Category: sermons by Rod Benson


Choosing the butter

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February 13, 2012

A sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-18

One of my favourite French atheist philosophers is a man of about my own age called Michel Onfray.  When he was 28, Onfray nearly died of a heart attack brought on, in part, by his love for classic French cuisine.  As he recovered, his doctor spoke those words we all dread – especially those of us who are too old, too grey, too plump and too sluggish: “Change your diet, or risk your life.”

In response, Onfray said, “I prefer to die eating butter rather than to economise my existence with margarine.”[1]

I’m with him on the food.  But those words capture more than Onfray’s culinary preferences: for him, secular philosophy is butter for the mind, and Christian theology is mere margarine.  And so we part company.

But I want to apply his statement to the story of Elijah and Elisha.  The purpose of the editor of 1-2 Kings is to encourage and challenge his post-exilic audience, the decimated people of God, to affirm God’s continued love and faithfulness in a radically changed environment.

Here in 2 Kings 2, the editor emphasises:

  • the imperative of personal as well as national loyalty to God
  • the demand for courageous and dependable spiritual leadership
  • the reality of another order of existence beyond our material world

As we encounter them, Elijah’s extraordinary life is drawing to a close, and Elisha’s fifty years of prophetic leadership is just beginning.  God is in the business of choosing unlikely candidates for key ministry roles.  Just look around you this morning!  Think about it:

  • Abraham, an establishment Ur-pagan, fathers the people of God
  • Moses, a stuttering murdering shepherd, emancipates the nation
  • Gideon, a terrified wheat-thresher, becomes the nation’s chief justice

And on it goes: Hannah, David, Amos, Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, and many other women and men in biblical and church history.

Now Elisha, son of Shaphat, another nondescript farmer, enters biblical history.  He’s ploughing a field with the village oxen, and Elijah, prophet extraordinaire and white-hot hero, turns up looking for a successor.

We select our spiritual leaders in all sorts of ways:

  • sometimes it helps if you’re the son of the senior pastor
  • or the one with all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of Moses, Jesus and Paul
  • or the guy with the most impressive referees (or facial piercings)
  • or the person with the best business plan for church growth
  • or the candidate who hits the magic quorum at a members’ meeting
  • or it just “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28)

Elijah simply waits for the oxen to pass, and throws his cloak around Elisha, who says goodbye to his family, destroys his plough, slaughters his oxen, and celebrates his ordination with a feast (1 Kg 19:19-21).  No bivocational ministry for Elisha!

Here’s what is important.  Elisha is ready.  He obeys God.  He respects authority.  He risks everything.  He chooses butter.

2 Kings chapter 2 opens with an astonishing disclosure: “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind…” (v 1).  Elijah takes his protégé on what will be his last tour of duty, or circuit, visiting the people of God at Bethel, Jericho, Gilgal.

Elisha shadows his mentor, and Elijah tests the strength of his commitment three times (vv 2, 4, 6).  Elisha is thinking: Am I the one?  Is this for me?  And three times he chooses the butter.  These three moments of decision are separated by interventions from “the company of the prophets” (vv 3, 5).

They are potential rivals.  The cloak might have fallen on one of them.  They are enthusiasts and nerds.  They have googled their way through life.  They know Elijah’s impending fate, and they want Elisha to know that they know what God knows.  Shades of Donald Rumsfeld perhaps?

Their function in the story is to serve as witnesses to Elisha’s succession.  Is he the one?  Is this for him?  Has he chosen butter?  But they distract him, and exacerbate him.  “Yes, I know – so be quiet!” he says.

Then comes Elijah’s last miracle (v 8), and as they cross the dry bed of the Jordan – into Moab, where Moses died – Elijah asks his last question (v 9), and Elisha’s answer indicates his desire to answer Elijah’s call.  Elisha is not seeking twice the power of his mentor.  He is seeking confirmation that the right choice has been made.  So Elijah sets a condition (v 10).

Then, in mid-sentence, a chariot of fire, horses of fire, a whirlwind, and Elijah is gone, his cloak falling empty from an empty sky.  Elisha picks it up and returns to the east bank of the Jordan River.

Now for the test that matters.  The other prophets are on the west bank.  Elisha takes the cloak and strikes the water.  He seems to waver for a moment, and says, “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” (v 14).  But the waters part, and he crosses over to the other side.

Fast forward half a century, and Elisha has lived through the high and low points of the reigns of five kings of Judah.  He surveys his own extraordinary life: a life of teaching, challenging, modelling, miracles, advocacy, fidelity.  Everyone can see that, in the realm of the spirit, Elisha has chosen butter rather than economise his existence with margarine.  They can also see that God has chosen butter in choosing him.

That is not to suggest that the pursuit of a so-called secular vocation indicates poor choices, or lack of courage, or is less worthy than a career in so-called spiritual ministry. But faced with the opportunity, and the necessary gifts and abilities, to serve God in a front-line spiritual capacity, and choosing something else is like Michel Onfray choosing margarine instead of butter.

And the consequences for yourself and others can be devastating.

Elisha was probably quite capable of ploughing a straight furrow, and tending sheep, and pruning grapevines.  But he was better employed, and contributed more to the spiritual capital of the people of God, by following in Elijah’s footsteps.

I faced a similar choice.  When I was 22, I found myself on a Commonwealth scholarship, enrolled in a doctoral degree, working as a research assistant and teaching at a University.  Life was good.

But God had better plans.  Through a series of steps, it became clear that my studies were more about pride and status than about serving God.  I was challenged by the experience of Moses, captured in Hebrews 11:26f, that there was something better.  I chose the butter, and went to College, and became a pastor, a chaplain and an ethicist.

Who knows what the future holds for us?  Choose butter, not margarine!  Respect the advice of others, but don’t be limited by their vision.  Don’t be limited by their experience.  Take the road less travelled.  Walk with leaders like Elijah.  Expect the unexpected.  Let God surprise you with his goodness and mercy and grace.

When it comes to the decisions that will shape your life, your ministry, and your legacy: choose to eat butter rather than economising your existence with margarine!

Sermon 582 copyright © 2006 Rod Benson. All rights reserved.  Preached at Morling College Chapel, Sydney, Australia, on 29 May 2007. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: Today’s New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985).

[1] Amanda Hooton, “The voice of reason,” The Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine, 12 May 2007.

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The new way (sermon by Rod Benson)

Filed under: discipleship, sermons by Rod Benson, virtue — 1 Comment
January 15, 2012

Romans 12:3

In last week’s sermon we saw how, in Romans 12:1-2, Paul commends a positive attitude toward God in God’s attitude toward the world, and a negative attitude toward the world in its opposition to God, as the basis of Christian discipleship.  There is great power in those words, and surprise, and challenge.

But in verse 3, Paul surprises us again.  We might have expected him to expound what he understood of God’s “good, pleasing and perfect will”; or about conformity to “the pattern of this world’; or more about what it means to be a “living sacrifice”; or how we experience God’s mercy in salvation and sanctification.

Instead, Paul says, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”  He commands all Christians to cultivate humility in their daily lives.

We all know what humility is, and each of us can probably think of people known to us whom we would describe as humble.  John Dickson, in a recent book on the subject, defined humility as “the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself,” or, “a willingness to hold power in service of others.”[1]

Sports and entertainment stars aside, Australians have a grudging respect for the virtue of humility, and no one likes a show-off or a “know-it-all.”  But the world in which Paul was writing saw things very differently.  Ancient Greek and Roman culture typically respected honour and shame, and praised arrogance and boasting and self-congratulation.  There was no room for humility in the ancient world, and any would-be leader who was humble, or who encouraged humility, was generally swept aside and forgotten.

Except, of course, a man called Jesus.

As John Dickson observes, “the modern Western fondness for humility almost certainly derives from the peculiar impact on Europe of the Judeo-Christian worldview.”[2]

In his teaching and example, Jesus overturned established values and stereotypes.  It is not going too far to claim that he redefined the nature of honour, and recast the concept of greatness, during his short life.  Hear Paul’s words in Philippians 2:5-11:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What would the Gospels be like if Jesus had come to our world but adopted the pride and arrogance that was typical of leaders of the time?  Part of the genius of Christianity is the radical humility Jesus displayed and commended.  When he emptied himself, he changed the world.  When he modelled his ministry on the ideal of radical servanthood, he was doing something counter-cultural, and laying the foundation for the character development of all Christian leaders who would follow him.

And what a foundation it is!  And what a challenge it brings!  American statesman Benjamin Franklin said:

There is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.  Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself … For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.[3]

And yet, in various places in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, God calls his people to embrace humility as Jesus did.

The call to humility is an important aspect of the transformation in thinking that comes with the new life we have through our link with Jesus.  Being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) isn’t merely a mental exercise, and it’s about more than the individual.  Paul wants us to recognise that Christlikeness is not demonstrated in a vacuum, but in our relationships with others.

In his book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, Anglican New Testament scholar N.T. Wright puts it like this: “the New Testament envisages the holiness of God’s people as a major factor in their larger vocation to be the lights of the world.”[4]  And he goes on to explain that Christian mission doesn’t make sense unless it is preceded by Christian morality.  The virtues that constitute the high calling of Christian morality (such as the fruit of the Spirit, or the classic cardinal virtues) are the vital components of the still higher callings of Christian worship and mission.[5]

Do we want a deeper experience of worship?  Are we convinced that mission done right will advance the kingdom of God and bring glory to Jesus?  Then invest time and effort in cultivating virtues like justice, prudence, fortitude and restraint within a Christian theological framework. Or here, as Paul commands, practise humility.

The link with verses 1-2 is obvious: we should reject the kind of thinking that produces pride and arrogance, and embrace the kind of thinking that leads to humility in word and action.  At the same time, some of us fall into the opposite trap: we think too lowly of ourselves, either through a false humility (that is actually pride carefully concealed); or a failure to fully appreciate our identity in Christ, and what God is capable of doing in and through us.  The solution to both problems is to examine the direction in which our affections and decisions are taking us “with sober judgment.”

But what does the last phrase mean?  Some biblical scholars link it with verses 4-8, suggesting that it refers to an attitude based on the gifts and abilities God has given each individual.  But I think the meaning is clearest if we think of “faith” here as a strong, confident trust in God – something we all have access to in equal measure.

So what can we do to become more humble?[6]

  1. Observe traces of humility in those you respect.
  2. Evaluate your own strengths, weaknesses and limitations.
  3. Keep learning new things, seek guidance, remain teachable.
  4. Act with humility
  5. Invite constructive criticism.
  6. Forget about being humble.[7]

The great author and apologist C.S. Lewis knew a great deal about both duty and virtue.  In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis concludes his discussion on humility, and I conclude my sermon, with these words:

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step.  The first step is to realise that one is proud.  And a biggish step, too.  At least, nothing whatever can be done before it.  If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.[8]

Sermon 606 copyright © 2012 Rod Benson.  Preached at Eastwood Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 15 January 2012. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

[1] John Dickson, Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), p. 24.

[2] Ibid., p. 99.

[3] Source unknown.

[4] N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), p. 246.

[5] Ibid., p. 247.

[6] Based on chapter 11 in John Dickson, Humilitas, op. cit., pp. 173-183.

[7] In saying, “Forget about being humble,” I am not suggesting that the attainment of this virtue is a temporary challenge to be mastered before moving on to some other challenge, or that one should ignore all the previous advice.  Rather, the point is that humility is a low-key virtue that does its best work in the background without drawing attention to itself or to the person expressing it.

[8] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Collins, 1986), p. 112.

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The new day

Filed under: discipleship, sermons by Rod Benson, worship — Leave a comment
November 13, 2011

Sermon by Rod Benson, 13 November 2011

Romans 12:1-2

What’s your favourite time of day?  Mine is the dawn – even if I have to wake up earlier during Daylight Saving to experience it!  I love the new day – the freshness, the soft light, the furnace of the sun tearing through the bank of cloud out to sea, the birdsong, the peace.  Even the traffic is better at dawn.  And the dawn portends a new day of possibility and opportunity.

Some new days are more important than others.  There’s the day of your birth, the day you seriously became a follower of Jesus, perhaps the day you married and the day each of your children was born.  There’s the day in 1901 when this nation became independent of Britain.  There’s the day in 1905 when the Mosman Baptist Church was founded, or in 1920 when the present sanctuary was opened.

The Bible speaks of many new days.  There’s the day of creation, when God created matter; and day eight of creation, 13.7 billion years later, when Adam and Eve looked around at the world they inhabited and were fully conscious of its grandeur and grace. What would it have been like to be in the Garden of Eden on that day?!  And there are many other significant days in biblical history:

  • Day 1 of the Exodus, and Israel’s redemption from Egypt.
  • Day 1 of Saul’s monarchy.
  • Day 1 of the public ministry of Jesus.
  • Day 1 of the resurrection.
  • Day 1 of the church, when the Holy Spirit created an altogether new entity, in which we participate today.

But every day is an opportunity to be aware of your existence, of your place in the world, and of the potential you have to make a difference.  It’s an opportunity for a fresh start, a step higher, a renewed interest in what matters most.  So what is it that matters most?

I put it to you that what matters most in your life, and in the life of your church, is your active participation in the kingdom of God – in the progress of God’s rule, and the renovation of human hearts, and the transformation of this world into the future that God intends.  And there’s no better place to catch a glimpse of the foundation of that idea, and the sunrise of that concept, than Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Our relationship to God is the basis of all other relationships, and our duty to him the basis of all other duties.[1]

The first word (“Therefore”) reminds us that what Paul is about to say (indeed all of what he will say in 12:1 – 15:13) rests on the theology of chapters 1-11.  Doctrine is good, but without practical effect it may as well not exist.  On the other hand, action is important, but it needs to be grounded in coherent theory and principles.

These two verses are the door to the ethical implications of the profound theology that Paul has expounded in the preceding eleven chapters.  He explains and defends what he believes, as revealed to him through Jesus, and then says, “On the basis of our common understanding of the gospel and its application to all of our lives, here’s how we should live.”

And in Romans 12:1-2, Paul commends a positive attitude toward God in the light of his relationship to the world, and a negative attitude toward the world in its opposition to God.  We call this Christian discipleship.

Notice that this is a response to God’s mercy.  Notice too that it begins with an attitude, a turn of the will, a renewal of the individual mind, but it is demonstrated and effected in bodily devotion expressed in community.

“The sacrifice God looks for is no longer that of beast or bird in temple, but the daily commitment of life lived within the constraints and relationships of this bodily world.”[2]  By the time Paul was writing this letter to the Christians living at Rome, they were marked out as unusual because of their complete lack of a sacrificial ritual in their worship, in contrast to Jewish and pagan religion.

The closest they came to this was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  There was no longer any need to offer literal sacrifices, because Jesus had fulfilled all that was required of the Old Testament sacrificial system, and brought it to a complete end.  His death brought closure to the divine demand for animal sacrifice.

But Paul now exhorts the Christians to offer themselves to God.  They give themselves.  We give ourselves.  We are the offering.  We are the sacrifice.  And our act of worship, intimately entered into, is both holy (in the sense of intelligent devotion to God) and pleasing (in the sense that it brings pleasure to God).  The result of this kind of sacrifice is not death and destruction but devotion and delight.  There is no higher calling.

But what does Paul mean by “true and proper worship”?  The King James Version rendered this phrase “reasonable service.”  It is difficult to translate into English.  I think the NIV translators have it right.  Paul has in mind the act of worship (involving not merely what happens when I gather together with other Christians for praise, prayer and mutual edification, but all of my life, my whole person).

He also has in mind the intentional or rational motivation for this worship.  Thus Douglas Moo writes, commenting on the difficulty in translation, “We cannot feel confident that either ‘spiritual’ or ‘rational’ is absent from the adjective [i.e. the word translated “true and proper” in the NIV 2011] or that ‘worship’ or ‘service’ is lacking in the noun.”[3]

As I said, in verse 1 Paul commends a positive attitude toward God; then in verse 2 he commends a negative attitude toward the world.  It’s not that he doesn’t like culture or sport or kissing.  He would be among the first to encourage us to be fully human, and express our humanness in the fullness of body, mind and spirit.

But there are limits, there are boundaries, beyond which lies sadness and madness.  Unless we think carefully, and rely on good advice, and take precautionary actions, all of us have a tendency to drift into conformity with those qualities and actions that do us and our community damage.

Instead, says Paul, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  By an act of the will, we learn to think differently: new thoughts, godly thoughts, compassionate thoughts, thoughts of others, thoughts after Jesus, thoughts undergirded by sound doctrine, thoughts anticipating heaven and home.

And this becomes a habit, a daily process of renewal, slowly and inexorably changing our world-conformity into Christ-conformity. As we become proficient at this new art, as this process of Christian discipleship becomes second nature, we discover something that is at once simple yet profound, clear but deep.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, we discover that we are able to “test and approve what God’s will is” – like a muscle, our minds are trained to weigh up what is good and right and true (both out there in the world, and deep within our own minds and hearts) and put it into practice.

This is achieved not by endeavouring to keep all the laws, or copying the lifestyle or teachings of someone we admire, or trying to evade the label of hypocrite, but by submitting to the authority of the risen Jesus, and asking him to renew us from within by his Holy Spirit.  It’s about a determined commitment to God, and daily dependence on God.  This is the biblical basis for responsible Christian living.  It’s a lifelong process, but it may be invoked, developed and deepened with each new day.  You can decide to move forward at any time.

I attended a conference with Bill Hybels in Melbourne in 1999, and here’s part of what he said (I’ve never forgotten it):

People never drift into higher levels of commitment to God.  People never drift into higher levels of devotion to the church.  People never drift into higher devotion to servanthood.  People always drift away from God, away from character, away from devotion, away from servanthood.  How then do people wind up with increased devotion to God, to the church, and this kind of stuff?  They are taught, they are challenged, and at some point the leader stands before them and says, “Make a decision today!”

Today may be your decision day.  Today may be your new day.  What will you decide?

I close with a prayer of St Francis of Asissi, inspired by Luke 9:23-24 and Romans 12:1-2:

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much

Seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Sermon 604 copyright © 2011 Rod Benson.  Preached at Mosman Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 13 November 2011. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

[1] James Montgomery Boice, Mind Renewal in a Mindless Age (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), p. 19.

[2] James D.G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), p. 717.

[3] Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1996), p. 434.

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Sermon: What Jesus would say about immigration

Filed under: asylum seekers, immigration, sermons by Rod Benson — 5 Comments
October 10, 2011

Sermon by Rod Benson

Sunday 9 October 2011

Scripture reading: Hebrews 13:1-3

Australia is a nation of immigrants with links to almost every other country and culture.  Even the first Australians, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, came to this land from somewhere else.

All of us here today are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants.  And still people come, and we have a responsibility to welcome them, and (if we are conscientious citizens) to influence immigration policy for the common good and in harmony with our theological convictions.

If Australia possessed a Statue of Liberty, she would be set not in Sydney or Melbourne but somewhere on the coastline between Port Headland and Darwin, on land once erroneously called Terra Nullius, gazing out over the Indian Ocean from shores that have felt the imprint of millions of immigrants, with her face set toward Christmas Island.

When we think about immigration, we open a can of worms that includes border protection, refugees, asylum seekers, business migration, social inclusion and cohesion, multiculturalism, racism, xenophobia, and debates on population and resources.

If Jesus were here this morning, what would he say about immigration?  I have no doubt that he would ignore the politics and the policies, and say something like:

  • Tell me about the people who live in your street.
  • Where did your family come from?
  • What do the Scriptures say about border crossings?

The biblical witness is crystal clear when it comes to how Christians should feel and act toward immigrants.  There is a coherent vision of community wellbeing, and a consistent emphasis on justice, grace and neighbour-love toward all who are in need, summed up most profoundly in the biblical concept of shalom, “a picture of community, of life in relationships, in which things are as they are supposed to be [and where people] live in harmony and delight with God, each other, and the world.”[1]

Individual Christians and local churches are expected to reach out to such people with compassion and sacrificial love, possessing no ulterior motive and showing no favouritism toward particular groups.

In an article on refugees, Roy Branson observes that:

While Christianity affirms the importance of the individual stranger, it also values community.  The sanctuary movement [that is, the historic practice of offering sanctuary to those fleeing danger] not only draws attention to the exile but also to the cities of refuge.  As in designated Old Testament towns, and in British and European cathedrals into the 16th century, security from retaliation and injustice must be provided …

The theme of exiles and pilgrims as the chosen of God, who must in turn welcome the stranger, is so strong a theme in biblical faith that it creates a presumption in favor of admitting the immigrant, granting asylum to the refugee, and treating the alien as an equal.[2]

And the late British pastor and author John Stott notes:

It is important that a church which has a passion for justice should stand up against any culture or system which overlooks injustice, especially when it refers to the weaker members of society.  Yet such injustice goes further: it denies the very roots of the creation story as affirming each person as made in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect.[3]

If Jesus were here this morning, he might say to all Australians, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Mt 7:12a).  And to religiously minded people, he might tell the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37), and invite you to go with him to Villawood Detention Centre.  And to Christians, he might refer to the Great Commandment to love God and love your neighbour (Mt 22:34-40), and ask how you’re going in the challenge to love – really love – people who are quite different from you.  And to a local church, he might draw attention to some of the many relational exhortations in the New Testament, such as Hebrews 13:1-3.

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters” (verse 1).  Charity begins at home.  If we can’t get on well with those with whom we have most in common, and those who know us well, how can we hope to show goodwill, let alone sacrificial love, toward strangers?

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers” (verse 2a).  Open your homes and your lives to strangers, refugees, overseas students, homeless people, young people who don’t have the blessing of a stable family life.  Who knows? Some of them might be incognito angels (see Gen 18:19; Jdg 13).  And in showing hospitality to strangers, we not only welcome angels but Jesus himself (Mt 25:31-40).  And some of them are not far away.

“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (verse 3).  Perhaps some of the Christians were behind bars, or subject to abuse, arrest and attack (cf Heb 10:32-34); Timothy had recently been released from prison (13:23).  Or perhaps this is a universal request.

What’s important is that we recognise the humanity of those in detention, and demonstrate empathy and solidarity with them – for example, through prayer, visitation, writing letters or emails, making donations to meet their needs, working for their release, and assisting them as they integrate or reintegrate into the community.

Dallas Willard was for many years Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California.  He is also a Christian, and author of several important books on Christian spirituality and Christian living, including The Divine Conspiracy.  In one of his books, he writes:

Some time ago I came to realise that I did not love the people next door.  They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people – ex-bikers who made their living selling drugs.  They had never tried to harm my family, but the constant traffic of people buying drugs, a number of whom sat in the yard while shooting up, began to wear down my patience.

As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at all, that after “suffering” from them for several years I would secretly be happy if they died so that we could just be rid of them.  I realized how little I truly cared for nearly all the people I dealt with through the day, even when on “religious business.”  I had to admit that I had never earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus.  Now it was time to seek.

Jesus himself is the ultimate immigrant, coming from heaven to point the way back to God and God’s ways (2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:5-8).  The infant Jesus and his family experienced life as refugees, forced to flee the wrath of King Herod, and finding sanctuary in Egypt until the threat had passed (Matthew 2:13-23; see also 8:20).  He knew what it was like to be an outsider, and a refugee, and to face the challenges of assimilation or integration – and the pain of loss, and ostracism, and rejection.

The church is collectively described as “foreigners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11).  Like Jesus, we’re supposed to know what it’s like to be outsiders.  What better group of people to welcome immigrants, to assist them, and help them integrate with other Australians!

What is Jesus saying to you today?

Sermon 603 copyright © 2011 Rod Benson. All rights reserved.  Preached at Hornsby Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 9 October 2011. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

[1] Andrew Sloane, At Home in a Strange Land: Using the Old Testament in Christian Ethics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), p. 28.

[2] Roy Branson, “Refugees,” in John Macquarrie & James F. Childress (eds), Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), pp. 530-531.

[3] John R.W. Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (4th edn; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), pp. 281-282.

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A biblical view of death

Filed under: death, euthanasia, sermons by Rod Benson — Leave a comment
March 30, 2010

Writing on mortality in the journal First Things, graduate philosophy student Anna Mathie relates what she describes as “the most exquisitely sorrowful moment in a book filled with exquisitely beautiful sorrow” (the book is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings).

In the story, Aragorn is at death’s door, and Arwen, who has rescinded her elvish immortality to be his queen, is overcome and pleads for him to stay with her.  Aragorn refuses, preferring to go with grace before he grows feeble.  He tells her there is no comfort for the pain of death and bereavement except for the treasuring of memories.  Until now she has not fully understood the meaning of mortality, “the Doom of Men,” with its unbearable loss and silence.  Says Arwen,

Not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall.  As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last.  For if this is indeed, as the Elves say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive.

And Aragorn passes away, and Arwen, “the light of her eyes … quenched,” departs and dies in the dead land of Lorien, where deathless Elves once lived.[1]

Death, “the gift of the One” to women and men, is our curse, but also our blessing.  It is universal, unavoidable, and personal (Rom 5:12; Heb 9:27).  It is the end of a process that commenced at conception.  Where death is inevitable, it is to be accepted; where it is not inevitable, it is to be averted, though not at any cost.  It is hard to accept, hard to tame, difficult to talk about, and impossible to finally outwit.

We often discuss death, or talk around it, through humour.  For example, when I notified my twitter followers that I was en route to this conference this morning, and that I would be speaking on a biblical view of death, I received two memorable replies from my twitter followers.  One asked, “Will you sacrifice your first-born?”  The other asked, “Will there be examples and a demonstration?”

The Bible has much to say about death and dying.  The biblical writers consider the experience of death as an event to be feared by some and welcomed by others, an end but also a beginning.  Death is an enemy (1 Cor 15:54f; Isa 25:7f; Rev 21:4), and a punishment for improper moral choices (Gen 2:17; 3:22; 6:3; Ps 90:7-10; Rom 5:12; 6:23).  Yet for the Christian, the fear and penalty of death have been annulled through the death of Jesus Christ.

As David VanDrunen notes in his book, Bioethics and the Christian Life, Scripture envisions at least four aspects of death:

(a)  Physical death: to experience the cessation of bodily life, and the separation of body and spirit, while surviving beyond death as a mind-body entity transformed by God despite the reality of physical disintegration;

(b) Moral and spiritual death: in Paul the Apostle’s words, to be “dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Eph 2:1-2; cf Heb 2:14);

(c)  Eschatological death: to experience death in the age to come – consignment to the “lake of fire,” and eternal destruction (Mt 25:46; Dan 12:2; Rev 20:14f).[2]

Thus, observes VanDrunen,

death is a curse, a realm of experience in which Satan exercises his tyranny, and a door to a far worse fate than anything that people know in this world.  Yet there is an exception to this truth, an exception that is quite literally life-changing and death-transforming.  The Christian proclamation about Christ and his gospel effects a radical change in how a person should think about and experience death … Christ died for us (Rom 5:6,8), and we died with him (Rom 6:8), and thus he shares with us and bestows upon us the benefits of his resurrection life.[3]

The New Testament speaks of death invading life (Eph 2:1; cf Ps 88), but it also speaks of eternal life invading the realm of spiritual death in the present experience of the person who is reconciled to God through faith in Christ (Jn 3:36; 5:24).

There is no hint of the concept of reincarnation in the Old or New Testaments, either in the sense of undergoing a repetition of the same life, or “returning” in a different form contingent upon the moral quality of one’s previous existence.[4]

There are several ways in which we could more closely examine a biblical view of death.  We could develop a biblical theology of death, but that would turn out to be a celebration of the glorious doctrine of resurrection.  We could look at what is called individual eschatology, and discuss the various views of what happens at and after death.  We could analyse the pastoral theology of one or more biblical writers in the context of ministry to those who are approaching the end of their lives.  But in contemplating this subject, my mind has turned to the experience of death and dying, and to the Psalms, and to Psalm 88 in particular.

This psalm gives voice to the experience of a dying person, indeed a person of faith – and not merely a lazy faith in a nebulous higher power, nor a formal faith in the authority of religious tradition to explicate the inexplicable, nor a therapeutic faith which assures the patient that all will be well in this best of all possible worlds, nor an atheistic faith in the grandeur of human reason and the ghastliness of ultimate reality, but an existential faith in a personal God who treasures relationship, and registers anguish, and hears prayers, and saves the suffering.

And yet Psalm 88 is also an acute embarrassment to such faith, and asks large questions of such a God, questions that remain unanswered as the psalm concludes.  Derek Kidner called Psalm 88 “the saddest prayer in the Psalter.”  Others have described it as “stark and lonely and pain-riddled,” “one wail of sorrow from beginning to end,” “unrelieved by a single ray of comfort or hope.”  Michael Wilcock claimed that “No other prayer in the Psalter is quite as desperate as this one.”  James Montgomery Boice observed that “It is good that we have a psalm like this, but it is also good that we have only one.”[5]

So why have I chosen to comment on this pessimistic psalm as a way of focusing our minds and hearts on a biblical view of death?  First, because it seems to represent the authentic experience of a godly person faced with chronic suffering and conflicted spirituality.

Second, because it provides a sober starting point for a fuller exploration of what the Bible teaches about the vital issues of death and the afterlife, mortality and hope, suffering and glory.

Third, because it offers a model prayer (though not the only one in Scripture) for those whose finitude is a heavy burden and whose mortality is a palpable weight.

Fourth, because this is the reality of the world in which many of us work as pastors, counsellors, chaplains, doctors, nurses, and health care professionals.  It is especially instructive, if not exactly comforting, to know that this psalm resides in the Psalter, and in the biblical canon, as we fulfil our calling to care for and to cure patients and parishioners facing end-of-life challenges.

As John Goldingay put it in his commentary on this psalm:

On one hand, it is disturbing to be faced by the reality of such abandonment by God.  On the other, it is encouraging that the psalm faces the reality of such abandonment and witnesses that this does not make prayer impossible.  And further, it is really important that the people of God face the reality of death, because we understand life only as we reflect on the reality of death toward which we are moving.[6]

The psalm may be divided into three parts, each beginning with a cry to God (vv. 1-9a; 9b-12; 13-18).

The psalm begins with an affirmation of the saving power of Israel’s God, the object of the psalmist’s prayer (v 1a).  Then it plunges into the darkness of human suffering. The psalmist, Heman the Ezrahite (if we are to accept the title above verse 1), cries out to God day and night, hoping for a response to his need, an answer to his questions, a light in his darkness.  He has suffered from his youth (v 15), and now is close to death, “like a man without strength” (v 4).  In verses 3-5 he describes his situation, his awful predicament.

Then in verses 6-8 he reveals (or alleges) that it is God who has brought him to this place, and whose wrath surrounds him, and who has driven his friends away.  And he concludes, in verse 8b-9a, “I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief.” He collapses into a slough of despond, overcome by his own misery and a sense of hopelessness, perhaps feeling trapped in his body, powerless and far from free.

Yet this is not faithlessness: he prays, and reaches out to the God whom he knows to be there, and who must hear, and who must care. Heman recognises that he is a creature and God is the creator.  He cannot force God’s hand, or do a deal with God, or hope by passion or wisdom or oratory to impress God and so to induce God to act on his behalf. But in the midst of the darkness, and on the brink of despair, he will not be silent.  He will go on praying.  He will call out to God again and again (v 9b).

And so he does.  Now he asks six rhetorical questions (vv 10-12) – not casting doubt on the goodness and loving-kindness of God, but expressing how life feels at this moment.  It’s all negative, and darkness and foreboding.  Oblivion awaits.  And still God is silent.

So he cries out again, this time focusing on direct complaints against God (vv 13f).  He believes God is rejecting him (v 14).  He has suffered prolonged affliction (v 15a).  He has been overwhelmed by “terrors” (v 15b). He is in despair (v 15c), crushed by the weight of God’s wrath, destroyed by divine terrors (v 16).  He feels “completely engulfed” (v 17).  This is profound emotion.

He might have been consoled or counselled by a friend or a neighbour, but they too have been taken away, and again the psalmist points the finger at God (v 18a).

And instead of resolution, or thoughtful answers, or quiet words of comfort, the psalm ends with these haunting words: “Darkness is my closest friend” (v 18b).

Psalm 88 is, of course, somewhat similar to the book of Job, or it would be if the book of Job had concluded at the end of chapter 31, before the Elihu speeches, and the divine response, and the happy ending. Here, in Psalm 88, there is no happy ending, yet no apostasy either.  Simply an image of a lone sufferer, confused and frustrated, unconsoled, unrewarded, in darkness.  Yet this same person, wrapped in night and baffled by divine silence, has in verse 1 acknowledged his creator as “the God who saves me.”  Human hope springs eternal.

We have to go to other biblical witnesses, of course, to see the full picture: passages such as Job 38-42; to Psalm 23:4-6; to John 1:5, and 6:53-58, and 11:25-26; and Rev 21:1-4.  Yes, we experience moral and spiritual and existential darkness from time to time, and we cross the paths of those who are completely engulfed by it. But we are confident, by faith and experience, that the light of God’s love shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.  That is our Christian assurance.

The last enemy (a poem by Stewart Henderson):

And he who each day

Reveals a new masterpiece of sky

And whose joy

Can be seen in the eyelash of a child

Who when he hears of our smug indifference

Can whisper an ocean into lashing fury

And talk tigers into padding roars

This my God

whose breath is in the wings of eagles

whose power is etched on the crags of mountains

It is he whom I will meet

And in whose Presence I will find tulips and clouds

kneeling martyrs and trees

the whole vast praising of his endless creation

And he will grant the uniqueness which eluded me

in my earthly bartering with Satan

That day when he will erase the painful gasps of my ego

and I will sink my face into the wonder of his glorylove

and I will watch as planets converse with sparrows

On that day

When death is finally dead.[7]

The final word goes to Anna Mathie, whom I quoted at the beginning, talking again about Aragorn and Arwen and mortality.  In casting death as both a blessing and a curse, a beautiful gift that is at the same time bitter to receive, she says,

Tolkien is not cheerily trying to pretend that our condition is ideal, or that mortality guarantees us any kind of virtue. But unlike the earthly immortality he has envisioned for us, our mortality offers another and higher hope beyond this world, however uncertain it may seem.

This hope is the comfort Aragorn offers Arwen in his last words: “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold, we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.  Farewell.”[8]

Thank you.

Sermon 597 copyright © 2010 Rod Benson. Keynote address at Conference on Christian Perspectives on End of Life Issues, Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education, New College, University of NSW, Sydney, Australia, Saturday 27 March 2010. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: Today’s New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

[1] Anna Mathie, “Tolkien and the gift of mortality,” First Things 137, Nov 2003, p. 10.

[2] David VanDrunen, Bioethics and the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), p. 55 (my summary).

[3] Ibid., pp. 56, 59.

[4] Nigel Sykes, “death,” in Adrian Hastings et al (eds), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 153.

[5] Kidner (see Boice p.716, fn1); Durham, in Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1990), p. 404; Weiser, in Tate, p. 404; Michael Wilcock, The Message of the Psalms (Leicester: IVP, 2001), p. 62; James Montgomery Boice, Psalms Volume 2: Psalms 42-106 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), p. 716.

[6] John Goldingay, Psalms Volume 2: Psalms 42-89 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 658.

[7] Stewart Henderson, “The last enemy,” in Bruce Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell (Leicester: IVP, 2002), p. 331.

[8] Mathie, p. 12.

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