Others and us

[AI translation] I often look past a busy street: how many people are streaming down and up it! Hundreds, thousands of unknown destinies side by side: each hurrying, running, strolling or walking towards his own work, sorrow, joy, individual goal. Each one is a world unto itself! Under their feet the same asphalt, above their heads the same sky. I sometimes think, in all the hustle and bustle, that a certain percentage of the many people who wander here are undoubtedly Christians, belonging to Christ, with their lives oriented towards eternity. But who are they, can you tell? How can they be known? What distinguishes them from others? After all, a believer is only human! He is just like others! Christians and non-Christians are all the same: they marry and get married, they rejoice and grieve, they work and play, they walk and travel, they all die - in short, they are all human beings! People created in the image and likeness of God! That is why, in a sense, all the people in the world are alike. Christians and non-Christians, others and us: we are all human, we are all alike. But then, is there no difference between Christians and non-Christians? There must be, because anyone who is gripped by the message of the Gospel, who knows Jesus Christ and confesses him as Lord, lives life in a radically different way from someone who ignores it. One lives in a very different world from the other, even if they are neighbours in the same house or next of kin in the same family. So what is the difference between us and others?First of all, we are far fewer than others. This was also the case when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church in Philippi, when Christians were a tiny minority living in the same city with a predominantly non-Christian majority. The world in which they lived was a pagan world; the society of which they were active members was a non-Christian society; the factories, offices, schools, theatres where they went to work, study, and play were institutions with a distinctly pagan orientation. They did not have a specifically Christian factory, company, hospital, trade union, party, lobby: they were Christian members of a pagan state, a pagan society. Thus the apostle says: "children of God... in the midst of a generation turned aside and rejected." (Phil 2,15) This "in the midst of a generation turned aside and rejected" is not a value definition of the social life of the time, but a positional definition of the Christians of the time. It is simply that Christians, the few, have to live their lives turned towards God in a situation in which the vast majority live their lives turned away from God, with a different set of interests and focus.
I think we have a better understanding today, throughout the world, and not just in a materialistic society, of what this minority of Christians in a non-Christian majority means. I say throughout the world because, from this point of view, secularisation in the West is the same for Christians as materialism is in the East. So today, the Christian is once again faced with a world in which being a Christian, wanting to follow Jesus, is not a matter of course, and the world is once again a world which reacts with astonishment, with a certain resistance, when it meets people who want to be Christians. This was not so in the time of our fathers. The world was not a Christian world then - it never was, even in the Middle Ages - but it was certainly not a world turned away from Christianity, but a world turned towards Christianity. It still carried the cultural heritage of Christianity's 2000 years of history. Unbelief and godlessness still existed, but the general public saw it as a deviation from the norm.
Today, the situation is slowly reversing: it is a deviation from the norm, from the ordinary, from the natural, to conform to Jesus. The Christian heritage is still there, but it no longer has the guiding, normative significance in everyday life choices that it once did. The Christian man is left alone, alienated from his Christian principles in a world which - implicitly before, but now also explicitly - lives its life and lays down its moral laws according to non-Christian principles. That is to say, the Christian veneer, the glaze, which the world has tried so hard to paint on the world, is beginning to peel off more and more, and the world is becoming more and more honestly what it is: the world! And that is not a bad thing at all, in fact it is just as well! Thank God that the world, which was never a Christian world, is now no longer calling itself one!
In such a world, to be a Christian is no longer something to be taken for granted, but something strange and peculiar: in such a world, traditional Christianity is over, in such a world, to be a Christian is to be truly, fully alive - and in such a world, to be a Christian is once again a holy vocation! It is indeed not a good sign when Christians lament that this world has become so turned away from God! We should understand that the world has always been that way, but perhaps it has not been so visible; that it is precisely in such a world and for such a world that God wants to use us. So here it must be seen that there is a difference between us and others!
The apostle himself describes this difference in the Word he reads: you are "the undefiled children of God" "in the midst of a generation turned aside and rejected". - Again, not that each and every person is a child of God, but the phrase "the immaculate children of God" may also mean this: children of God who know that they are, who claim to be, who seek to live, walk, and behave as children of God even when it is strange and unusual, even when others do not live that way. So we who believe, and if we truly believe in Christ: then do you know what we are in this world? Someone once said it this way: a piece of the world saved, a piece of the world already saved. A part of a world that can achieve many things with its science, its art, its technical power, its might, but not one thing: to redeem itself, to give itself eternal life, to save itself from death.
And we, Christians, belong to this world, we are members of this world - we, believers, belong to this world of sinful, sin-laden, suffering and dying people as much as others. This is true on the one hand. But on the other hand, we are also members of His church, we belong to the community to which Jesus has given reconciliation for all sins, forgiveness for all sins, comfort in all suffering, and life that death cannot rob or extinguish. So we Christians are people who, even in the midst of a world of sin, suffering and death, have eternal life and salvation, to whom Jesus made this promise: "No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand." (Jn 10,29) Behold, this is what Jesus Himself gives and confirms to us again and again whenever we gather here as His church for worship, and He comes among us and is with us in His Word and Sacraments. So we are truly, through Christ, a piece of the saved world in this world. That is the essential difference between us and others.
But this is also the reason for our special Christian vocation: because this difference between us and others is not for ourselves, but for others! The church of Christ in this world does not live precisely for itself, nor should the individual Christian's chief concern and ambition be to secure his own individual spiritual salvation and eternal future, but to be a Christian is to be involved in the world by service as salt in food or a candle in a room. Christian people are the special people of God through whom God works for this world. God does not require of any of us any special task or any strenuous service beyond our strength. But only that each one, where he is, may be there Christian; each one, in the work he does in the world, may do it Christianly; each one, in the marriage and family life he is in, may live it Christianly; each one, in the company he is invited to entertain, may wear himself Christianly - that is, in all his dealings with non-Christians, may act Christianly, worthy of Christ!
What God then works in the world through our Christian conduct is His business. He will do what He wills. It is not up to us to make the world Christian at all costs - Christianity has often fallen into this untrusted work - but only to live Christianity in all situations, to live Christ in all situations. Blameless, that is, blameless: in what you do as spiritual or physical workers, let there be no fault; - pure: among men of foul mouth, of foul speech, of fornicating hearts, pure! Be ye as stars: fulfill the exalted vocation of the star, which shines there in the tempestless night as a protest, a consolation, a promise, and a beginning in the darkness. If I shine a torch on a sooty wall, it absorbs the light. But if the beam falls on a smooth, bright surface, it illuminates the whole room! So make sure that the light from Jesus shining on you is not in vain: it reflects back from you to others! That is what a Christian man is for in this world!
Does your Christianity have such an effect on others in your home and family, on your colleagues, on people - on others? Oh, how much light, how much strength is radiated by the man who does not quarrel at once, but keeps the peace; who does not get angry at once when something does not go his way; who is not upset by every little thing, who can bear even insult and suffering quietly and calmly! How much strength can be given sometimes by a word spoken in the right place! Thus do the children of God shine like stars in the midst of a nation turned aside!
"Holding out to them the word of life," continues Paul: "not the life of the word, but the word of life. Let not your mouth speak of Christ, but your hands, and your money, and your house, and your work: your whole life! Others will understand and believe it! I heard of a Chinese Christian who did 300% of his work. When he was honoured, he said: 'I did the first hundred percent for myself, out of duty, because every man owes it to himself. I did the second hundred per cent for my country, because I wanted life to come back to life as soon as possible - and I did the third hundred per cent for Christ, because I wanted to sing praises to Him. Well, that's the third hundred percent, that's a mouthful! And then the world will believe the words! Jesus also spoke of the second mile, of going above and beyond the call of duty. Today, words have so discredited the credibility of Christianity that it is only at the third hundred per cent that the speech of life begins for us to be believed.
So, in the relationship between "others and us", do not be afraid to belong to the minority, dare to be different from the majority, dare to live differently, blameless and pure as a spotless child of God in the midst of a generation turned and rejected, dare to shine as a star in this world - for the sake of others, and therefore for the glory of God!
Amen
Date: 10 January 1960.