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WORDS, WORDS & MORE WORDS

7/30/2017

Galatians 3:23-29

Before the coming of this faith (through Jesus), we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Last week we discussed the central issue in Paul’s letter to the various Galatian communities, which is Inclusiveness vs. Exclusiveness – specifically, whether or not Gentiles could be included as followers of The Way without converting first to Judaism.

Paul made a compelling argument that the invitation is open to all, and within the context of this argument introduced themes that will be major topics, not only throughout Paul’s teachings, but the whole formation of Christianity itself. A warning, here: this is going to be a very personalized message today. Normally I try not to insert my own self into my sermons too much, but this one is going to be pretty much “me” speaking.

Justification – Law – Faith – Grace – Works. We’ve heard these words from scripture all our lives – and they are usually ‘capitalized’ when spoken or written about. They are Important Concepts, Big Thoughts – the basic blocks of Christian theology. Western Christianized thinking has shaped so much of the wider world’s thought that even non-Christians can’t escape them.

Here’s my “truth in advertising” moment – generally speaking, I find theology to be stunningly boring. Not only boring, but too often it feels like only a way to avoid looking at what Jesus told us and then actually having to do it. Things like this bit from Matthew 25:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.

We – all of us – have a very human tendency to focus tightly in on the how-to of Jesus’ teachings rather than the what and why of them. We can argue for days about how best to go about feeding the hungry – how much and how often -- and end up never lessening anyone’s hunger.

I’m telling you my prejudice here, not in any demand that you agree with me, but simply so you will know where I’m coming from.

The teachings we have had passed down to us through the centuries as coming from Jesus himself are never ambiguous – they don’t require a lot of unpacking. Things like “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Things like “Blessed are the merciful – blessed are the meek – blessed are the peacemakers.” These are all pretty clear. They are hard to misinterpret.

What is hard about them is breaking through our own egos and doing them when we would much rather not. We would rather argue about what they really mean and how far we need to go with them to be within God’s approval zone. Love your neighbor as you love yourself, is a beautiful spiritual thought, and not too hard when we’re around people we like, but it can be a real zinger when it hits us that Jesus really means it – even with people we would so much rather despise.

Paul never met a theological argument he didn’t love. Neither, it would seem, did the teachers of Jewish Law from the Hebrew Scriptures. The simple Old Testament command to Keep the Sabbath Holy, over time, devolved into a veritable cottage industry of minutiae about how many steps one could work and whether something could be picked up if you dropped it and on and on – rather than simply taking a day to notice God’s blessings and give thanks for them. Remember, too, that Paul was taught as a Pharisee – the lawyers of the Jewish faith.

Most of what Paul says in this letter is perfectly true but he dresses it up in so many unnecessary words that it can get lost. Worse, the church has, through time, focused so much attention on the words that they have become idols in and of themselves. Justification – Law – Faith – Works – Grace ... we’ve given the words themselves such weight that we seem to have lost their original meaning and intention.

Jesus’ teachings are very clear, but they are often uncomfortable. We’d love to find a loophole. I do believe that Paul saw it as simply as I do but – as I said, he was a lawyer – he couldn’t allow things to be that simple and I believe that has led Christianity to some unfortunate places.

Take, for instance, that word justification. Most of modern Christianity is built around that word. At its simplest, it means that we are born flawed and we need to be saved from our sinful human nature. The whole concept of Substitutionary Atonement means that we are so awful that Jesus had to die to save us from God’s wrath – or something.

BUT – how can I be that flawed if God made me? I find all Paul’s theologizing about justification to be pointless because I don’t believe I need to be justified. I don’t believe any of you need to be justified. God brought us into being and I happen to believe God is clever enough to know what they were doing when they did so.

Oh sure, I can be a jerk at times, but I’m pretty sure God knows that and loves me anyway. I try not to be a jerk because when I do, I am damaging rather than building of God’s world here and now. I try to love others because loving is better than hating. I strive to do the things Jesus taught us. Some days I do a good job, some days – not so good– but I keep trying because God loves me and I love God. And when I mess up I say I’m sorry and God says, that’s OK – just try to do better next time.

If I believed in a God who says, because you screwed up, somebody must die to appease my wrath! I would run as far and fast as I could away from that God. I certainly wouldn’t be here worshiping that God.

Nitpicking the hows and whys of Jesus’ teachings leads to a totally nonsensical argument to my way of thinking. So very much of modern Christian faith – especially as practiced by the Evangelical right is based in a frantic scramble to do things the right way and thereby earn one’s way into heaven by not doing anything to deserve God’s wrathful punishments.

Or - what's even worse - spending one's life (and taking some unholy glee) in putting God's wrath onto others.

I find that very sad – and I pray for the day that all God’s children recognize and accept that they are loved – and that’s all the justification we need. There is always more than enough love to go around. After all, as Paul will later write so beautifully to the Jesus community in Rome: Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord -- nothing – NOTHING -- not even ourselves.

Amen.

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GENTILE OR JEW? - Galatians pt. I

7/23/2017

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Galatians 2:15-16,19-21

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.....

Through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

(Continuing with our chronological look into Paul’s letters – specifically the first seven letters, which are fairly universally accepted to have been actually written by Paul himself – we arrive today at Galatians. It appears to be something of a toss-up in scholastic circles between Galatians and First Corinthians as to which is truly the second letter, since they were written at close to the same time -- but Galatians has a slight advantage – so we’ll go with Galatians.

Like First Thessalonians, Galatians is a short letter – only six “chapters” in length, but if Thessalonians was an “innocent” letter, full of love and happy memories, Galatians is anything but. Paul starts this letter angry and he ends it just as angry. But along the way we will be introduced to some of the great theological concepts developed here by Paul, ones that will be fleshed out more thoroughly later in the Letter to the Romans – concepts that would shape the following two-thousand years of “Christianity,” possibly even more than the words of Jesus himself ..... (unfortunately, I believe.)

First, let’s locate ourselves in Galatia, which lies on the Anatolian Peninsula – roughly the modern-day country of Turkey – and pretty much covers the central part. This letter is distinct from Paul’s other letters in that it specifically addresses the “churches” of Galatia, rather than any one particular community or city.

Paul is enraged – he is not just mildly annoyed – he is furious. He begins with a token blessing, but omits any personal greeting mentioning his love and affection for the Galatians. He doesn’t appear to be feeling highly affectionate toward them. Instead, he jumps right into the heart of the matter:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed! (Gal. 1:1-9)

We’ve spoken before about Paul’s letter writing being so often occasioned by him having to continually fight the enemies behind him – those who came along after he planted a community and moved on – came along and started teaching the new converts that everything Paul had taught was wrong – doing their best to undo all Paul’s work. This letter to the various Galatian communities is a prime example of this.

Remember, the new believers in these communities had come largely from the ranks of the “God-lovers,” Gentiles exposed to and involved in Judaism to some extent -- but still on the fringes, never having become full converts. They were still Gentiles, but they were often fairly knowledgeable in things like Jewish history and teaching and so, were vulnerable when the you-must-be-fully-Jewish-in-order-to-be-Christian crowd came along to undo Paul’s teaching.

Paul has already been fighting this same battle for a long while. He has been to Jerusalem and received their support to convert Gentiles without demanding they become circumcised fully observant Jews first. He has gone head-to-head with Peter himself, challenging Peter as a hypocrite for seeming to waffle on his stance on including Gentiles. He has faced them all down and made it clear that he will continue to teach and preach his open-enrollment Jesus-faith.
Paul is absolutely clear in his own mind that he is right.

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (1:11-17)

He then continues to remind the Galatians that after his revelation came from Jesus himself, he still spent three years building his teaching before he ever met Peter, and then another fourteen years before he made his journey to Jerusalem to present his case before the church elders there – before he was given their imprimatur to continue with his teaching.

He has no intention of backing down and no intention of allowing some self-appointed protectors of Jewish Law to come along behind him and undo all his work in the Lord.
It is “the Law,” pf course, which lies at the heart of this dispute. For generations it was adherence to that Law which saved the Jewish people, but the Law could never truly save them so Jesus was sent. With the coming of Jesus we are saved by God, through Jesus.

Remember, Paul is an expert on the Law. He knows the Law. But he also knows human limitations and that Law alone cannot save us from ourselves. Without the saving grace of Jesus, the Law is only head knowledge. The Law is good, but incomplete.

Jesus is our completion. This is the unwavering core of Paul’s belief – Jesus, and not the Law. Jesus, in Paul’s theology, takes us directly to the place toward which the Law can only point us. On this, Paul will not waver nor will he back down. Paul had brought he Galatians the truth and they have allowed themselves to be pulled backwards into a dead end belief. After a glorious beginning, they have allowed the Judaizers to strip them of their truth. And Paul is not happy about it.

Next week we will hear Paul re-educating them and we’ll be introduced to those “big words” and big concepts that lie at the heart of much of our Christianity today. Again, I recommend you read the whole letter for next Sunday – as I said, it’s short.

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WALKING ON AIR

7/16/2017

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1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.

And then this: We can tell you with complete confidence—we have the Master’s word on it—that when the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they’ll be ahead of us. The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God’s trumpet blast! He’ll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise—they’ll go first. Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we’ll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So, reassure one another with these words.

In our previous lesson, Paul and Silas and Timothy had finally made it to the city of Thessalonika. As would become their usual pattern, they ended up being chased out of town by the traditionalist Jews, but Paul, worrying about his friends in Thessalonika, sent Timothy back to check on the newly formed “church” there. This first of Paul’s letters, you will recall, was in response to Timothy’s report on his visit.

We learned last time that it was a good report, with no schisms to report, no big fires to be put out – just love and longing for Paul’s return.

There was only one real question to be addressed – and as we read more we will find that it was a question that was arising, not just in Thessalonika, but all around the Near East and Mediterranean worlds. As the years passed and as the word of Jesus continued to spread out, not only near Jerusalem, but into the Gentile world, the question spread, too.

After the death of Jesus, as the stories were passed around and a shared understanding of what the life and death and reborn-life of Jesus meant began to develop, it was clear that his followers fully expected him to return for them – and they expected it to happen soon.

By the time of the writing of this letter, twenty years had come and gone – and the people were still waiting. Not only were they waiting, but some of them had died and those who remained wondered what had happened to them – how was Jesus going to come back for them if they had already died?

Those of us sitting here 2000 years later simply do not see this question as the people of Paul’s time saw it. We have, in some ways, lost our sense of immediacy. The first Christians saw that Jesus was somehow still living and they believed wholeheartedly that he was coming back for them – and soon.

As years passed, it became extremely difficult for them to shift gears and wrap their minds around what it might mean that twenty or thirty or more years later, they were still waiting. It would be like being convinced that the world will end next Tuesday – and then waking up on Wednesday morning. I am sure there were some who lost their faith -- the ones who did not, had to grapple with finding another explanation.

There are two primary ways to approach the bible – one is that it is a collection of stories written by believers and saved for those of us still to come – stories about God and about God’s interactions with God’s people. The other way to that of the literalists, who believe that every word was dictated directly by God – therefore, every word is holy.

Down through the centuries this choice has offered us two paths. The first path -- the one followed by most mainline churches today -- teaches that Jesus was speaking metaphorically, and that everyone will someday be united with Jesus in God’s heavenly realm. The second path takes Jesus’ words entirely literally, and – as the years have gone by, it’s proponents have gone to amazingly tortuous lengths to explain why it is all literally true in spite of the fact that it still isn’t happening as they insist it will. They go with an answer that seems obvious to them – that Jesus said it would happen, it hasn’t happened yet, and therefore it is still out there in the future – still “coming.”

Any minute now, the good people – the true believers -- will be caught up in “the rapture” while the bad ones will be left behind to suffer. For these believers, this life is all about preparing for the next life – setting oneself up now to make it through “the judgment.”

There have been very minor movements on the second path through the centuries, but “rapture” theology, as we are semi-familiar with it, actually only came to full force in the 1800’s with the preaching of an Anglo-Irish clergyman named John Nelson Darby – the person who apparently came up with the term “the rapture,” which is not biblical, by the way. Rapture theology also was amplified through the work of Cyrus Scofield, whose reference bible, known by his name, has been for decades the bible for believers in the theory of Dispensationalism.

I mentioned the tortuous lengths believers go to in order to justify their belief in the coming rapture – Dispensationalism is the most tortuous in my view. I try to explain the various dispensations, but I am not remotely qualified to try to teach them. Basically, it is the belief that God has tried many ways to save humankind, but we keep sinning and failing, so God keeps changing up the rules, stopping that attempt, then starting again from zero, basically trying another tack – each of these attempts is a new age – and a new dispensation. According to some systems there are four, in others, there are seven.

We keep failing and sinning, but now we are under the dispensation of Grace, the longest dispensation, the current church age. There’s still one more to come: a literal, earthly 1,000-year Millennial Kingdom that’s not here yet, but is coming soon.

I hope I do not sound as if I'm mocking the Dispensationalist -- that is not my intention. That is many people's sincerely held belief and they have a right to it. I see it as an unnecessary and Byzantine explanation of something that is essentially quite simple. God loves us and God does not leave us abandoned. I don't need to know the details. I do not feel any need to prove God as "fact," I am comfortable allowing God to be God.

It is clear from our reading today that Paul did believe in Jesus coming again – soon. Time proved him wrong about that, but only if we insist on anchoring God’s moment in one particular historical point of time. It is also clear when we read Paul’s letters that, as Marc Borg says, his passion was not at all for preparation for the final judgment, but for the transformation of God’s people. I firmly believe in this interpretation for the simple reason that when Jesus taught, he always spoke of the Realm of God as here and now – already -- the present moment. He also insisted that “no one knows” the time or place of God’s actions – so I’ve always found it odd that folks keep on trying to nail down a date.

We each live our own moments when we are touched by God. One day we will each come to our own “end times” and find ourselves fully united with God. But while we are here we are called to be transformed and to live fully and passionately in the eternal now of Christ’s Spirit in us.

It is a simple choice – to worship the words of scripture, or to hear the message found in a thousand years of stories and teachings about a people’s interaction with their God – our God.

Paul begins the last chapter (Chapter 5) in this letter in this way:

1-3 I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other—“We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!”—suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.

And then he ends with this admonition:

23-24 May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.

I do not believe, as many conservative churches teach, that we are here to work toward our salvation and a “someday” heavenly kingdom. We are not preparing for eternity – eternity is here and we live in it in every moment – right here, right now. May we live each moment as the beloved people of God -- put together, holy and whole.

Amen.

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COME TO MACEDONIA

7/2/2017

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First Letter to the Thessalonians, 1:1, 7-10

I, Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church at Thessalonica, Christians assembled by God the Father and by the Master, Jesus Christ. God’s amazing grace be with you! God’s robust peace! .....

Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.

After Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus he apparently spent some time, first, around the Damascus area and then in Jerusalem, trying to undo his previous image as a heretic hunter – meeting at various times with greater or lesser acceptance. I remember growing up thinking that Damascus was someplace terribly exotic – far removed from any other biblical locale. I can still remember the first time I looked it up on a map and realized just how close it is to Palestine and especially to Capernum and the Sea of Galilee, which is definitely Jesus territory. People in that area would easily have known Saul/Paul’s past history and not been too eager to forgive it.

This shunning of Paul lasted until Barnabas, whom everyone apparently trusted, first spoke up for the authenticity of Paul’s conversion and then took Paul with him to work among the established community in Antioch in northern Syria and in the surrounding area.

The two traveled around to Cyprus and then the southern part of modern day Turkey for a while, then back to Antioch, where they found “men of Judea” trying to undo everything they had taught – insisting that to be a Jesus-follower meant the gentiles had to first become observant Jews, with circumcision and dietary laws and everything. Paul and Barnabas headed back to Jerusalem to resolve this issue – hopefully once and for all. Somewhat surprisingly, the church leaders agreed with Paul and sent Paul and Barnabas, along with two other evangelists – Silas and Judas – back to Antioch to reassure the community there and to continue teaching, using a particular set of guidelines they had developed.

This is a long and complicated story I’m throwing at you today – there are an incredible number of moving pieces, not to mention all the place names – but I’m trying to get you the most stripped down version I can because I still hope to actually get us to Thessalonika before we quit today. If you want a more detailed read of the story, read Acts.

In time, Paul and Barnabas got into a kerfuffle and went their separate ways. Paul chose Silas as his new traveling companion and another young man – Timothy – whom he had met along the way. This was the Timothy Paul would later refer to as “my true son in the faith”. The three traveled to Galatia, in the eastern part of the Turkish peninsula, and from there, ended up on the far western edge of the peninsula, in Troas, the ancient site of the Homeric city of Troy. It was there that Paul had his 2nd life-changing vision – this one of “a man of Macedonia standing on the far shore and calling across the sea, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us!’”

Paul and Silas went first to Philippi, but we will skip over that visit for now, because, while the actual visit to Philippi came first, Paul’s letter to the community at Philippi will be the fifth letter written, chronologically. After many stirring adventures in Philippi, Paul and Silas finally made it to Thessalonika – where they almost immediately got into trouble with the local hard-line Jews. In the 17th chapter of Acts we are told:

Some of the locals were won over and joined ranks with Paul and Silas, among them a great many God-fearing Greeks and a considerable number of women from the aristocracy. But the hard-line Jews became furious over the conversions. Mad with jealousy, they rounded up a bunch of brawlers off the streets and soon had an ugly mob terrorizing the city as they hunted down Paul and Silas.

Their Thessalonian friends had to smuggle them out of town. This became of course, a theme that runs all through Paul’s journeys. And I said “almost immediately” but this surely is an exaggeration. They would almost certainly have preached publically several times to stir up that much opposition and likely have met in small groups in homes before going public – perhaps a matter of weeks, or even a few months. Certainly long enough to create and build a community strong enough to have stood against the Judaizers after Paul and Silas were forced to leave. And when they did leave Thessalonika, they only moved to the next town, Berea, where they were better received for a while, until the “Jews” found them again, and eventually then, on to Athens.

From Athens Paul quietly sent Timothy back to Thessalonika to check on the community there while he kept everyone’s attention on himself in Athens. The First Letter to the Thessalonians was Paul’s response to what he learned from Timothy.

Paul is clearly pleased and gratified to hear that the community in Thessalonika remembered him fondly and looked for his speedy return. They have not been infected by those who would tear Paul’s teachings apart.

We have to remember that this is Paul’s first pastoral letter -- or at least, the first that survived and made it down to us. It is relatively short – only five short chapters. And Paul does not have to immediately go into defense mode because, unlike many of the later letters, there is no open controversy tearing them apart. They actually seem to be doing well. There are issues and questions – and they wish Paul was there in person to teach them – but there is no open schism. It is a refreshingly innocent letter. That innocence will not last long in some of Paul’s later letters.

In its short five chapters (and do remember those chapters are a modern addition. A letter is not written in chapters. Later editors inserted those divisions for what they assumed would be clarity.) In these 5 chapters, there are only two actual theological points made. The first is found in the content and wording of the letter. The second is obviously a point of belief, discussed and explained. We’ll look at the first today, and hold the 2nd for next week when we have more time to go into it.

The first is the “family” imagery that Paul uses throughout the letter. This is language that we still use right here, two thousand years later – language that is commonly used throughout much of the church. Fourteen times Paul refers to the Thessalonians as “brothers and sisters.” The original Greek text does translate as “brothers” not “brothers and sisters” but those who study such things assure us that the context and language here indeed do make it perfectly clear that Paul was not discussing “those who are male among us,” but “those who are siblings in this new family of faith.”

Think how important this image of “the family of God” is in our understanding of our faith. And then think how revolutionary it must have been in a power-dominated world – a wealth and caste-stratified society such Jesus' and Paul’s world would have been. Think what that language would mean to a listening slave, or a woman, or a beggar on the street. Family. It is a hugely powerful concept – one that many of us, even today, need to expand to include all God’s children -- and thanks to Paul, among others, it is enshrined at the very heart of our faith.

The 2nd big point to be found here has to do with Jesus’ return – the Second Coming. That requires much more time than we have available to us today, so we’ll stop here and come back to it next week. You might want to take a look at First Thessalonians this week to better prepare yourselves.

(NOTE: a map of the area is always helpful to have on hand when reading Paul's letters)

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WORDS, WORDS & MORE WORDS

GENTILE OR JEW? - Galatians pt. I

WALKING ON AIR

COME TO MACEDONIA

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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