READ: 1 John 1:1-2:2
Verses
chosen for meditation: 1 John 1:6-8
6 If we say we have
fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice
the truth. 7 But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
REFLECT
John
is the last surviving apostle, living almost to the end of the 1st
century. By the time he writes this letter, he’s probably well into his
eighties. During that time, elite cults like the Gnostics have sprung up within
the church. Christians were hotly debating matters of theology and ethics. John
seemed to dismiss all these with a wave of his hand, bringing us back to
fundamentals which were much simpler for most to understand.
To
him, the proof of a person’s faith is obvious: if anyone has material
possessions and sees others in need but has no pity on them, how can the love
of God be in him (1 John 3:17)? A person who loves God acts like it. It was that
simple, and John encourages Christians to examine their own lives for signs of
Christ, using that to distinguish between truth and false teachings.
In
today’s verses chosen for meditation, John speaks of light vs darkness, using
it as a marker for Christians to self-reflect. The church found many claiming
to be walking with God. John then challenges: these people who say they are
having fellowship with God, do they walk in the light, or are their lives
shrouded in darkness? Do they claim to be sinless, or act like they are more
righteous than others?
John
calls attention not only to false teachers, but ask Christians to examine
themselves. We who call ourselves Christians, are we too comfortable with grey
areas when there is a clear black and white here? Do we say that we walk with
God, yet live like sin does not matter, or don’t take sin seriously enough?
Here, John is not asking Christians to be perfect to be able to walk with God, but
to commit to walk in the light if they claim to love God, struggling their best
to do so, and admit their failures in doing so. In humility, they then depend
on God to help them in their failures.
RELATE
The
attitude that John calls us to is in stark contrast to what many Christians may
tend to show. We rather hide our failures, present ourselves to be holy, that
we are well put-together. We like positions of strength, as it seems to give us
license to tell those who don’t appear as put-together how they should lead
their lives. The reality is that we all struggle with sin the same way, and
need each other to keep ourselves in check.
The
longer we keep up this façade, the more we deceive ourselves that we are
walking in the light, failing to acknowledge the darkness in our lives. We
blind ourselves. If not careful, we start to judge the non-believers in
the world more, and perceiving ourselves at a higher moral standing, and making
ourselves more exclusive.
This
week, I’m meeting some close friends to catch up and I find it interesting to
think about how some Christians would question me about these friends should
they know the lifestyles they have been living. “Chris, why would you hang out
with them when they are like that?” “Chris, you should ask them to stop doing XXX.
Ask them to come to church and correct their lives.” “Chris, your work is in discipling
people to live rightly. Why aren’t you doing that for these friends?” These statements
are not merely out of my head, because I do get them once in a while.
Some
of these comments are not wrong, like how bringing them to church can help them know God, and hence transform their lives. The problem is that they came about because of superficial judgement of the world, when we don’t judge
ourselves the same way. It's hypocrisy in essence. Yes, my friends are not
godly people (neither are we). Yes, they sin in ways some of us Christians do
not. But they also show aspects of love that many of us Christians do not. What
makes us morally better than them?
More
crucially, they do not know our God yet and do not subscribe to the same set of
beliefs. Why are we then sometimes harsher on them than on ourselves, when we know
our God and are fully expected to follow his commands? The epistles are
addressed to the churches, people who know God. People who call themselves
Christians. It’s interesting to see that the apostles can be harsh and
non-compromising to the church in their behaviour, but do not hold “outsiders”
to the same expectation. Yet, we know the apostles love those within the church
and outside of it, but use different approaches for both. The yardstick is simply
different because we have claimed to believe, and doing so means committing to walking
in the light, and helping others in the same faith do as well.
What
that means is that we don’t judge non-believers and leave it to God to do that.
Instead, we should judge each other within the church, as 1 Corinthians 5:12 guides.
Sometimes, the saying that we should not judge one another is not understood
properly. That is with the context of how we like to judge others easily, when
we ourselves have a big problem which we are blind to, leading to hypocrisy. But
judgement within the church as a form of community accountability is healthy, if
done in love for the discipleship of one another. We are to keep one
another from walking in darkness.
So
yes, I am harsher when I talk about moral issues with my fellow brothers in church (and I subject myself to the same harshness), because they know God, as compared to my non-believer friends whom I hang out with. This is
not double standard, but about which group claims to know God, so is expected
to be accountable. I’ll continue to help my non-believing friends know God, but
until such a time, I will not impose my way of life on them (and they do not on
me), and not judge them for not living the same way Christians do. I will also not
avoid them, because “they are sinners”. That’s just pompous self-righteousness.
What’s
more important than judging the world to make ourselves feel righteous, is to
self-examine whether we are walking in the light. We, as a community, must stop
judging non-believers, but instead be more comfortable in allowing loving
judgement within the community. If we are not comfortable with this, it may
well be because we like darkness and are living in it. John 3:19-21 gives
insight on this. Having someone call us out means having light shine upon us
to reveal our darkness. If we are offended by it, it means we hate the light,
because it exposes the darkness in us and we very much want to hide it. If that’s
the case, can we claim to be walking with God then? That’s what John is calling
us to reflect.
REST
Father, help us to examine our ways first and
foremost. Beyond theological debates, may our acts of love for one another be
the marker for us, to discern whether our claims of love for you is real. Amen.
Chris Chong
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