There Is No Longer

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Pentecost C5

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Galatians 3:23-29

²³Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Do you remember the first time you realized you were on your own – faced with a particular decision or choice to make, away from or out of the sphere of influence of your parents, your family, any other significant governing body in your life up until that point? 

I made it through all of high school and all of college.  It wasn’t until AFTER college – at some point during those first couple of months in Northern Spain, when I realized I was free to make choices on my own – and I did not need to check them with my room mates, my family, my Sunday School class, really, anyone, before going forward with whatever it was. 

I realized pretty quickly that in that freedom to make decisions on my own that I was also taking on an unaccustomed burden – that of responsibility on a level I had not previously been aware of.  The choices I made WERE mine to make, but in making them I was the only one I could point to as being responsible if something turned out to be the wrong choice. 

I don’t remember the exact moment – the particular decision – I was facing, but I remember the feeling.  I remember the anxiety that came along with the possibility of MAKING that wrong choice, as well as the exhilaration at the prospect of being able – being free – to even MAKE it. 

In all honesty, I don’t begin to count my entry into young adulthood until then.  Prior to that, even though I was chronologically an adult in the eyes of the law and of society, emotionally and spiritually I was still an adolescent.

Looking back over my years in college, even though I HAD the freedom to make decisions on my own – and bear those consequences on my own – I never came to the same kind of pivotal moment as I did in Oviedo that day in the fall of 1985.  With a few minor exceptions, my college career was a continuation of my high school years, which were likewise a continuation of my Junior High and Elementary years.  It was all about meeting the requirements for completing the process, the standards set forth that would qualify me to be considered “accomplished”, and give me that particular mark of distinction as a “graduate”.   Not that that was a BAD thing.  It wasn’t in the least. 

The issue, in retrospect, came to be whether or not those four years – that college experience – prepared me for the next two as a journeyman.

In some ways it did.  I was beginning to learn what it means to not be able to satisfy everyone’s expectations, and to be somewhat okay with that.  That’s still a tough one, even these many years later.  I was also beginning to find my voice – to begin to express myself for myself – as who I was and according to how I understood my faith – something that didn’t begin UNTIL I got to college. 

But because those processes had just BEGUN in the previous two or three years, I was still learning to move around inside those recently widened boundaries, and there was still a majority of the time that I fell back into the “Good little missionary kid” role and rode that through on autopilot, thus avoiding any major potholes and mistakes because “an MK would do THIS, and not THAT, obviously.”

Please understand, this is not a criticism of that upbringing that informed my behavior in such a way that I didn’t have to think much about what choices to make as a college sophomore or junior or senior.  I would actually consider it an affirmation of the influence those earlier years had on my life.  How else would I have KNOWN the right, the safe, the correct choice to make had it not been for those people – my parents, my aunts and uncles – both missionary and otherwise – my teachers – Sunday as well as weekday School – who influenced me and shaped me and pointed me in the direction of what a vital member of society and the church looks like?

There was still, even after those four years of high school and those four years of college – a point that I had not reached yet.  And that was not because of anything that did or didn’t happen IN high school or college.  The fact was that I simply had not come to the realization of the freedom that I had available to me even as early as the first year of high school – and perhaps earlier.  It was more a function of MY disconnectedness with what was going on inside of ME in relationship to my faith in Christ that held that cathartic moment in check UNTIL 1985.

Up until that point, I largely functioned on autopilot.  These decisions that were made FOR me as a child I will continue to “make” as an adult, not realizing that there was no actual choice being made, but rather, that continuation that eliminated or largely subdued my sense of connectedness to either the process or the outcome maintained the impression that I was actively engaged IN that process and actually ended up detaching me more and more FROM that very same process, to the point where I could have walked away from the whole thing – the whole faith pilgrimage, and barely felt a twinge in my spirit. 

That is what happens when you lose your investment in your faith.      

That seems to be what Paul is talking to the Galatians about in our passage this morning.  We’ve reviewed the story of the Galatians before.  By and large a gentile group of believers, they heard and accepted the Gospel quickly when Paul preached to them, and became followers of Christ.  But at some point after Paul left, a group of people came from the church in Jerusalem – made up of people who had either first converted to Judaism or were squarely in the Jewish tradition – and told the folks at Galatia that, in order to be considered a true follower of Jesus, you needed to belong to the religion from which Jesus came.  Translated: you needed to be circumcised if you were a male, and in addition you needed to begin to observe the Law – that list of 613 rules that were laid down for the people of Israel as a sign of their covenant with God as a chosen people. 

And the Galatians began to do what the people from Jerusalem told them to do. 

As parents, as Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, as persons of influence in the lives of children who are at some point under our care, if we take that responsibility seriously, we understand that setting boundaries is our primary role in the relationship.  We can secondarily be friends, playmates, story tellers, comfort-givers, boo-boo-kissers and horses on whose backs the children ride, but we are first and foremost responsible, as adults, for setting boundaries as our children begin to explore the world and all the wonders that are in it.  We are the ones who let them know what is safe to do and what is not safe to do.  We are the ones that have the responsibility to explain what might happen if a particular action is taken:  ie:  “Billy, if you climb up and stand on that stool with the wobbly leg, there’s a good chance that both you and the stool will end up with a broken leg.” 

As the children get older, those responsibilities begin to shift, to change, to actually back off… we begin with instruction, blend it with modeling, and eventually let go.  We – Leslie and I – are fast moving towards that next to the last stage – where our instruction changes to exclusively modeling – with our children, as they age and begin to understand the consequences of their actions.  Eventually, there will come a day when we will have to – inasmuch as we are able – let go.  And the kids will be making their choices and making their decisions based on what we’ve taught them but more on what we’ve modeled for them. 

I think that is the point Paul was trying to get across to the Galatians – and to the folks from Jerusalem as well.  There was a time in which God focused on instruction – the didactic approach – God speaks, we listen and obey.  Then God chose to model for us what life was supposed to be like, and Jesus came.  In his living, in his way of communicating, and behaving with his fellow human beings Jesus was showing us what God intended for us.  And for a while we watched him closely.  And that watching has been passed down to us across the centuries, as has this new law through which Jesus – the living word of God – understands the written word of God – the scriptures. 

But there is a freedom in the way Jesus read and responded to scripture that was – and is – unsettling for us.  There was a uniqueness to it that rendered it specific to the individual and his or her situation and circumstances.  That part of reading scriptures and letting it speak to our lives today in ways that it never has for anyone else before is … unpredictable, individually as well as corporately changeable, and ultimately, untamable.  We can’t fit the word of God into a box and keep God in and go on with the rest of our lives apart from that. 

God doesn’t want just PART of our lives.  God wants ALL of our lives.  

But there is still a LOT of human nature that begs for predictability and structure and order.  To a degree we are wired that way. 

It is going to take a sea change in our understanding to realize that the way we are wired is due in large part to our fallen nature.  Our limitations in knowing that God lives outside any box we can conceive of is due to the fact that we are not or have not been in right relationship with God for a very long time.  We like to believe that we can be confronted with a situation and make a quick assessment that would end up in our being able to predict what will happen.  We would like to think that we have that skill – of being able to ‘read’ a person and know how they will respond.  While that may be to varying degrees a possibility on a human level, it doesn’t translate well to our being able to do the same thing with God. 

God never loses the ability to surprise us, to confound us, to blow our safe, predictable understanding out of the sky and open to us a picture of God’s self that is so much MORE than what we’ve come to expect that we struggle to simply take it IN, much less UNDERSTAND it. 

But we CAN understand God – at least that part of God that is revealed to us.  We can if we focus on the person of Jesus.  And when we do that, when we turn our eyes on Jesus, it begins to make sense. 

It makes sense to replace “The Law”, those six hundred thirteen rules, with the law of Love.  Boil them down to “Love your God with all your Soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind”, and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, on Father’s day, 2010?

As gentile followers of Christ, it would seem to be a lot simpler to focus on just two rather than 613 rules. 

SEEM to be.

Think about it.  What does loving God with ALL your soul, ALL your strength and ALL your mind look like?  Does that word “ALL” begin to put it into perspective? 

And that question the rich young ruler had for Jesus:  “who is my neighbor?”

We begin to understand that the Gospel had much more far-reaching implications than simply informing how we live our lives individually on a local level … living the Gospel, very simply, has worldwide implications.   We just have to be ready to follow them as far as God will lead us. 

May we be faithful enough.

Let’s pray.                

Crucified With Christ

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Pentecost C

Jerusalem Baptist Church, (Emmerton) Warsaw VA

Galatians 2:11-21

Good Morning, as someone I love very much said to you last week, it is joy to be with you this morning! J

Our reading comes from the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, beginning at verse 11 and going to the end of the chapter.

As always, whenever we open scripture, the invitation is to listen in this reading, in THIS PARTICULAR reading, at THIS PARTICULAR time, at 11:37 on Sunday the 13^th of June, listen for God’s word for our life, understanding that if we were to read this passage in a month or two, there might be a different message.  That is the “living” aspect of the word.

Paul writes: 

¹¹But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; ¹²for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. ¹³And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” ¹⁵We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; ¹⁶yet 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. ¹⁷But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; ²⁰and 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. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

This is the word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

It is a familiar theme, a familiar rant, if you will, of Paul’s.  It seems he is constantly arguing from the point of being a Jew, and of being an OBSERVANT Jew, that THAT observance of his, that belongs to his heritage, is NOT necessary for those that do not share his heritage. 

You may remember the situation with the Galatian church:  Paul had come and had established the church, and had preached the Gospel.  Many had come to believe, including Greeks and Gentiles, but after he left, folks had come from the church in Jerusalem, and other places where the believers were predominantly of Jewish heritage, and those folks told the people at Galatia that “no, they actually DID need to become Jewish first in order to be considered followers of Christ – LEGITIMATE followers of Christ – in that meaning they had to become observant of the food laws, the circumcision laws, and all the other 613 laws. 

Paul walks a fine line in his defense of the Gospel, because while he states that a Gentile does not need the law, he still upholds the necessity of the law in his own life.  He never stopped being an observant Jew.  Yet what he preached crossed the barrier.  He was the apostle to the Gentiles, but in some ways I think that the transformative … let’s see … what’s the word here … I’m taking Brandon’s cue by the way, I’m speaking sans manuscript… who knew? … more about that later … (Leslie’s anxiety level just went “whoop” through the roof (chuckle) … ) what Paul learned when he had his experience on the road to Damascus was that the Gospel, that Christ’s message was for EVERYONE. 

That in itself was a radical … uncovering of a truth for a Jew.  And we know he was a ZEALOUS Jew … we know that he was persecuting Christians for THAT VERY reason … for the fact that they were claiming Jesus to be the Messiah.  And he got it … with a two by four up ‘side the head, that the Gospel is, that salvation is for everyone, regardless  - now here’s the tricky part – regardless of whether or not they observed scriptural law or not.  In truth, if you take what the so-called Judaizers were saying to these new Gentile Christians, they were actually being consistent with their history.  The Messiah was supposed to come and fulfill the law – complete the law and fulfill the law – bring the Messiahship at the conclusion of this living out and following and obeying all these rules and regulations.

So they were at a loss when they were confronted with the fact that Jesus’ message AS THE MESSIAH was that IT DOESN’T MATTER.  IT DOESN’T MATTER. You can be in relationship with God and not have to be circumcised, you can eat pork or whatever else … and still have this relationship with God. 

The catch comes with this little phrase in verse 19:  “I have been crucified with Christ”. 

As far back as I can remember, when I began to understand and think about things of faith – matters of faith – “crucified with Christ” I always associated with crucifying my sins with Christ. It would seem to make sense, Christ died for my sins, so my SINS are what gets crucified.  Some part of me is still me.  Some part of me still BELONGS to me. 

No. 

There is no qualifier on ‘I have been crucified.’  That “I” is “I in my entirety, my whole being.”

You’ve heard of the book ‘The Five Love Languages’?  Who is the author?  Anybody?  I can’t remember … it’s Gary … Smalley, yes.  And he talks about the different expressions – the different ways we can express our love for somebody.  I don’t know them all, I know ‘Acts of Service’ is one of them, I think ‘Romance’ is another, but I only know Acts of Service because that one just came to mind this past week. 

God’s love language, the way we express our love for God, the way Jesus expressed HIS love for his father was through obedience. 

Philippians 2, obedience “even unto death on the cross”. So if we as followers of Christ are to emulate, are to model, are to copy, are to let HIS life be our life, then we obey God to the point of letting ourselves be crucified.  Obviously not literally, but figuratively.  And Figuratively in the most complete way we can.  Following Christ means surrendering ourselves wholly and completely to the will of God.  And if that means … actually … take out the ‘if’ there … that means nothing more than letting Christ live in us, not US live in us … and I hope you can read from the expression on my face that that is a little uncomfortable to say because there’s this piece of me that wants to say “but what about me? What about my identity?  What about my hopes and dreams, and all that stuff?” 

Here is the grace of following Christ:  when we give ourselves to him, when we give ourselves completely to God, God gives us back who he wants us to be, and we find ourselves IN Christ. 

There is no loss in giving ourselves away.  None whatsoever. 

Seven years ago tomorrow to the day, we pulled into the driveway over here with a U-Haul hauling our little Mazda loaded with stuff the looked like a mess (chuckle) and who was there to help [unload]?  Tony, Jack, Greg and Sue Smith came, Jim, Jay, Tommy … William, were you there?  Okay. 

That day began for us the most grace-filled period of our lives to date.  We have … to say we’ve been blessed is an understatement.  Stepping into the role of Pastor is a two-edged sword.   There is a lot of affirmation, a lot of love that comes my way, that I HOPE has been reciprocated.  In that same instant, as I have worked at living out what I speak from here each Sunday, I find that the main person I’m preaching to is myself, because I need to hear this MORE than anybody else sometimes.  To hear this message that Jesus lived out that it was not about him.  The Gospel is about God’s love.  We as Christians understand it as THROUGH Christ, and Jesus lived it, but no … but he wasn’t the focus of his message.  He didn’t stand in the spotlight and say ‘Looky!  Here I am!’  He talked about the Kingdom of God, and about how it is expressed in community, how it is expressed in our care for each other.  He talked about what it’s not.  That it’s not about being self-righteous, about being overbearing, it IS about being humble with each other, about being selfless rather than selfish, about being self-sacrificing. 

And over these last seven years I hope you’ve watched me learn that lesson.  I hope I’ve lived it faithfully.  So many instances come to mind where I have failed.  And for those who have extended the grace of remaining in communion, of remaining in conversation, and in relationship with me beyond that, I am deeply grateful.  But it’s not about me.  It’s about US, and about how we, even as we learn to do it individually, we’re also called to surrender ourselves as a group, as a congregation, as a community of faith, and give ourselves, surrender ourselves, sacrifice ourselves, and that can get a little more complicated.  Because, here we are, fifty people, seventy-five people, seventy-four on the roll (for Sunday School, anyway).  If there is an invitation, it is that we all continue to put grace first.  To put love before anything we do and say.  That we focus on our relationship with God, rather than how the T’s are crossed or the i’s are dotted.  Because it’s not about the six hundred and thirteen rules, it’s about being in a living relationship with a living, loving God. 

        

Let’s pray.      

Lord we have sometimes gone astray.  We like to chase rabbits.  We are enthralled with these stories and details and love to explore. We are curious, Lord, about how this, your written word, came to be.  We unpack it, we decipher it, we study what the words were in the original languages and how they mean what they mean.  And while that engages our minds, you ask for not only our minds, but you ask for our hearts as well. So even as we TURN our minds to you, Lord, help us give our hearts to you as well. 

Through Christ our Lord,

Amen.