Bishop’s House, Blackburn, 26 April 2017
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
What would a world look like where there was no condemnation? What would it feel like to not feel condemned?
Because we all feel it, don’t we – condemned because we don’t match the ideal that’s presented to us.
I can’t help bringing Mary Berry into this. She encourages us to bake and eat the most creamy, sugary, starchy, lovely cakes – which inevitably expand our waistlines. But look at her, she’s thin as a rake – her impossible model looks shame the rest of us as we polish off yet another Victoria Sponge.
Condemned for our looks – is a particularly troubling thing for our young people, caught up in this world of rivalry and desire to be perfect.
Condemned for our lifestyle – is a particularly troubling thing for those in our community who are different from the majority, whose culture comes from other places and other faiths. In our rapidly-changing world all those trying to hold onto good old traditions often feel judged, condemned, left-behind, when everything everyone says is under such close scrutiny, and someone always seems ready to take offence.
In our world of condemnation that big red button in front of the Britain’s Got Talent judges, which says, ‘You’re not good enough for us – go away and leave us alone’ – that’s the fate we all fear, as we encounter it in supermarket gossip, in family feuds.
A world without condemnation – in some ways is impossible to imagine.
For our very nature is to compare others to ourselves, our deepest instinct is to affirm our own identity by condemning those we see as different. We are who we are because we’re not like you – that’s the way it goes. In the playground gang and in the nation: in the sports team and in the family.
Even the church can act like a gang, if the religious people put holiness above graciousness, purity above generosity, self-promotion for our own sake above self-sacrifice for the sake of others. But:
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
There was once a terrorist, religiously radicalised into a mission to round up and kill as many infidels as possible.
Those he sought to annihilate in the name of his god were the followers of Jesus. His name was Saul. He condemned to death those who dared to walk in Jesus’ way.
But then he met Jesus, and “Saul became Paul, a terrorist converted by scandalous grace. He becomes an extremist for grace, writing so eloquently of God’s love for sinners, of whom he counts himself ‘the chief’.” [1]
And here is Paul’s testimony to the Roman believers: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” [2] No condemnation at all. Paul had been converted from following a god of condemnation to following a God of pure salvation.
So, for us to live in this world of no condemnation means being totally focussed on Jesus alone as our model, our desire, the One we want to emulate. It means realising that in Jesus there is no judgement on us, just pure love. Realising that in Jesus there is no retribution, just complete forgiveness.
In this world of no condemnation, the more we listen to the voice of Jesus encouraging us and guiding us every day, the less we’ll be troubled by all those other voices of rivalry and misplaced desire, the less we’ll be consumed with anxiety and self-loathing.
So, bye-bye rake-thin Mary Berry whose waistline condemns me in my middle aged spread; hello inspiring Mary Berry whose cakes we may bake to share with others – following Jesus who loved bringing people together around food, in fellowship where their differences faded away.
Bye-bye the burden of believing that we will find god in the nation; or in the family; or in the social club or in any other kind of gang; hello the salvation of believing simply that we find God in Jesus, and every day unburdened, by his forgiveness and love, he releases us to spread his love and forgiveness around.
Notes
[1] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical, p.220
[2] Romans 8.1.
16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
