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Friday, July 06, 2007
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Flag with Flare
Through we're pretty much settled in Portland, Texas, we have not yet established our own reliable high-speed internet access. Hence I'm late with this sincere happy birthday. Many of the people who live in Portland and the surrounding area (including Corpus Christi) either serve or have served in the armed forces. To all of them I say "thank you" for your service and sacrifice. It is your willingness to put life and limb on the line that guarantees, among other things, our right to freely worship God without fear of political persecution.
May God bless you.
May God bless you.
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Monday, July 02, 2007
Holding Out...
... From using cell phones, by The New York Sun's Lenore Skenazy:
"If I were to get one, pretty soon I wouldn't be able to live without one," one holdout, Henry Stimpson, said, neatly nailing the biggest problem with cell phones: The way they turn previously independent individuals into the great unweaned.[Article - The New York Sun].
"Typical incident," Mr. Stimpson said: "I went to a ballgame with a bunch of my friends and afterward all the other guys in the car were whipping out their phones and calling their wives. I don't need to call my wife! She knows I'm coming home."
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Let Freedom Ring
© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew
Sermon Focus: The nature of Christian freedom. What is it? How does it function? Why is it especially important to remember as we prepare for the Fourth of July?
Sermon Function: To respond to Paul’s call to genuine Christian freedom by reminding listeners that Christian freedom isn’t just an individual “thing” – it can only be recognized in Christian fellowship and love.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
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Monday, June 25, 2007
Clothed in Christ
© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew
Sermon Focus: This is a text about Christian identity. If we are set free from the law in Christ, then what sort of people are we to be? What are the marks of our identity?
Sermon Function: To tell the story of our new identity in Christ using the example of a luche libre wrestler who was also a catholic monk and priest. The listener will learn that our identity in Christ is something wholly different from the normal classifications we try to attach to people.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
Introduction
Today, we’re going to continue our exploration into the book of Galatians. You will remember from last week that we spoke about freedom in Christ not being a cheap sort of grace, but a costly grace secured at the price of Jesus’ crucifixion. Our new lives in Christ aren’t meant to be a kind of “anything goes” sort of life. No. By taking on the crucifixion of Christ, we go through a transformation so complete that our entire worldview changes. In today’s text, Paul addresses the nature of our Christian identity, now that Christ has paid in full that penalty that ought to have fallen upon us. The question “who are we?” is the central question of identity, and it is one that Paul addresses in Galatians.
Opening Illustration
Years ago, when I was but a wee lad in grade school, I used to be a big fan of Hulk Hogan and what is now known as the WWE – World Wrestling Entertainment. Years later, I am afraid that I must confess that I remain an occasional fan, although my fanatic impulses are more tempered given that I’m a proper church man.
Now that I’m older, I realize what you all know – that wrestling is as real as the fans imagine it. What makes wrestling resonate with me is the sheer athleticism of successfully pulling off a fake body slam or German suplex. The ring comes alive because the characters make it live. Hulk Hogan, André the Giant, Sergeant Slaughter, Randy “Macho Man” Savage have retired and given way to characters like The Undertaker, Triple H, and Kane. I was disappointed, in fact, to learn that the big wrestling event coming up soon in Corpus Christi has already sold out.
I bring up wrestling because at the core of this drama are the characters that play on the stage, the wrestling ring. They are part of a fictional larger-than-life drama, and the stories are sketched with some fundamental themes in mind. One theme is fairness. If a wrestler is treated unfairly, you can bet that there will be retribution somewhere down the line. Sometimes, two wrestlers who are normally enemies are forced into tag-team matches together, forced to acknowledge some sort of brotherhood in the face of a common enemy. Vince McMahon, the “chairman of the board” – both in a dramatic and literal sense (because the WWE is publicly traded in the New York Stock Exchange), created quite a nationwide phenomena. He achieved his success by slowly buying up all of the old time region wrestling networks into this new megalithic venture which his wife, the CEO of the corporation, referred to on CNBC as the single most popular “soap opera for men.” When one of the WWE shows is on the air, it dominates viewership in what is considered the “key” advertising demographic of young men between the ages of 15-35. It’s a powerhouse brand, and it’s making waves internationally, too, in Australia, Japan, and Europe.
Why on earth am I speaking to you about wresting? Well, the fame or popularity of a given wrestler depends on his or her character development. Attention is paid to the smallest detail of a character’s storyline. Each wrestler, in fact, enters the ring with a distinctive entrance theme – music and video and pyrotechnics that give you some sense of the power, unique skills, and history of a particular wrestler. All of these visual and auditory technologies are designed to fully disclose the unique identity of the star wrestler. And, in fact, identity ends up being a key factor not only for the fan, but also for the wrestler. As I understand things, wrestlers are paid to the degree in which they attract television viewer ratings. Cultivating a distinctive identity, then, is very important.
And that is what Paul is starting to do here in this portion of his letter to the Galatians. This is a text about distinctive Christian identity.
Paul’s Concept of Christian Identity
As we discussed last week, Paul was very worried about some teaching that had been going on in his absence. Other preachers were coming onto the scene and proclaiming that, to be completely faithful to Christ, Gentile converts had to take on the obligations of Jewish law. Paul rejected this argument, proclaiming that the saving work of Jesus on the Cross made observance of the Jewish law unnecessary. Faith in Christ was the stuff of life. And having delivered this message to the people of Galatia, Paul moves on to tell us more about the distinctive identity of Christians.
One might argue, “Well, if we have Christ, why was the law even necessary to being with? What purpose did the law serve?”1 This is an excellent question, and a serious question. Paul responds by saying, “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.” The word translated here as “imprisoned” by our NRSV translation team has a meaning that’s a bit deeper than a single English word can capture. The deeper meaning of the word might be “being kept in restraint while awaiting the faith that was to be revealed.”2 That is, we were under the supervision of the law, and kept within the bounds of the law due to our innate sinfulness, that sinfulness that can be traced all the way back to a certain garden paradise. The law, then, was our “disciplinarian.” This is another interesting translation choice. The original Greek uses a word that gives us the modern English word “pedagogue.” We understand a pedagogue to be someone who educates others. But the Greek understanding of the word is different. This person was a “custodian,” one who “guided and cared for” someone else. In the Greek Hellenistic world, it was common for this person to be a slave who was given charge of a small child, usually from ago six to sixteen. The pedagogue would ensure that the child would not stray. The pedagogue would accompany a child back and forth to school, and would ensure that no harm came to the child.3 So, there is a combined meaning here. The pedagogue was surely a disciplinarian, but he also guided and cared for the child in his care. In our spiritual infancy as sinners, we had the law to keep us within the bounds of what could be called holy behavior. That was before Christ, before faith. Before Christ, we were fettered and surrounded by the law.
A New Identity in Christ
What, then, are the distinguishing identifying marks of the Christian? What does it mean to be clothed in Christ? Paul’s answer to this question is interesting. Having been given the gift of faith in Christ, we are set free from the confines of our former disciplinarian, the Law. For “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (v. 26). Later in verse 29, Paul adds, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” Yes, the promises God made to Abraham are fulfilled in Christ. In Genesis chapter 12, Abram hears the following words from God: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3 NRSV). Abram was called into service and elected by God to lead a priestly nation, not just on behalf of that nation, but on behalf of all nations. In Christ, this promise of God is fully realized. The first mark of our new, Christian identity is therefore is our unity in baptism in the blood of Christ. And this is the very way Paul puts it in verse 27 of our text, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” The Message paraphrase of the Bible puts a unique spin on this passage. Here, the text reads, “Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe – Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise” (Gal 3:25-27 MSG). Our ability to put our faith in Christ is a mark of spiritual maturity as Christians. Baptism is, in a way, the commencement exercise that sets us free from the confines of grade school and graduates us into the full life of Christian fellowship. “Now that Christ has come,” writes one New Testament scholar, “these children have been set free. The doors are open; the final bell of the school year has rung. Why would a child want to spend summer vacations sitting in study hall? Why would a Christian want to go back to confinement under the law?”4
What is the second mark of our Christian identity? Just as Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, speaks about love by telling us what love is not, Paul here describes a new category of life by telling us that the old categories are no longer applicable. Paul writes, “There 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” (v. 28). The labels and categories of common human language no longer apply because of this new “oneness” in Jesus. To be fully Christian, to be fully part of Christ’s body, means that the way we think about things will be and is completely and radically turned upside down. Paul does not say that we become both Jew and Gentile, but neither Jew nor Gentile. The old categories are useless. The new category is Christ. And we achieve this unity in Christ when we place Christ ahead of all our other earthly concerns, worries, and categories.
I wonder if this new image of humanity is what Paul was striving to describe in 1 Corinthians 15:50 when he writes, “What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed” (1Corinthians 15:50-51 NRSV). We will be changed, and we will be changed into something we cannot fully imagine right now.
Closing Illustration – Fray Tormenta
If we cannot apply our typical human categories and labels onto other people with our mature faith lived in the unity of Christ, are there other ways that we can perhaps detect a glimpse of how this new life in Christ might manifest itself?
Well, I’ll offer one possible look into this new, transformed life.
Sergio Gutierrez Benitez5 was born one of 18 children in Mexico. In his poverty, he turned to a life filled with criminal activity and drug abuse. Having seemingly come to the end of the road, he happened to meet a Roman Catholic priest who gave him encouragement to continue on in life. He did, and he later became Father Sergio Gutierrez Benitez. He dedicated his life to helping orphaned children. In an interview with writer Michael Paszt, the over-60 Fr. Benitez said, “I have so much to be thankful for … three doctors, 16 teachers, one public accountant, one private accountant, one priest, 20 computer technicians, five lawyers … have all come out of the orphanage.” In over 35 years of service, over 2,000 children have been the recipients of Fr. Benitez’s dedicated Christian life.
Providing for orphaned children is, however, a very expensive endeavor. Money was extremely hard to come by. Funding dried up. Desperate action was required.
Luche Libre is Mexico’s version of World Wrestling Entertainment. It is extremely popular. One of the ways luchedors distinguish themselves is through the wearing of masks to conceal their identities. One day, a new, Golden Masked character named Fray Tormenta entered the ring. Early on, no one knew who he really was. All they knew was that he was a good wrestler. For years Tormenta was able to keep his true identity a secret. But one day a Bishop became wise, confronted Fr. Benitez, and asked him if he knew the name of the luchedor who was wrestling as a priest.
“Yes, I know him,” said Fr. Benitez, “it’s me.”
The Bishop was upset. But after Fr. Benitez told him that all of the wrestling proceeds were for the benefit of the orphanage, the Bishop acquiesced.
Fr. Benitez’s orphanage has since helped thousands of young people get started in life against the odds of poverty, crime, and drug abuse. As Fray Tormenta, Fr. Benitez became the confessor for his fellow luchedors. He would even be asked baptize their children. Fr. Benitez’s story would later become familiar to American audiences, because it was the inspiration of the popular movie Nacho Libre starring Jack Black.
This is, admittedly, an unorthodox story of transformation in Christ. But it is a powerful example of a life that has undergone multiple transformations, first from young criminal drug user, then to priest, then to luchedor. All for the glory of God and for the young orphans served by Fr. Benitez.
How do we exhibit our own lives in Christ? Are we like the WWE wrestler, a slick presentation with a distinctive identity rooted in pyrotechnics and applause, striving to achieve high ratings? Or are we more like the Fr. Benitez, taking on the challenges of life not just for our own sake, but also for the sake of those less fortunate than we are?
How might our own transformations in Christ become more evident to those around us? Can we better wear the clothes of Christ? I know that we can, with each other in worship, in earnest prayer, so that our steps may be ordered in our lives, that we might see where God is leading First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
1Koester, Craig. “The Opportunity to Do Good: The Letter to the Galatians.” Word & World. Sept. 2. St. Paul: Luther Seminary, 1989, p. 187. ↩
2Stamm, Raymond T. “Galatians.” The Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. X. New York: Abingdon Press, 1953, p. 517. ↩
3Ibid. ↩
4Koester, p. 188. ↩
5This story is taken substantially from Michael Paszt’s article “Fray Tormenta: The Real Nacho Libre” which appeared in SLAM! Wrestling on June 20, 2006. See http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2006/06/14/pf-1630776.html. ↩
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Saturday, June 23, 2007
Velcro Being Pulled Apart
I'm posting this for no other reason than I think it's pretty cool.
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Justification as Life
Here is my first sermon to the good people of First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
Sermon Focus: This sermon is structured in narrative/expositional form to illustrate Paul’s theology of justification.
Sermon Function: Paul’s letter, and this passage in particular, gives the Christian listener assurance that Christ’s work is sufficient to cover over our sins. We don’t have to worry, then, when we live lives of faith in Jesus. Paul’s letter, however, says more about justification, and in this sermon, I hope to teach listeners about how the doctrine of justification is essential to life in the Christian community.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
Justification as Life: Introduction1
Before his own transformation, Martin Luther, the great Christian reformer of the early 16th century, used to excoriate himself about his sinfulness. He worried constantly about his salvation. He always felt like he wasn’t good enough, that he hadn’t confessed enough. Luther was known to stay up all hours of the night, praying and subjecting himself to extreme mortification of the flesh in an attempt to render himself worthy of salvation. I once watched a great documentary about Luther that illustrated this behavior. As a pious monk obedient to his superiors and to the Roman church, Luther would frequently make his confession to a priest. His confessions were renowned for being quite long. Laundry lists of sins would be presented for absolution. Finally, after receiving absolution and forgiveness from the priest, Luther would rise and begin to walk off. But before walking more than a few steps, he would remember some other sin he had forgotten to mention. He would go back to the now-tired priest and once again make that familiar statement, “Father forgive me, for I have sinned.” This could go on for some time. In fact, for years and years Martin Luther lived in abject terror that he might be condemned for all eternity because of his sin. It was not until he understood what Christ had done for him that he knew once and for all that God’s grace was sufficient, and that he didn’t have to live in terror any longer. Luther made his discovery, in part, by reading Paul’s letter. Luther called the epistle to the Galatians “my epistle, to which I am betrothed.”2 Since that time, we reformed Christians have also looked to this letter, and to this passage particularly, for as a rock upon which we can stand in assurance of God’s pardon amidst the deep, troubled seas of our sins.
This is at the heart of what it means to be justified. To be justified with God means “to put right with, to cause to be in a right relationship with.” Indeed, this is a hallmark text in the world of Reformed theology, and it gives those of us who are Presbyterians ammunition for the argument that our salvation has been secured, once and for all, by Jesus Christ on the cross. And this is cause for thanksgiving and joy, because we all know, due to what theologians like John Calvin have identified as our “totally depravity,” that the defects of our human nature, a result of our sinful rebellion against God, have stark consequences – we cannot, of our own volition, be justified with God. By ourselves we stand condemned and without excuse. We can’t secure salvation through obedience to law or by good works, buy only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And because of the work Jesus completed on the cross, we can have assurance for the hope of eternal life. Here we have, in a nutshell, our doctrine of justification. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are made right with God, and are saved forever.
I could just say “Amen” right now and end right now, couldn’t I? This is the truth of our faith, is it not?
It is, but I’m not letting y’all off the hook that easily in my first official week in the pulpit. Paul is actually saying much more about the doctrine of justification than I’ve just summarized in one tidy paragraph. For Paul, justification is also at the heart of what it means to be part of the church. Justification is at the core of living in what our ancestors in the faith called “living in the Way.” As a result, then, there are several more questions we can ask of this text. For example: What is the relationship between justification and some of the other things Paul says in our text? What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? And what does it mean to have Christ living in us? These are big questions, and we ought to take a closer look at them.
Context of Paul's Letter
In his letter, Paul give us some information about a significant difference of opinion between what he had previously taught and what others were teaching in Paul’s absence. Paul proclaimed that, as disciples, the new Christians of Galatia were expected to live lives reflecting what the crucified Christ had accomplished on the Cross. The Spirit made this new life of faith possible, rather than going through the pious motions of following law. Paul preached this gospel message of freedom on at least two previous visits to those early Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul faced some opposition, however, from others who held to a different gospel message. Early in his letter to the Galatians, Paul expresses his “astonishment” (1:5) that they seemed intent on “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.” You see, after he left, some other preachers came into the picture. These more “traditional” preachers argued that those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord had to also assume the responsibilities of Jewish law, including circumcision, dietary rules, and other customs of Moses. Additionally, and here is an important point, those adhering to the dietary laws could not then each with Gentiles. “One must have Christ and Moses, faith and circumcision, grace and law.”3 For Paul, however, this wasn’t time for both/and, it was either Moses and the law, or faith and the grace of Christ. The stakes for Paul were very big. Some in Galatia insisted that he wasn’t a “true” apostle because he didn’t hail from the original 12 in Jerusalem. Others made the claim that Paul was arguing for a “cheap” form of grace, because it seemed to make no demands on individual believers beyond the perceived “simple” matter of proclaiming faith in Jesus.
Another faction attacked Paul from another angle. There were those who believed that Paul’s demand “to crucify one’s old sinful nature and produce fruit of the Spirit could be anything but a new form of slavery to the law.”4 This faction basically made the claim that Paul was replacing one form of legalism with another. Rather than living in Christian freedom, these contrarians alleged that Paul’s teaching basically involved moving people from one from bondage to bondage. One the one hand, then, Paul is criticized for preaching “cheap” grace, and on the other hand, he’s condemned for pushing doctrinal slavery of a new sort.
I can’t help but reflect that we sometimes live in a similar time of division in our denomination, when the gospel of Christ, even today, comes under a similar twin set of attacks. Our desire to exegete the will of Christ down to the last nit of legalistic purity diminishes our ability to perform the essential mission work of the church, and the post-post-modern misunderstanding of what it means to be Christian is interpreted by those both within and outside of the church as a return to bondage from a society that places individual freedom above almost every other consideration. I recently took the opportunity to listen once again to a great sermon by a beloved pastor in Atlanta, Georgia, the late Reverend Doctor Frank Harrington. During his ministry, he led Peachtree Presbyterian Church, the largest church in our denomination. Frank never knew the extent to which he influenced my own life of faith, and subsequently my ability to discern a call to ministry. During his sermon one week, he said something profound that has stuck with me through the years. To those who would claim that Christian life is nothing more than lamentable servitude, Frank Harrington said:
“Life is to be celebrated and enjoyed. It’s a sad, sad commentary on the Christian faith that we’ve allowed the world to paint us with colors of gray instead of bright blue, that many see us as a great big wet blanket that is tossed on life to kill our joy.”5
I can tell you right now, friends, that I feel doubly blessed as I read this quote, and can happily affirm that life in Christ is life in joy. This has been evident to both me and Sara as we have been so warmly welcomed into this community, and because we know that you all like to have fun. I hope to have more fun with you as the days go by.
One more fact from this Galatian conflict must be mentioned. Paul, having been so warmly welcomed in Galatia, expresses extreme frustration at the divisions caused by the naysayers. He proclaims in chapter one that he is “astonished” that they “are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of the Bible known as “The Message” translates the Greek word for “deserting” into what most of us would consider a stronger term – “traitor.” And I think that might likely capture how Paul might have thought of what he had heard. The stakes are actually pretty big. Paul, working on his own after a life-altering experience that caused him to fundamentally rethink and remap his life, has been preaching to the people of Galatia that it is through faith that we are justified. Faith in and of Jesus Christ. And now, that entire ministry was at risk. Moreover, and here’s the punchline to our discussion today, the argument about Paul and his gospel risked fracturing the newly formed unity of the body Christ, the church. For Paul, justification, being made right with God, is much much more than being secure about our own salvation. It is the very thing that brings all of us, Jew and Gentile, male and female, Republican and Democrat, progressive and orthodox alike, into communion with one another. It is the stuff of life! Paul is certainly concerned about our salvation, but he is also deeply concerned about the unity of the body of Christ. Justification is, as New Testament professor Craig Koester put it, “a social issue, the issue of fellowship and unity within the church.”
Implications
And this unity in Christ we find by faith in him doesn’t come cheap. It comes at the price of Christ on the Cross. And if we truly accept what Christ has done, is doing, and will do for us by faith, then we will be transformed. We are transformed because we discover that just going through the motions of what we think is faithful is, and always will be, insufficient. It’s that part of us in the law that dies when we truly accept Christ. And that death isn’t cheap. It’s not cheap at all. The grace of God that lifts us up from our old humanity of “I” and “me” puts us in communion with other in the Body, you, and me, and all those present in worship both here in Portland and throughout the world. But this death of the old self isn’t something to be lamented, but something to be lifted up in joy, because when we set aside our old standards of the law, we open ourselves up to letting Christ live in us. The benefits of knowing Christ in this amazing and very intimate way are astounding because we are lifted up out of the old shell that ends with death into new life with each other. And this new life, this kingdom life, makes itself known in a variety of ways. The kingdom becomes visible when we gather together for worship. It becomes visible when we feed each other communion. It becomes visible when we give someone a job they desperately need, or food, or clothing, or whatever it is our neighbor desperately needs. It’s the kind of kingdom life that lifts us up from the dead ends associated with addictions of all kinds. It’s a justification life that makes us into the very instruments of grace that Christ embodies. It’s a justification life that causes us to visit the sick. It’s a justification life that helps us to work with others to alleviate the ever-present epidemic of loneliness. This is kind of justification that Paul is talking about. Living Christian life does not just consist of navel gazing and worrying about whether our sin has disqualified us forever from God. We need not worry about that, because we have Christ! Instead, we need to entirely rethink our lives, leave the saving up to God, and respond in thanksgiving to that great gift of forgiveness that we’ve already received. That is why I entitled this sermon “Justification as Life.” Justification is life, new life in Christ, the one who lives in us, liberating us from the strictures of our own human frailties, and invites us into the kingdom live now, with each other, and with the world.
If there is anything that you remember about this sermon, I hope it is this: Amidst all the perceived “issues” that divides us, and Lord knows that are no shortage of these, there is one supreme, fantastic, glorious person that unites us in justification life, setting us right with God, and that’s Jesus Christ. Praise be to God for the precious gift of His Son, who gives us freedom from our sin, assurance of our pardon, and who doesn’t just stop there, but also gives us joyful lives with our brothers and sisters in the faith.
Amen.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
1The title for this sermon was inspired by Wiard Popkes in his paper “Two Interpretations of ‘Justification’ in Galatians 2:15-21 and James 2:21-25” published in the journal Studia Theologia [59 (205), pp. 129-146]. ↩
2From Luther’s Lectures on the Galatians 1535 (Vol. 26 of Luther’s Works). ↩
3See The Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. X. “Galatians,” p. 430. ↩
4Ibid. ↩
5Frank Harrington. “How Will I Be Remembered?” Preached at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in the Fall of 1998. ↩
© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew
Sermon Focus: This sermon is structured in narrative/expositional form to illustrate Paul’s theology of justification.
Sermon Function: Paul’s letter, and this passage in particular, gives the Christian listener assurance that Christ’s work is sufficient to cover over our sins. We don’t have to worry, then, when we live lives of faith in Jesus. Paul’s letter, however, says more about justification, and in this sermon, I hope to teach listeners about how the doctrine of justification is essential to life in the Christian community.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
Justification as Life: Introduction1
Before his own transformation, Martin Luther, the great Christian reformer of the early 16th century, used to excoriate himself about his sinfulness. He worried constantly about his salvation. He always felt like he wasn’t good enough, that he hadn’t confessed enough. Luther was known to stay up all hours of the night, praying and subjecting himself to extreme mortification of the flesh in an attempt to render himself worthy of salvation. I once watched a great documentary about Luther that illustrated this behavior. As a pious monk obedient to his superiors and to the Roman church, Luther would frequently make his confession to a priest. His confessions were renowned for being quite long. Laundry lists of sins would be presented for absolution. Finally, after receiving absolution and forgiveness from the priest, Luther would rise and begin to walk off. But before walking more than a few steps, he would remember some other sin he had forgotten to mention. He would go back to the now-tired priest and once again make that familiar statement, “Father forgive me, for I have sinned.” This could go on for some time. In fact, for years and years Martin Luther lived in abject terror that he might be condemned for all eternity because of his sin. It was not until he understood what Christ had done for him that he knew once and for all that God’s grace was sufficient, and that he didn’t have to live in terror any longer. Luther made his discovery, in part, by reading Paul’s letter. Luther called the epistle to the Galatians “my epistle, to which I am betrothed.”2 Since that time, we reformed Christians have also looked to this letter, and to this passage particularly, for as a rock upon which we can stand in assurance of God’s pardon amidst the deep, troubled seas of our sins.
This is at the heart of what it means to be justified. To be justified with God means “to put right with, to cause to be in a right relationship with.” Indeed, this is a hallmark text in the world of Reformed theology, and it gives those of us who are Presbyterians ammunition for the argument that our salvation has been secured, once and for all, by Jesus Christ on the cross. And this is cause for thanksgiving and joy, because we all know, due to what theologians like John Calvin have identified as our “totally depravity,” that the defects of our human nature, a result of our sinful rebellion against God, have stark consequences – we cannot, of our own volition, be justified with God. By ourselves we stand condemned and without excuse. We can’t secure salvation through obedience to law or by good works, buy only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And because of the work Jesus completed on the cross, we can have assurance for the hope of eternal life. Here we have, in a nutshell, our doctrine of justification. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are made right with God, and are saved forever.
I could just say “Amen” right now and end right now, couldn’t I? This is the truth of our faith, is it not?
It is, but I’m not letting y’all off the hook that easily in my first official week in the pulpit. Paul is actually saying much more about the doctrine of justification than I’ve just summarized in one tidy paragraph. For Paul, justification is also at the heart of what it means to be part of the church. Justification is at the core of living in what our ancestors in the faith called “living in the Way.” As a result, then, there are several more questions we can ask of this text. For example: What is the relationship between justification and some of the other things Paul says in our text? What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? And what does it mean to have Christ living in us? These are big questions, and we ought to take a closer look at them.
Context of Paul's Letter
In his letter, Paul give us some information about a significant difference of opinion between what he had previously taught and what others were teaching in Paul’s absence. Paul proclaimed that, as disciples, the new Christians of Galatia were expected to live lives reflecting what the crucified Christ had accomplished on the Cross. The Spirit made this new life of faith possible, rather than going through the pious motions of following law. Paul preached this gospel message of freedom on at least two previous visits to those early Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul faced some opposition, however, from others who held to a different gospel message. Early in his letter to the Galatians, Paul expresses his “astonishment” (1:5) that they seemed intent on “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.” You see, after he left, some other preachers came into the picture. These more “traditional” preachers argued that those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord had to also assume the responsibilities of Jewish law, including circumcision, dietary rules, and other customs of Moses. Additionally, and here is an important point, those adhering to the dietary laws could not then each with Gentiles. “One must have Christ and Moses, faith and circumcision, grace and law.”3 For Paul, however, this wasn’t time for both/and, it was either Moses and the law, or faith and the grace of Christ. The stakes for Paul were very big. Some in Galatia insisted that he wasn’t a “true” apostle because he didn’t hail from the original 12 in Jerusalem. Others made the claim that Paul was arguing for a “cheap” form of grace, because it seemed to make no demands on individual believers beyond the perceived “simple” matter of proclaiming faith in Jesus.
Another faction attacked Paul from another angle. There were those who believed that Paul’s demand “to crucify one’s old sinful nature and produce fruit of the Spirit could be anything but a new form of slavery to the law.”4 This faction basically made the claim that Paul was replacing one form of legalism with another. Rather than living in Christian freedom, these contrarians alleged that Paul’s teaching basically involved moving people from one from bondage to bondage. One the one hand, then, Paul is criticized for preaching “cheap” grace, and on the other hand, he’s condemned for pushing doctrinal slavery of a new sort.
I can’t help but reflect that we sometimes live in a similar time of division in our denomination, when the gospel of Christ, even today, comes under a similar twin set of attacks. Our desire to exegete the will of Christ down to the last nit of legalistic purity diminishes our ability to perform the essential mission work of the church, and the post-post-modern misunderstanding of what it means to be Christian is interpreted by those both within and outside of the church as a return to bondage from a society that places individual freedom above almost every other consideration. I recently took the opportunity to listen once again to a great sermon by a beloved pastor in Atlanta, Georgia, the late Reverend Doctor Frank Harrington. During his ministry, he led Peachtree Presbyterian Church, the largest church in our denomination. Frank never knew the extent to which he influenced my own life of faith, and subsequently my ability to discern a call to ministry. During his sermon one week, he said something profound that has stuck with me through the years. To those who would claim that Christian life is nothing more than lamentable servitude, Frank Harrington said:
“Life is to be celebrated and enjoyed. It’s a sad, sad commentary on the Christian faith that we’ve allowed the world to paint us with colors of gray instead of bright blue, that many see us as a great big wet blanket that is tossed on life to kill our joy.”5
I can tell you right now, friends, that I feel doubly blessed as I read this quote, and can happily affirm that life in Christ is life in joy. This has been evident to both me and Sara as we have been so warmly welcomed into this community, and because we know that you all like to have fun. I hope to have more fun with you as the days go by.
One more fact from this Galatian conflict must be mentioned. Paul, having been so warmly welcomed in Galatia, expresses extreme frustration at the divisions caused by the naysayers. He proclaims in chapter one that he is “astonished” that they “are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of the Bible known as “The Message” translates the Greek word for “deserting” into what most of us would consider a stronger term – “traitor.” And I think that might likely capture how Paul might have thought of what he had heard. The stakes are actually pretty big. Paul, working on his own after a life-altering experience that caused him to fundamentally rethink and remap his life, has been preaching to the people of Galatia that it is through faith that we are justified. Faith in and of Jesus Christ. And now, that entire ministry was at risk. Moreover, and here’s the punchline to our discussion today, the argument about Paul and his gospel risked fracturing the newly formed unity of the body Christ, the church. For Paul, justification, being made right with God, is much much more than being secure about our own salvation. It is the very thing that brings all of us, Jew and Gentile, male and female, Republican and Democrat, progressive and orthodox alike, into communion with one another. It is the stuff of life! Paul is certainly concerned about our salvation, but he is also deeply concerned about the unity of the body of Christ. Justification is, as New Testament professor Craig Koester put it, “a social issue, the issue of fellowship and unity within the church.”
Implications
And this unity in Christ we find by faith in him doesn’t come cheap. It comes at the price of Christ on the Cross. And if we truly accept what Christ has done, is doing, and will do for us by faith, then we will be transformed. We are transformed because we discover that just going through the motions of what we think is faithful is, and always will be, insufficient. It’s that part of us in the law that dies when we truly accept Christ. And that death isn’t cheap. It’s not cheap at all. The grace of God that lifts us up from our old humanity of “I” and “me” puts us in communion with other in the Body, you, and me, and all those present in worship both here in Portland and throughout the world. But this death of the old self isn’t something to be lamented, but something to be lifted up in joy, because when we set aside our old standards of the law, we open ourselves up to letting Christ live in us. The benefits of knowing Christ in this amazing and very intimate way are astounding because we are lifted up out of the old shell that ends with death into new life with each other. And this new life, this kingdom life, makes itself known in a variety of ways. The kingdom becomes visible when we gather together for worship. It becomes visible when we feed each other communion. It becomes visible when we give someone a job they desperately need, or food, or clothing, or whatever it is our neighbor desperately needs. It’s the kind of kingdom life that lifts us up from the dead ends associated with addictions of all kinds. It’s a justification life that makes us into the very instruments of grace that Christ embodies. It’s a justification life that causes us to visit the sick. It’s a justification life that helps us to work with others to alleviate the ever-present epidemic of loneliness. This is kind of justification that Paul is talking about. Living Christian life does not just consist of navel gazing and worrying about whether our sin has disqualified us forever from God. We need not worry about that, because we have Christ! Instead, we need to entirely rethink our lives, leave the saving up to God, and respond in thanksgiving to that great gift of forgiveness that we’ve already received. That is why I entitled this sermon “Justification as Life.” Justification is life, new life in Christ, the one who lives in us, liberating us from the strictures of our own human frailties, and invites us into the kingdom live now, with each other, and with the world.
If there is anything that you remember about this sermon, I hope it is this: Amidst all the perceived “issues” that divides us, and Lord knows that are no shortage of these, there is one supreme, fantastic, glorious person that unites us in justification life, setting us right with God, and that’s Jesus Christ. Praise be to God for the precious gift of His Son, who gives us freedom from our sin, assurance of our pardon, and who doesn’t just stop there, but also gives us joyful lives with our brothers and sisters in the faith.
Amen.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
1The title for this sermon was inspired by Wiard Popkes in his paper “Two Interpretations of ‘Justification’ in Galatians 2:15-21 and James 2:21-25” published in the journal Studia Theologia [59 (205), pp. 129-146]. ↩
2From Luther’s Lectures on the Galatians 1535 (Vol. 26 of Luther’s Works). ↩
3See The Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. X. “Galatians,” p. 430. ↩
4Ibid. ↩
5Frank Harrington. “How Will I Be Remembered?” Preached at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in the Fall of 1998. ↩
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Introduction
We’ve been speaking about Paul’s letter to the Galatians for the past two weeks. In the first week of this series, we talked about how justification – living in right relationship with God – is an essential part of what it means to live together in the Christian community. Last week, we discussed Christian identity. Do we live under the confines of the law, or do we live by and through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior? This week, we are going to address Christian freedom, that is, what is the character of our Christian community when we are liberated from law through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This is an interesting question to ask, particularly as we are now on the cusp of our great national July 4th holiday. We celebrate our political liberty and freedom on that day. And this is something that should properly be celebrated. But after I read today’s passage from Galatians, I hope you will join with me in re-evaluating what freedom means within the context of our Christian church. I think what we will find is that Christian freedom is a different critter from the political freedom we enjoy today in this country.
Text
Some of you may have heard the sermon I delivered as a senior at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The sermon was entitled “A.D.” and featured the cartoon work by the late, great cartoonist Johnny Hart.
This week’s sermon has a similar cartoon inspiration. A few days ago, I happened to find a wonderful article by Mark Galli on Christianity Today’s wonderful website entitled “I Love, Therefore You Are.”1
In his article, Mr. Galli writes about his experience reading an issue of The New Yorker2 magazine and coming across one of the of the famous cartoons for which the magazine is noted. In the cartoon, a couple is seen sitting on a couch in a nicely furnished room (I imagine the scene taking place in midtown Manhattan). Both are relaxing with a nice glass a wine. Amidst this nice scene, one of them says to the other, “I don’t want to be defined by who I am.”
I think you would agree that the cartoon is very revealing. It is revealing because it points to something about our humanity that we know theologically to be true – that we frequently aren’t very happy with ourselves, even if we successfully surround ourselves with lots of nice things in nice homes in nice neighborhoods. Galli writes about the cartoon, “as with so much of modernity, [our search for meaning is] a highly individualistic quest, and as such, it is a pointless quest. Not because the search for meaning is pointless, but because the context of modernity – the individual – is a myth.”3
Our Problem - The Individuality Myth
So this is the problem we face as we read today’s scripture: Our culture presupposes an individualist bent. We are encouraged to get into the world and that if we work hard enough, we can become a success. Many people are able to live into this dream just fine. Many people cannot, however. Sometimes our poor judgment is the reason. But many times the cause is beyond our control. Perhaps a hurricane sweeps up the Gulf of Mexico and wipes out our home. Perhaps we contract a disease that makes our lives difficult and reminds us of our mortality. Perhaps we get ripped off by a business associate and are left in ruins. The question for us, then, is what do we do with the freedom we’re received through Christ? What does it mean to be a person who lives in such freedom?
Does it mean unfettered existence as an individual, worrying about individual concerns, striving to identify that which makes me me, just as you are striving to identify what makes you you? We begin by thinking that that is the answer. But what we discover is that when we start with ourselves, we end up holding the proverbial bag.
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, is making a big point here in chapter five. We are not created for lives of social isolation or radical individuality. We are created for living with each other.
“For freedom, Christ has set us free,” Paul writes, “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” Do not submit to that yoke of slavery, says Paul. We might say today, “Do not submit to that yoke of slavery, that lie that says I can do it all by myself. I don’t need you, and I don’t need God. I just need to do the right thing. I just need to be a moral individual. All of that other stuff is far too messy. I’m my own man/woman.” We do ourselves a grave disservice if we accept the notion that we can live without others. Such thoughts can lead to an impoverished life. The path of radically individuality is the path that promises loneliness and isolation. Sometimes, the path leads to more insidious things, like unhealthy addictions and what Paul refers to as other “works of the flesh.”
In fact, we are not called into being to do our own thing. Our loving God did not intend for us to be automatons, responding only to our own physical desires. Instead, Christians are called to live in the Spirit, as Paul writes in verse 16. When we live in the Spirit, we are truly able to love our neighbor as ourselves. Self-indulgent isolation is not true freedom, but is like the yoke of slavery, and that yoke can be a lonely place, filled with fear and sadness, and marked with despair. By ourselves we tend to the destructive things that Paul enumerates as “works of the flesh.” These include “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife [which is probably better translated as “selfishness that leads to strife”], jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these [which mean there is far more that we could add to the list].”
Solution – Living in The Spirit
But then Paul contrasts this life-of-the-individual-first with life in the Spirit. Life in the Spirit is life lived in its fullness with our neighbor. Whereas Paul’s works of the flesh begin by alluding to “repetitive, loveless, cheap sex,”4 he starts his list of the fruits of the spirit with love (ἀγάπη). He then lists joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Life in the Spirit is not lived in isolation in the context of the individual, but in the fruitful context of a relationship with the other, the neighbor in the Christian community. Love is not something experienced in isolation. Love is experienced with other people. Joy is a sharing a sunset with someone else. Joy is also found when you sit with someone who is suffering. Patience is exhibited best when someone we love else tries our patience. Kindness is not showered on the self, but on others. Generosity is exhibited by giving something away to someone who may not even need it. Faithfulness is engendered through public worship with others. Gentleness is experienced when someone we love touches us. The only thing in Paul’s list that refers directly to the self is “self-control.” But self-control in this instance is for the benefit of ourselves only, but so that we might not unduly or unnecessarily offend our neighbor in the community by indulging in those truly selfish works of the flesh.
The contrast between these two ways of living could not be presented any more clearly. The works of the flesh, which can also be called the idolatry of the self, exist in the vacuum of isolation and loneliness. The fruits of the Spirit are the fruits of life. All of them are rooted in love. All of them mean necessarily taking the other person into consideration. All of them require living in a loving Christian community. And this loving Christian community is marked with a relationship with God. This relationship with God is made possible by the presence of his Holy Spirit among us. The gift of his love – that is what sustains us.
Conclusion
Paul concludes this section of his letter with these words:
“[T]hose who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:34-25 NRSV).
Our Christian freedom is not the same kind of political freedom we celebrate each year. Neither is it about the false idol of that radical individualism that causes us to say those comic and tragic words, “I don’t want to be defined by who I am.” True Christian freedom is achieved by living fully human lives of discipleship to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus wasn’t known to live for himself, but for the sake of others – his disciples, the sick, the poor, the outcast and unclean, and, most importantly, for the dead. He exemplified love, this most amazing fruit of the Spirit, by taking his place on the Cross for us. We are called to follow, in freedom, this example. Christian freedom is known, then, through the cross, and in the communion of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, as will be exemplified more fully in the Lord’s Supper we will soon celebrate.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas
1Galli, Mark. “I Love, Therefore Your Are.” Christianity Today. June 28, 2007. June 29, 2007
2Vey, P. C. The New Yorker. June 25, 2007. The cartoon can be see here. ↩
3See Galli. ↩
4See Gal. 5:19-21 MSG. ↩