"A God Thing"  San Williams

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Chances are you’ve heard the expression “It’s a God thing.”   Candidates for the ministry have been heard to say something like, “Going to seminary was the last thing I ever thought I would do.  It’s a God thing.”  Maybe you’ve had an experience that so defied explanation that you simply declared, “It must be a God thing.”  When I think about my marriage and the unlikely circumstances that brought Jan and me together, it had to be a God thing.

Well, in our reading from second Corinthians, Paul’s telling us about a God thing.  Paul’s entire understanding of reality—how he understood other people, the world and his own life—totally changed.  Paul had once regarded other people as rivals and enemies. God was narrowly conceived as rewarding those who zealously keep the law while rejecting all others.  The world had but a pale, distant hope of redemption.  But this old reality had passed away for Paul. Now he exclaims, “Everything has become new.”   What could possibly have brought about this radical change of perspective?  “All this is from God,” Paul declares. It’s a God thing.

Notice that the first thing that God changed in Paul’s life was his relationship to Christ. Paul admits that he had once regarded Christ from a human point of view.  Paul may have thought of Jesus as merely a rabbi or teacher, and a dangerous one at that.  So long as Paul viewed Jesus from what he calls “a human point of view,” nothing had to change.

Of course, it’s the same for us.  In surveys and polls Jesus consistently scores high approval ratings as an admirable person.  Many regard him as a kind of guru figure, an interesting, savvy teacher who had some sharp things to say from time to time. Others see him as a sort of itinerant, social critic, the Jewish equivalent of a Greek philosopher.  Jesus may have been all these things, but as long as we regard Jesus from a human point of view, our fundamental approach to life, our world view, and the way we treat people need not radically change.  

But in our scripture today Paul declares that he no longer regards Jesus from a human point of view.  No longer is Jesus regarded as just a wise teacher, rabbi, or philosopher.  No, Paul has come to know Jesus as the incarnation of God’s outreaching and all embracing love for the world.  Jesus died, Paul says, not just for some, but for all.  So in Christ our trespasses are no longer held against us, and everything that separates us from God has been removed.  In christ,  Paul came to see, God was wrapping his arms around the creation and drawing all people to himself.

And once we no longer regard Christ from a human point of view, our regard for other people has to change. “From now on,” declares Paul, “we regard no one from a human point of view.” We are all acquainted with what it means to regard others from a human point of view.  We evaluate people on the basis of their résumés, accomplishments, position or influence. We judge others based on certain standards of respectability, and we reject others whose opinions, political party or religious affiliation differs from our own.  That’s what it means to regard people from a human point of view.

Yet if we see Christ as truly "a God thing," we must see others as those whom Christ loved and for whom he died.  We can no longer limit our estimate of other human beings by dismissing them as a murderer, fraud or failure.  Neither far left liberals nor tea party enthusiasts are beyond the reach of God’s love in Jesus Christ. While something in us wants to label other people according to our human judgments, in Christ every person is a creature for whom Christ has died and risen.

During the rise of the Third Reich, the theologian Karl Barth was asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he ever had the change to meet the monster who was destroying Europe. Barth replied that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8: “While we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”  In the news this week, there’s been no shortage of reporting on people who have committed atrocities:  a man here in Austin convicted of stabbing his wife, Muslims in Nigeria who killed hundreds of Christian villagers, rampant sexual violence reported in Haiti, and so on. If we were brought face to face with any of these murderers, might we have the presence of mind to utter these words: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation…We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”   Such generosity of spirit and expansive, all inclusive love doesn’t come naturally to us. But reconciliation isn’t a human achievement. It has to be a God thing.  All this, Paul insists, is from God.

Quite frankly, it’s nothing less than a new creation.  Christ’s life and teaching, his death and resurrection have inaugurated a new creation, one that God is yearning to complete. My wife Jan is currently editing the papers, speeches and sermons by Jorge Lara-Braud, who died in 2008.  Some of you know Jorge because he was for a time the Director of the Hispanic-American Institute at Austin Seminary.   Jorge was a good friend of Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980.  Knowing that he was a target for assassination, and would likely be killed, Romero made this statement: “As a pastor, I am obliged, by divine command, to give my life for those whom I love—and that is for all Salvadorans, even for those who may assassinate me. If the threats should come to pass, I offer God from this very moment, my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador.”  In martyrs such as Oscar Romero we see the presence of the new creation, in which love and forgiveness are extended even to those who would threaten and carry out violence against us.  We know that the world is still full of injustice, heartache and sadness. Yet in the midst of the world’s pain, a God thing has happened.  In Christ a new creation has begun.  

And friends, you and I have been entrusted to proclaim and embody this message of reconciliation.  We have been commissioned and sent out into the world as ambassadors, envoys making an urgent appeal to our neighbors near and far to be reconciled to God!  We are called to be a sign of the new creation in Christ—a community practicing forgiveness, overcoming our differences, discarding our tendencies to judge and exclude.  Paul puts it this way: In Christ we are to become “the righteousness of God.”  That is, a community that will embody God’s love, goodness, compassion and reconciling initiative.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa writes, “Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.” 

Friends, this is an urgent appeal.  The future for individuals, for nations, for humanity, and for the earth depends on the message and ministry of reconciliation.  And this same message has been handed to us to deliver to the world. You have been baptized, called and commissioned. You are an ambassador for Christ. Our friends and enemies, those we love and those we fear—indeed all people must hear the good news that God is no longer holding our trespasses against us.  Amnesty has been declared.  All are forgiven.  Everything has become new.  It’s a God thing!