“A NON-CONFORMING LIFE”
Romans 12:1-2, Matthew 16:13-17
(08-24-08)

As many of you know, I spent a month this summer in China
teaching English to a group of Chinese high school English teachers.
Some of you might be wondering why
I would want to spend a month of my time in southern China,
Where, with the humidex,
the temperatures routinely reached into the mid 50’s Celcius.
It was hot, it was crowded,
the city where I taught was a mid sized city according to Chinese standards,
only about 7 million people.
It was also somewhat polluted,
I don’t think there was a clear day in the entire month I was there,
except for that one exception
which came after the three days of torrential rain that accompanied typhoon Phoenix.
I wanted to go because I wanted to be able to see first hand what was happening in China, and in particular within the Christian church community
in the most populous nation on earth.
I wanted to be informed about what the Chinese churches were like
and also about our partnerships with them through our denomination.
The programme which I participated in is called the Summer English Programme
and it is run by a Chinese Christian Organization called The Amity Foundation.
The name of The Amity Foundation means friendship and peaceful relationships,
and they are our partners in China
through an organization called ACT, Action by Churches Together,
which is an alliance of church organizations
working together to assist people worldwide.
Presbyterian World Service and Development (PWSD) is also a partner in ACT,
along with The Amity Foundation in China.
Christianity in China has quite a long history,
stretching back to at least the 7th Century.
There was also a significant Jesuit presence back in the 1500’s.
The China Inland Mission
was perhaps the most famous missionary organization in China,
founded by Hudson Taylor in the mid 1800’s.
It was the largest protestant mission agency in the world.
During Taylor’s 51 years as a missionary in China,
over 800 missionaries were sent to China.
A Grace Church connection is that Cathie Nicoll,
who worked so passionately with Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship,
was born in China and her parents were part of the China Inland Mission.

Of course Christianity in China today is quite different than it was in those days.
The communists under Mao Zedong
closed the churches during the so called Cultural Revolution
and Christianity, as well as all other religions, were outlawed.
During the 60’s and 70’s Chinese Christians were forced underground
and many Chinese Christians today
remain in what are called “house churches” or unregistered churches
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s,
reforms in China allowed churches to be reopened.
Since that time the church in China has experienced remarkable growth.

The Amity Printing Company, an offshoot of The Amity Foundation,
is the largest printer of Bibles in the world,
having printed and distributed more than 50 million Bibles since its inception in 1988.
The first church I worshiped in during my stay in China
was a church which we were told had a membership of close to 15,000.
We attended an evening service, which attracted close to 2000 people.
The last service I attended in China was at Grace Church in Shanghai.
There were between 2000 – 3000 people at the 9 a.m. Sunday service
with many others who worshipped outside the sanctuary for lack of seating.
We began the service singing “Holy, Holy, Holy”
and ended the worship with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Given its history, I wondered why the church in China growing so rapidly?
There are problems with the church in China to be sure.
Like much of modern China,
the Christian church in China is a bit of a paradox, with many contradictions.
The registered churches, those churches which are listed with the government,
are quite free to proclaim the gospel in worship,
including that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
and that our salvation is to be found in him.
However, they are far less free to speak out against oppression and injustice,
critical marks of a free church.

One of the students I taught named John spoke to me regarding his faith.
As a child he had attended his local registered church with his family
but didn’t really believe in God or in Jesus Christ.
As an adult he stopped attending but became a Christian
due to the influence of his cousin
who had returned from being baptized in the United States.
For a time John attended the house church in his community,
but later returned to the registered church.
The house church he attended did not have a minister
and often their worship would consist of watching DVD’s
of some preacher from the United States.
He told me that his heart was torn
between staying at the house church and attending the registered church,
but that in the end he felt more drawn
to the teaching and the theology offered at the registered church.
I told him that I was astonished at the numbers of people who were attending church
and John said that, in his opinion,
unfortunately many of those who attended churches in China
were not growing spiritually.
They went to church regularly
but their faith in Jesus was stagnant and often infantile.
Many attended because of family associations
and many more young people attended
because they thought that being a Christian
would help them succeed in business or get rich.
In fact I had lunch with the mother of another one of my students
who was a practising Roman Catholic.
She insisted on having lunch with me when she found out that I was a minister.
I asked her about her faith and what she prayed for.
She told me that she prayed every day that her two sons would become rich.

But my friend John also told me
that he thought there were many other people in China
who went to church and who accepted Jesus as their Saviour
because they hungered for the hope that Jesus offered.
This is another of the paradoxes in modern China.
No doubt you have seen the glitz and glamour of Beijing during the Olympics.
And I can tell you that cities like Shanghai with its over 20 million people
lack no modern convenience
and are at least as cosmopolitan and cultured as any major city on earth.
But in the midst of all this growth and development
are many people who hunger for something more,
who are in need of hope, the hope offered in the gospel.
There are many people who are realizing that no amount of money or affluence
can bring a sense of purpose and peace to a life.

What it boils down to in China
is the same as what it boils down to here in Canada,
and indeed wherever the gospel is preached.
The crucial question of life isn’t, “How much do we have?”
but, “Who do we say that Jesus is?”
The gospel account from Matthew this morning tells us of a time
when Jesus asked those around, those who were the closest to him,
about what people were saying about him.
Who do people say that the Son of Man is?
His disciples told him, some say John the Baptist,
others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
But, asks Jesus, “What about you, who do you say that I am?”
Who do you say that I am?
Who do we say that Jesus is?
Whether we happen to be in Grace Church, Calgary or Grace Church, Shanghai,
this question is the most important question we will have to answer in our lives.
Who do we say that Jesus is?

There may be many Chinese Christians who go to church regularly
yet whose lives show little evidence of the reality of Jesus.
In that way the Chinese are no different from the rest of us.
The truth is that church going people in every part of the world
find it much easier to conform to the world around us
than to be transformed by the renewing of our minds
so that we may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Rome,
urges his brothers and sisters not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed.
In molecular biology, transformation is the genetic alteration of a cell
resulting from the uptake, incorporation, and expression of foreign genetic material, otherwise known as DNA.
So to be transformed means that we become something different than what we were.
To confess as Peter did at Caesarea Philippi,
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,
is to be transformed by God into a new creation.
To be able to answer the question, “Who do we say Jesus is?”
with the words that, “He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,”
is to have our DNA rewritten by God.
Rather than conforming to the world,
we become transformed to be useful and usable to the Son of the Living God.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that there are two types of people in the world.
Most people, said King,
“are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion,
not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.”
Hear that again.
Most people are thermometers
that merely record the temperature of majority opinion.
They are conformists.
But some people are more like thermostats
that transform and regulate the temperature of society.
Some people, by their very nature,
altered and transformed by the DNA of Christ in them,
bring change and newness to society.

I have a lot of hope for China.
I know that in many ways it has a long way to go.
But it has also come a long way already.
I know that because of people like my friend John,
people who have been transformed by the renewal of their lives
through the grace of Jesus Christ.
Before I left I was able to sit down with John and we shared a prayer.
I gave him a Christian book I had been reading
and I even downloaded 8 years of my sermons onto his USB device
for him to read when he just can’t seem to fall asleep.
I never dreamed that I would be able to have such a relationship
with someone in China before this summer.

There is hope for China because I am convinced
that more and more people who hunger for hope and meaning
will find it in the transforming grace of Jesus.
And the church in China, whether registered or unregistered,
will grow in the number of people who will refuse to be mere thermometers,
satisfied to conform to the majority opinion,
but rather will become thermostats,
whose very changed nature will compel them to move the church in China
closer and closer to what Jesus has in mind.
Once a person is transformed,
once their very nature is changed,
the authorities of this world will be powerless to stop them from acting.

In some ways I am sad because it seems
that its a whole lot harder for us here in the west, here in Canada,
to not conform to the world in which we live.
Its ironic that a non-conforming life might be harder to embrace here in our country,
here where we are free to express ourselves,
than in China, a country that is still a one party, autocratic state.
The more comfortable we are,
the harder we find it to move away from conformity.
After all, we have it pretty good here, don’t we?
There is freedom of religion and we have demanded freedom from religion as well.
The standard of life and living is higher than anywhere else in this world.
Why seek to rock the boat when it seems like pretty smooth sailing.
It boils down to that question, “Who do we say that Jesus is?”
Conformity might suggest that we say a lot of nice things about Jesus,
but that we leave it at that, just words.
Conformity might whisper,
its not necessary and it certainly isn’t polite
to be so passionate about one’s religious beliefs.
Conformity might nudge us into putting up a façade,
but with no real desire for change,
like so many pretty Chinese billboards that hide the chaotic mess behind them.
But if we confess that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,
then his DNA has to get into our system and transform us.
God calls us to a non-conforming life.

It doesn’t mean that we should all end up in jail or all end up being martyred.
But it does mean that for each and every one of us that confess Jesus as the Messiah, something’s gotta give.
I think that if we’re honest with ourselves,
we already know what it is that God is calling us to change.
It may be a relationship, it may be a business decision,
it may be the way we treat someone in our lives.
It may be a matter of moving from a state of apathy or ignorance
to one of informed compassion
when it comes to a whole host of issues which affect our society.
If Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,
then something’s gotta give.

We can’t leave our faith at just words,
we need to act on what we confess.
We can’t turn a blind eye to injustice and oppression,
whether across the world or across the street.
We can’t pretend it doesn’t matter what happens to people in Darfur or Dalhousie.
We can’t just ignore the pain of hurting people,
whether in Calgary or in Shanghai.
Something’s gotta give.
If Jesus is Lord, we have to be transformed.
We cannot be conformed any longer to this world,
we are called to a non-conforming life.

As we prepare to walk out of this sanctuary we are faced with two choices.
One is to easily slide right back into conformity,
to be shaped by the structures of the world.
The other is to be transformed into a non-conforming life,
to be shaped by the structures of God’s grace.
We can choose to live as thermometers
or we can choose to live as thermostats.
One way is easier, but the other way, I would suggest,
would satisfy the hunger in our hearts for hope, healing and wholeness.
May we choose wisely.

And to God be the glory, now and forevermore, Amen.