it comes from a
deepening relationship with God.
Holiness is not a withdrawn virtue, to be found in the hermit’s cell or
stylites column, it is found in the mess and dirt and noise of the world, To be
aware of the vision of Jesus for a just and God centred society, is to see an
ideal world, what is called by Jesus the Kingdom of God, which maybe we won’t
see this side of heaven but is still something worth striving for and that is
the way of holiness.
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