9th May 2010 - "People of Reconciliation"

Stephen Fielding - St Peter's, Tewin and Ayot St Peter

I should like to be a fly on the wall in the discussions currently going on between David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Actually I should prefer to be helping them negotiate, except that I wouldn't perhaps have in this case the freedom from bias which a mediator is expected to have. There's everything to play for in these negotiations, they are very high stake, and the party leaders and their advisers will be asking themselves the key questions - what do we want and what are the big issues? To be successful these negotiations will have to follow one golden rule - the golden rule that I've observed over many years of helping people negotiate. The golden rule is that both sides have to give something up if there is to be the sort of coming together and reconciliation which will produce a deal. We cannot negotiate, as John F. Kennedy said, with those who say ‘what is mine is mine, and what is yours is negotiable’.

These negotiations have come about as the result of the judgment of the electorate last Thursday. And this evening unusually we have had our reading from the prophet of judgment Zephaniah. The judgment that he's talking about is, of course, not the judgment of the electorate but the judgment of God. Let's say a word or two about this important idea, which is much less negative and much more full of promise than we might actually believe.

The divine judgment

Divine judgment is the theme that runs through the short book of the prophet Zephaniah. And the theme of divine judgment is shown primarily in the imagery of the Day of the Lord. There is a universal judgment. There is a judgment on Judah, that is, the people of Israel; there is a judgment on the nations. It all comes about through the Day of the Lord. That is the day when God will vindicate his own honour, when he will make a judgment against sin. It will be a great day of holy war against evil.  The Day of the Lord is the divine intrusion in the form of a final judgment when sin will be abolished from the earth.

Already we can see within this theme of judgment the promise of blessing. There is never darkness without light and the theme of judgment always comes with the promise of hope, that is, the immediate hope of blessing and the longer-term hope of blessing for all of us. And so the prophet can sing God's words in this way -

‘Rejoice and exult with all your heart O daughter Jerusalem, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you; the Lord is in your midst….. do not fear… I will bring you home.’

It is our belief as Christians, is it not, that Jesus has taken all our sins on his shoulders, he has been the one against whom the judgment has been made for us. He is the one who has achieved the supreme reconciliation between God and humankind. He is the one who has mediated between us and God.

And in the death and resurrection of Jesus the kingdom of heaven has broken in. The judgment has been made, Jesus has borne the judgment and we are vindicated because of it. There in the death and resurrection of Jesus is the judgment and the blessing that flows from it.

And then at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, as we've heard just now, Jesus tells his disciples to do three things. He tells them to make disciples, people who will be learners, imitating his way of life, beginning to understand his kingdom message and his kingdom values, a task that falls to us today to be his disciples and to make disciples. This is why evangelism remains such an important part of the role of Christian - bringing people to Jesus.

He tells them to baptise. Baptism is the absolutely fundamental rite of any Christian. When a Christian is plunged into the water in baptism, they die with Jesus and come to share his new life. In this way, they are marked with the name of the living god.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And thirdly, the disciples must teach. And Matthew no doubt has in mind the 5 great blocks of teaching which include the sermon on the mount, which itself includes the Lord's prayer.

We are called then to be people of reconciliation who try to live our lives in the light of the kingdom of heaven whose citizens we are.