Sermon on missional living and social integrity, preached by Rev Harry Newton at SumRed Church
A sermon by Rev Harry Newton on how Christians should orient their social lives toward mission, drawing on 1 Corinthians 10:23–11:1.
Summary
Rev Harry Newton delivers a sermon at SumRed Church as part of Missions Month, building on the previous week's introduction to the topic. He opens with a frank reckoning with the dark history of missionary activity in New Zealand — including figures who were complicit in colonial violence against Māori — before arguing that mission itself is not inherently corrupt, pointing to figures like Henry Williams as counterexamples. The central argument of the sermon is that being "missional" is not primarily about formal evangelism but about adopting a mindset that orients every part of life — especially one's social life — toward the cause of Christ. Drawing on Paul's letter to the Corinthians and the example of Jesus as "friend of sinners," Newton argues that Christians should engage genuinely and without pretence with non-Christians in everyday social settings, guided by three goals: glorifying God, never discrediting Jesus, and always looking for ways to represent him in the world. He closes with a personal story from his time in the Army that illustrates how consistent, integrity-filled daily living — not formal religious activity — is what creates the conditions for genuine missional impact.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Recap of Missions Month and the history of missionary activity in New Zealand
Rev Harry Newton: Last week, if you weren't here, we introduced Missions Month, and we started by saying, well, let's own the fact that mission, for some people, is a bit of a dirty word. It's a word that's become synonymous in some circles with colonialism and imperialistic ambition. We need to own the fact that there have been people who were missionaries who have been complicit in the terrible treatment of indigenous peoples.
We talked about John Whiteley, who helped essentially instigate the war in Taranaki by siding with the settlers over the Māori. He was supposed to be ministering to the people from this particular iwi, and instead he was feeding intel to the colonial troops so they could outfox them and kill them. And eventually he was killed by the very Māori he went to serve. We also heard about how Bishop Selwyn — the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand — was blatantly corrupt and blatantly complicit in all sorts of terrible actions.
And we wondered why, at the time, so many Māori who at the very beginning took on the Christian faith — because they saw the grace of Jesus and they saw how it changed their lives and the entire society — came to see the church as being complicit in the treatment of them by the settlers. We've got to own that. It's uncomfortable, but it's true, particularly for those of us who are Pākehā, because most of us in this room are not Māori. So we need to own that reality.
My family's Irish background on my grandma's side — the Irish had some experience under the Brits. So it's not just Māori, obviously. This is a thing across the world.
Have you ever watched that movie Apocalypto by Mel Gibson? Ever seen it? No talking in the entire movie. If you want to watch a silent film, it's all for you. But it ends with the conquistadors coming across the bay in this boat with the cross at the front. And the implication is that Amazonian society — the different people groups who were there — were so terrible that the best thing that ever happened to them was the arrival of the missionaries. But we know that those very first ones who came oversaw the rape and plunder and pillaging of their society. And we know that they were complicit in terrible atrocities. We have to own that.
Henry Williams and the positive legacy of mission
At the same time, as I said last week, not all the early missionaries were ratbags. Some of them were fantastic. Henry Williams — what a man. When he was 14, he went to war. Now, that's not a good thing. But he was on a boat. He was in a very, very famous battle, and in it his ship came under fire very close. They won, because he survived. But he saw the horror of warfare, and it turned him against violence.
He came back, got married, wanted to be a missionary, was going to get sent as a layman missionary — there were different types of missionaries back then. Eventually he was allowed to get ordained, because apparently that was a very hard thing to get into. And he got ordained and he and his wife Mary Ann hopped on a ship and came to New Zealand and never went back.
Mary Ann was tough. If you want to read a book, there's a book about her that a friend of mine's mum wrote. It's fantastic. But Henry Williams physically stood between warring factions when they were trying to shoot each other and kill each other. He stood there and sued for peace. When Russell was sacked by Hōne Heke and his men, he ran into the fray to rescue men and women and children from burning buildings. He helped write the Treaty. And sure, there have been some serious mistranslation issues, but he wrote the Treaty with a good heart and a good intention, because he wanted to protect the sovereignty of Māori against the land grabbing that was going on.
The point here is that mission has become synonymous with some negative words, but actually mission itself is not bad. It's the people. Sometimes we humans have good sides and bad sides, don't we?
What mission actually is — and the mission mindset
I just do that super quick recap because I want to set the tone for this week as well. We have to own the fact that mission has its good sides and its bad sides in terms of its history and its complicity in various things. However, with all that said and done, we then talked about what mission is. And as I said last week, mission is what flows out of a heart transformed by grace.
We explored Paul, who was earlier called Saul. If you want to know his story, you can read Acts 9 or go on the app and listen to last week's podcast. He was a ratbag. He actually said this about himself: "I was a persecutor and a violent man." Jesus said he came into the world to save sinners, of whom Paul said he was the worst. Paul knew that he was a terrible human being. He oversaw the torture and murder of his fellow Jews simply because they were interested in following this man called Jesus of Nazareth. He was not a good dude. And yet he met the risen Jesus, was baptised, forgiven, changed his name from Saul to Paul, and then was accepted into the very church he tried to destroy. And he spent the rest of his life sharing the good news of what had happened to him with others.
And as we discovered last week, mission isn't just about literally telling people about the good news of Jesus. It comes forth in our actions, doesn't it? We talked about the five marks of mission. But as we also discovered last week, the risk of that is we can say, well, everything's missional. But the problem with that, of course, is that if everything is missional, then nothing is missional. In the same way that if everyone's a winner in sport, no one's really a winner.
And so with all that in mind, we got to this week, and I was thinking, well, if that's all the case, if mission is less about what you do, what is it then? I think it's more about the mindset that you bring to anything. To be missional doesn't mean you have to bring up conversation awkwardly at work with your colleague about Jesus.
Have you ever watched Black Books? It's fantastic. The main character is trying to avoid doing his taxes, and he has a missionary snap at the door. Opens the door — hello, can we talk to you about Jesus? He's like, fantastic, come in. And they're like, what? Yes, come in. What's he up to nowadays? I love to hear about the Lord Jesus. And they're like, it's a trick, run away. And he's like, what do you mean?
That is often what we see as being mission — going door knocking or telling people about Jesus. But as we learned last week, you don't have to kneel after every winning goal. You don't have to go preach in the jungle or go off to East Africa like Nick and Tessa. Nor do you have to go to the Littleton Farmer's Market and stand on a soapbox and yell at people to be missional.
The key to getting on board with mission, the key to being missional, is developing a mission mindset. And what that means is learning that every part of your life needs to be orientated towards the cause of Christ.
Jesus as the model — friend of sinners
We see this in the life of Jesus. Jesus, sure, proclaimed the good news in his words. If you read the Bible, you'll see that Jesus does a lot of talking. He tells a lot of stuff about the good news, what's going to happen next, and all this kind of stuff. And yet he also proclaims the good news through his actions. What does he do? He heals people. He raises people from the dead — not just Lazarus. There's a little boy, the widow of Nain. It's often a forgotten story. He's walking past a village and sees this woman sobbing. Her little boy's died, so he raises him to life. There's the little girl in the upper room. He goes to the house, goes up, and he says, oh, she's just asleep — and then they laugh at him, and he raises her back to life. He also spent a lot of time engaging the people on the margins of society.
In other words, every facet of Jesus' life was orientated towards something, which was proclaiming the testimony of God, proclaiming the good news that God had come in him. And what this meant is it included how Jesus orientated and organised his social life.
I don't know if you remember this, but Jesus had a nickname. Does anyone remember what the nickname is? Friend of Sinners. What a great nickname. We often think of a sinner as a bit of a caricature — it's never me, it's always you, if you notice that. But also, when we think of the word sinner, we think of a caricature. Think Hugh Hefner, or someone doing a terrible war crime or something. We always like to think in grand kind of elements.
But actually, in first-century Jewish society, to be a sinner was anyone who, for example, had skipped synagogue. It could be someone who worked on the Sabbath. It could be someone who had questionable political views — define that, right, because that's anyone who just doesn't agree with you. It could be someone who has a different theology to you. The Pharisees, who are a group of first-century Jews, thought the Sadducees, who were another group, were sinners. Why? Because the Sadducees didn't believe in angels. And the Sadducees thought the Pharisees were sinners. Why? Because they didn't support their clan and nobility. The point is that the sinner was the other — people on the outside, those who are considered irreligious, improper, impure, or somehow not up to my standard.
Yet Jesus chose to spend his time with those people. And according to Jewish customs, interaction with those types of people was strictly prohibited. You couldn't share a meal with them. You couldn't share a drink with them. Why? Because in ancient first-century Middle Eastern society, eating and drinking were powerful signs of friendship and acceptance. That's why the breaking of bread is such a powerful thing. Have you ever invited someone around for a meal that you really don't like? Have you ever invited around an enemy? No. It's a powerful thing to invite someone around who hates you, and then sit opposite each other at a table and share food. I've done it once. It was super awkward. Neither of us enjoyed it. But I tell you what, it was the Jesus thing to do. Because that's what Jesus did.
Over and over and over again, he spent his time socialising with sinners, despite the whispers of judgment and condemnation he got from the nice people over in the corner. He wined, he dined, and he partied with those on the margins so much that, as I say, he got the nickname Friend of Sinners. He was the friend of sinners because he orientated his social life in such a way that it was inherently missional. And so by adopting a missional mindset, Jesus made sure that every part of his life was orientated towards conveying the good news that he'd come to share.
Paul's approach to social engagement in 1 Corinthians
Now, Paul saw this, and he heard about it, and he took it seriously. Which is why in his letter to the Corinthians that we heard read just before, he talks a lot about idols. He talks a lot about eating and drinking and circumcision and libations of blood — a whole bunch of things that you would probably think are completely irrelevant to your life living in 21st-century Sumner. When was the last time someone offered you a libation of blood? I can't remember the last time. I'll be perfectly honest. I don't know if it's ever even happened.
But the point is that all this stuff might seem quite irrelevant, but actually it isn't. It's totally relevant, because Paul was essentially talking about how the early Christians were to conduct themselves socially from a missional perspective. In particular, he wrote a lot about the importance of engaging socially with non-Christians, and he explained the how and the why of his approach. He wanted people to hear about the life-transforming grace that he had encountered through Jesus. He wanted them to hear it regardless of their social status and regardless of their spiritual orientation or any other orientation. He did not care. He just wanted every single person to hear the good news of Jesus.
And so for Paul, what this meant was that he would not allow himself to be restrained by religious customs about who he couldn't talk to or eat with or drink with or do all those kinds of things with. Instead, he took a leaf out of Jesus' book and became essentially a friend of sinners, which is why he proudly describes how, "I have made myself a slave to all that I might win some. I have become all things to all people so that I might by any means save some."
Paul made a thing of eating and drinking with anyone, regardless of who they were, and he befriended all sorts of people. Why? Because that's what Jesus did. But here's the really interesting thing about Paul. He wasn't a bait and switch. He didn't invite someone for dinner and then get them sitting at the table and then smack them with a Bible. He wasn't trying to tie this person into a false relationship so he could smash his views down their throat. For him, like Jesus, he saw meals and conversations as expressions of grace, not just preaching opportunities. For Paul, sharing a meal was sharing life. It was mission shaped by genuine friendship, not strategy.
Eating with sinners, eating with the outcasts and the irreligious, was to Paul what it was for Jesus — an embodiment of grace. Think about it. How could Paul walk around telling people about the good news of Jesus, about how welcoming, accepting, and loving God is, and yet say, "I can't eat with you because you're not the same as me"? How can you tell people about grace without embodying it in the way that you live?
And so what Paul's addressing here — all these thoughts on idols and libations of blood and gatherings and circumcision and what have you — was a real issue for the early Christians. They were trying to figure out: could they be friends with their non-Christian neighbours, their colleagues? Should they have meals with their pagan family members? I guarantee that most of you in this room have close family or friends who aren't Christians. So how are you supposed to engage with them? Are you supposed to have a meal with them? Are you supposed to drink alcohol with them? Some churches say you can't drink alcohol. Some churches say, oh, drink as much as you like. What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to live in a way which honours Christ and also shares the good news of Jesus with others?
Because here's the thing — a good Jew wouldn't have sat down with those people, and yet Paul's asking them: yes, you should engage socially. Why? Because Jesus did. But you need to do so with care.
What's really interesting here, I think, is that Paul doesn't instruct the Corinthians whether to share a meal with a pagan or not. He doesn't explicitly say yes or no. His point more becomes that you should be flexible. According to Paul, what's important is not whether you eat or refrain from certain drinks or food. What matters most is whether you're seeking the good of others through your social life. But of course, that begs the question — what does that actually mean? What does it actually look like?
Three goals for a missional social life
Well, that's what our reading is about this morning. Paul is insisting that as Jesus followers, our social lives should be guided not by rules, but by three simple goals. If the whole of life is orientated towards the cause of Christ — and that includes your social life — and you want to know how you can be missional in terms of your everyday social life with your non-Christian friends, neighbours, colleagues, and family, Paul says there are three basic goals you should aim for.
The first is you should try to glorify God. Simple. If going to the pub glorifies God, go to the pub. Now, you might think that's a silly thing to say. In my last parish, where I was the vicar of a small town of 1,500 people, guess how many pubs we had on the main drag? There's one road. Guess how many pubs we had? Four. Yeah, that doesn't include the cafes — they also sold booze. Now, in that culture, if you don't go to the pub on a Friday or Saturday night, you don't exist. My predecessor didn't drink. He never went to the pub. Now, bless him — awesome, I respect the man. But I did go down to the pub and had a pint. That was it. And then I went home. Why? Because I believed I was glorifying God. Because I was spending time socialising with people who up until then had always been told implicitly that somehow they were not worth hanging out with if you're a good Christian person.
And I remember Simo saying to me, "Bro, it's really interesting — this guy from the fire brigade — it's really interesting that you would actually have a beer with me." Why wouldn't I? "Well, you know, the church would probably catch on fire if I walked into it." I was like, yeah, sure, it probably would, bro. But it'd be a good sight. And also, I don't care. I'm a ratbag. If I'm welcome at church, you're welcome too. And we would never have had those conversations if I hadn't gone.
So the point here is the first goal is you should live to glorify God. If going to the pub or going to a party glorifies God, then Paul says, go. But if avoiding that same thing glorifies God, avoid it. There are some social situations you should not put yourself in. It's up to you to discern those. Paul's point here is: whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
The second goal is we should aim to never discredit Jesus. Paul urges us to become all things to all people, but his point there is not to compromise. If you're going to the pub because you believe it's going to honour God, don't go to the pub and then smash back six shots and have a whole bunch of pints. Quite seriously. Why? Because that discredits God. Live with integrity. Discerning what living with integrity looks like in any given situation will require wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit from you. Let's not pretend that's straightforward. We live in a culture where faith is often relegated to the private sphere and considered irrelevant. Learning how to represent Jesus with humility, courage, and grace in a pluralistic world will take deep discernment from you. But I'm sure you can figure it out.
And here's the third and final goal. If you want to have a life which is whole-of-life orientated to the cause of Christ, and you want that to include your social life, and you want your social life to be inherently missional and focused towards sharing the good news of Jesus with others, the third goal is that you should always look for ways to represent Jesus in the world.
The social life as a missional space
Your social life is one of the most naturally missional spaces in your life. Church is a good thing. Coming to church is a good thing. What's happened — and you don't see this so much here in Sumner, which is really cool, but you see this in other churches — is that in traditional churches where people don't want things to change, the reason they don't want it to change is not necessarily that they're anti-change. We all love change. You would love a new car or a new outfit or a new laptop or a new phone. We all like change, to a degree. What's really going on there is there's an ecclesiological shift. That means their theology of what it means to be church has shifted.
It used to be that church was the holy people of God gathering to do holy worship and then going out to do mission. And in the 90s, we had something called the seeker-sensitive movement come along. It said that church should be sensitive to the people who are coming in the door — a good point, a fair point. And what happened, though, without really thinking it through, is that over the last 30-odd years we've shifted to where we are now, which is where Sunday morning is seen as a missional vehicle. We do church because we're here to evangelise people by bringing them into this building. Now, there is an element of truth to that. You want church to be a welcoming place where anyone can come regardless of spiritual orientation. But let's be honest — most Kiwis are as likely to come into church as they are to go to a wedding uninvited. They'd probably have to be drunk. In our last church, we often had drunks coming in the back door and lying in the back pew and falling asleep. Other than that, they didn't come in.
Your social life is one of the most inherently missional environments in your life. Why? Because that's where you engage your normal everyday people. Which is why Paul was at pains to make it clear that what's important is not whether you eat or drink certain things. What matters most is whether you are seeking the good of others through your social life. Whether you're honouring God and living with integrity.
And that isn't just Paul's opinion. He got it from Jesus. Because Jesus welcomed outsiders, he shared life with those who are far from God — the sinners — and he offered sincere friendship to others, all while remaining holy and not living in a way which in any way impeded upon his integrity. Paul imitated that way of life, and he challenges any of us in this room today who consider ourselves Jesus followers to do the same — to be imitators of him as he was of Jesus.
And so when we adopt a mission mindset, every part of our life becomes missional, including our social life. Because when grace transforms your heart, it reshapes everything in you and then spills out into every part of your life. It bleeds into every element of what it means to be you.
Challenge and closing story
So if you're a Jesus follower, I want to leave you with this challenge. And if you're going to forget it, it's on the app — open the app, it's right there under the journal section. I want you to think about your social life: your friendships, your gatherings, your colleagues, your schoolmates, everything. And I want you to ask yourself: does how I interact with them honour God? Am I living with integrity? Am I making space to engage meaningfully with my non-Christian mates?
I want you to think about it, reflect on it, and then act on it. Do something about it. Because that's how your life can become powerfully, incredibly missional. And when you do, you'll find that you are embodying the good news of Jesus — that there is a God, he knows you by name, he cares about you, and through his death and resurrection you are offered peace from your past, purpose in your present, and hope for your future. Your social life is one of the most important missional spaces you have in your life.
Final story to wrap all this up. When I was in the Army, we had a chaplain for our unit. We met him once. He came out to our exercise, and he walked around, and he wasn't muddy. He got someone to put a plank down in front of him — I kid you not — so he didn't have to walk in the mud. And he walked around. Only time we saw him. Do you know why? It turned out he was having an affair with our commanding officer's wife. Never came back.
Now, after that we got given another chaplain, but we never saw him either. I was the only guy in my unit who was openly a Christian. I would go to the bar with them, have a drink. We'd go out clubbing together. It was horrific. But the point is, we hung out, and I was doing my best. I can't say I always got it right, but I did my best to live with integrity. I did my best to live with these guys in a way that showed that I wasn't just a holier-than-thou Christian, but that I was also trying to live with integrity in my daily life.
One of my close friend's partners killed herself, and the first person he rang was me. And he said, "I'm ringing you. I'm not ringing the Padre, because I know you care. And I was hoping — could you pray for me?"
Now, the point there is that only happened because I'd been engaging with this guy for the last three years through how I'd lived my daily life. It's the same thing for you. Never discredit the importance of how you live on the daily to others. Because when people look at you, they are actually analysing your faith. And they're thinking: does this person really believe what they're saying? And are they living it?
And if you're not, you will know deep down that you're not living with integrity. And that's my challenge. Do something about it. And if you are living with integrity, fantastic. Keep it up.