For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free - Galatians 3

GALATIANS 3

You stupid Galatians!

Who put a spell on you?

You can really hear Paul’s anger in this chapter.

Chapter 3 is one of the more confusing chapters in Galatians.

Paul uses no less than five metaphors to get his point across

and they’re similar to one another and

he weaves them together and it can get confusing.

Paul’s mind is buzzing and it all comes out in knots.

Martin Luther wrote in a similar way.

When he wrote, it was mostly these

wild, emotional letters where he used

circular logic and mixed metaphors

and insulted people left and right.

Then his buddy,

and fellow professor at Wittenberg,

Philip Melanchthon --

Obviously a more even-tempered man --

 took Luther’s crazy emotional writings

and put them into a systematic Theology

which we find in the Book of Concord.

Paul didn’t have that kind of interpreter

or not one that we’ve ever found,

so we just get the raw emotional ,

and kind of confusing part of the letter.

Now if I tried to explain all of the metaphors here, we’d be here all day.

But right now, we’ll just focus on what I think are the most important parts.

I think mostly this chapter of the letter

is spelled out at the beginning,

between insults,

Paul asks the Galatians:

Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?

Paul reminds the Galatians that he told them

the story of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion

and that’s how they came to believe and follow.

the law was not part of their life before.

They only introduced it afterwards.

Faith or law?

How does God reach us?

Paul starts off in verse 6 by telling us about Abraham.

And saying that we are like Abraham.

Abraham was the father of the Israelites

the original Jew if you will.

The story of Abraham was a foundation story for Jews

and it would have been part

of the stories shared with the Galatians and other Christians.

Abraham was called by God and given a promise.

He was told that his descendants would

number more than the stars in the sky,

more than the grains of sand in the desert.

Even though Abraham was very old and his wife

was very old, he believed God.
And he and his wife were given a child.

Paul tells them that Abraham was given the promise

 before he followed any law.

He just believed in the promise and it was his.

or as Paul writes:

6 Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’

Now after Abraham was given that promise, In Genesis 17,

Abraham was told that he and his offspring should be circumcised.

The Jewish Christians surely would have used this part of the story

to prove to the Galatians that they needed to be circumcised

if they wanted to be part of the promise too.

But Paul is saying that the promise came without the law.

And without the circumcision.

It was given and Abraham believed it.

The promise was given and believed through faith

and Circumcision and following the law came after.

In verse 10

Paul tells us that not only is the law not the way that

we achieve God’s promises, but relying on them is a detriment to us.

“For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse;

 for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe

and obey all the things written in the book of the law.’”

I think this is important to explain.

Laws and Rules and traditions and standards can be good things.

They can help us remember important things,

they keep us on track, keep us safe,

they can even help us from killing each other

when sometimes we might really want to.

But in the end, laws, goals and standards,

are no basis for a relationship.

If your relationship with your spouse or your friends,

were just based on a list of things that they

 needed to do to earn your love,

that would not be a good relationship.

We could not fulfill the law and we would fail.

But that’s how many people have understood our relationship with God.

We set unrealistic standards.

We expect ourselves and others to follow religious laws, civil laws,

and we also create arbitrary standards in our society

that we have to live up to on a daily basis

that none of us can live up to.

I want to show you this commercial,

It’s been driving me crazy and I think it

illustrates this point.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/A5mB/all-powercore-pacs-oxi-let-it-shine

I leave this commercial thinking,

“my child is not the one with the white shirt.”

PS – I do not even have children.

(and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they are singing

what is traditionally a spiritual song.)

I know that some would say it’s just a stupid commercial,

made to make you buy a laundry detergent

but the way it does it is by tapping into this feeling

that we are not good enough.

This is just one message.

There are hundreds of these messages every day,

How else do you see this happen in our world?

How else do we compare ourselves to others?

How do we build ourselves up or tear ourselves down

Depending on an outside standard, or a law?

Our body shape and size,

style of dress or skin color?

Ethnic background or culture?

What we eat, or what we don’t eat?

We cannot live up to the standards of the law.
We cannot climb the ladder high enough to get to heaven,

or nirvana, or Mount Olympus, or even the world’s greatest bowler!

There is always someone better, always one more step to go.

Those who rely on the law are under a curse.

There is always someone higher on that ladder,

and always someone lower on that ladder.

And that is the other curse of the law.

The law’s curse on humanity.

With the law, we always have an inside, and we have an outside.

us and them.

Good guys and bad guys.

The sparkling white shirts and the dingy shirts.

The blessed and the cursed.

However you want to say it.

With the law in our hands to judge others by,

and to be judged by,

there will always be division, competition and distinction between humans.

Circumcision was a way to make that distinction.

the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

It enabled the Galatian Christians to say:

 “We are Christians”

And the insinuated sentence following that is,

“And you are not”.

And Thankfully after reading and understanding the letter to the Galatians,

 Christians don’t act like this, right?

Unfortunately, and ironically, Christians are kind of the poster children

for “us and them” inside and outside talk and behavior.

What ways that the Christian church used the law

to create unreachable standards?

What ways has the Christian church used the law

to divide us into “us and them”

There are these obvious ways, and then there are less obvious

ways that are deep inside our denominations,

deep inside of us, that accuse and divide people.

So the law has cursed us  because we can’t ever  live up to it.

And the law curses us by dividing us.

But Christ has freed us from  the curse of the law.

Let me explain:

What assumptions do we have about this person?

Be honest with yourself.

what judgments do we make?

 

He’s wearing an orange jumpsuit. He’s in prison.

He’s  broken the law. He’s mean.

He’s probably murdered  someone or worse.

At least I’m not like him.

Inside and outside.

Us and Them

You might deny thinking this,

but watch the local news

and see how many times

these kind of judgments are made

and how many times you make them too.

The law condemns this man,

The civil law condemns him and our religious law condemns him

and our internalized standards curse this man in our minds

just based on his appearance

But Paul writes in verse 13

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

by becoming a curse for us—for it is written,

‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’—

The way that Jesus did that was through giving his life for us.

SLIDE

Jesus was arrested, tried by law, put on death row, and killed.

Jesus became the man in the orange jumpsuit.

God became the cursed one,

cursed by the law,

put to death by the lethal combination of government and religion

in order to save all the people in the orange jumpsuits

and us all from the curse of the law

And in order to save the world from the curse of

“Us and Them.”

By the way, that man in the orange jump suit,

His name is Michael Shannon,

he was nominated for best supporting actor in 2008

and this was from a wacky 2006 comedy

called “Let’s go to Prison”.

So we shouldn’t judge by appearance.

So The law doesn’t save us, it actually curses us.

And Jesus came to save us from the curse of the law.

The point of Jesus crucifixion was to redeem

those who did not meet up to the standards of the law,

An d to redeem the world from its division

and reconcile all the people of the world.

So to adopt more laws in order for people to become

a follower of this one who was cursed by the law would be

contradictory to God’s whole point in coming here.

Paul wanted to create a church

and make a society that shared Jesus vision.

That didn’t live by a hierarchy of rules and status,

that didn’t see people as inside and outside,

that didn’t see some people as better than others.

That didn’t believe in “us and them”

We are not a people of the law, we are people of faith and trust.

Back in verse 6 paul said

6 Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’,

⁷so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.

We are the descendants of Abraham not because we follow the law.

but because we believe and trust.

We are all children of God through faith.

Now through faith we are one family brought together by Jesus Christ.

Not a bunch of little tribes or nations.

There is no distinction made by the law

Because God has been cursed by the law,

no law can curse us anymore.

So those divisions of inside and outside,

of nationality, of gender, and of class are null and void.

There is no more “us and them”

As Paul writes:

²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

The family of Christ cannot be divided.

And the family of Christ includes everyone.

Because we are all  Abraham’s offspring,

we have all inherited the promise of God.

All of us are one in Christ Jesus.

For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free - Part 2

Galatians 2

Last week we talked about the first chapter of the letter to the Galatians,

and how Paul was angry with them because they were saying

that to be a follower of Christ,

there was a requirement that people needed to be circumcised,

to adopt a religious law and custom and

and basically become Jewish.

                                                   

Paul said that this addition to the gospel was perverting the gospel

adding a requirement or religious law changed the whole gospel itself.

In Chapter 1, Paul outlined his past as a Pharisee and a chief persecutor of Christians,

until his miraculous encounter with  Jesus and his conversion to

the gospel and as a follower and witness to the gospel of Christ.

In Chapter 2 he goes on to defend his authority and to show

how he and all of the disciples agreed on the message of the gospel,

and he tells them that it was actually

Paul (also known as Cephas)

who changed his tune and added back in the Jewish law

and were “not acting consistently with the truth of the Gospel”

in “fear of the circumcision factor”.

which sounds like an organized crime syndicate!

He’s saying that he and Peter are Jews by birth

and could follow the laws of Judaism,

but both of them

“know that a person is not justified by works of the law,

but by faith in Jesus Christ.” 16

What a good Lutheran line this is.

This line here is chapter 2 of Galatians is really the line of understanding about the gospel

that has been most influential to Christianity.

Luther contemplated this line from Galatians when he was a monk and was

confessing his sins over and over again and was in fear for his mortal soul.

It brought him personal relief to know that

it was not his good works that would guarantee his salvation -

Like the Church had been teaching him - it was faith in Christ.

And in here’s how it was interpreted in the Augsburg Confession,

the main writings of the Lutheran Church.

AUGSBURG CONFESSION

“Likewise, they teach that human beings cannot be justified before God by their own power, merits, or works. But they are justified as a gift on account of Christ through faith when they believe that they are received into grace… “

We Lutherans know, we cannot get ourselves to heaven,

earn forgiveness, justify ourselves

by following one or another church laws,

We can’t pray, or confess, give money to the church,

or worship our way into heaven,

It is only our faith in Christ Jesus that gets us there.

This is the doctrine,

 when the Roman church asked Luther

to retract it, he said he could not. He said the famous line,

“Here I stand, he said. I can do no other. God help me.”

This line from Galatians has been

so important to the Lutheran church,

it’s almost easy to forget that it was written to the

Galatians and the churches of Galatia,

Actual people who lived in the 1^st century,

and their unique situation in the Roman empire

may help to understand this letter even better

THE GALATIANS

The Galatians were the Gauls or the Gallic people.
All the same thing, just depends on who’s saying it.

They were Celtic people who settled in Asia Minor

And who the Greeks and Romans attempted to defeat unsuccessfully

for a few hundred years until they did succeed in about 200 BC.

For hundreds of years, they were the hated enemies of the Empire,

they were demonized by the Romans.

Which is what the Romans did to their enemies.

They were described in derogatory terms,

they were “those people” they acted wrong,

they were called  “lawless barbarians”,

less than human, shysters, tricksters, and monsters.

they even looked different

the Romans described them as “Tall, freakish looking people with very

white skin and blonde, crazy hair. ”

All this was justification for Rome’s aggression

on these Galatian people for hundreds of years.

The only way to please 

the gods and to save humanity

from evil was to destroy the Galatians,

and all their enemies, and subdue them.

Does this rhetoric sound familiar to us at all even as Americans?

I think all humans tend to do it, but even we are not immune to it even now.

In these election year, it seems like we can’t just have opponents,

we have to have enemies who’s only objective is to destroy our way of life.

And our current election has been  worse than most in that area.

Everyone is an enemy,

everyone is a threat to our way of life.

it is how we justify anything that we might do.

So The Galatians kept on fighting the Romans until 50 BC

A mere just a few decades  before we find Paul writing this letter.

They are the newly defeated province of the Roman Empire

they are the vanquished and defeated ones.

In the Roman Empire, after an enemy was subdued,

they lived as second class citizens,

nearly on the level of slaves if they were not sold into Slavery.

The nearest equation I can think of is Native Americans in this country.

Seen as enemies for hundreds of year, basically defeated

and put in their place and then living with an uncomfortable truce.

DYING GALATIAN

This statue, is called the
Dying Galatian, or the dying Gaul.

It was commissioned to remember the defeat of the Gauls in the 200BC

And then it was reproduced in the 1^st – 2^nd century

in the time of Paul

to be displayed many public places of worship in Rome.

This one has survived. it’s a little over life sized.

It depicts a Galatian soldier a trumpeter,

stabbed in battle and dying.

Why was it commissioned 

and reproduced by the Romans?

Was it a reminder to the Galatians, a warning, a reminder, an honor.

It’s easy to see just by the presence of this statue,

the Galatians had an uneasy, not fully-free existence

as members of the Roman Empire.

Now Paul knew the Galatians,

and he also knew about the ins and outs of Roman society.

He was a Roman citizen.

JUSTIFYING YOURSELF IN ROMAN SOCIETY

Now it was possible in Roman society

for some of the defeated citizens like the Galatians

to climb the ladder in Roman Society.

They could justify themselves,

make themselves right with the gods.

The way that happened is to

assimilate into Roman society

cast aside their own ways of life and adopt Roman ways.

Live like the Romans,

adopt Roman laws

alongside whatever gods you might worship,

also worship the Roman Gods and the Roman leaders.

And it especially meant adopting the same enemies as Rome.

Work to hate and defeat the new enemies of Rome.

Worship was completely intertwined in Roman government and war and life.

Military victories were not just military victories,

they were a sign of Rome’s favor with the gods,

which depended on Roman citizens following the law of Rome.

The winners were “righteous”  or “justified” in the eyes of the gods,

and the losers were “unrighteous” or “unjustified”.

Working your way up the staircase.

This is a temple which was actually raised in

commemoration of the defeat of the Galatians.

This is part of the altar depicting a battle between

the gods and victory over the Giants

The way of the gods was 

competition, war and victory,

The way of the Roman  government was competition, war, and victory

and the way of the people of the gods was competition, war and victory.

There was no room for compassion for the suffering.

If someone did not succeed in life,

if they were sick, poor, hard up, in prison, wrongfully accused,

or defeated in battle,

it was a sign that they were out of favor with the gods.

But they could get back in favor by getting on that ladder

of competition, war, and victory.

To connect the dots very clearly,

The Roman Empire and its people

were made right or justified by following the law of Rome.

The Galatians were trying to climb their way up that Roman ladder,

working to justify themselves with the works of Roman law.

Then instead, they tried to climb a parallel ladder of Jewish law.

We’ll talk about how the Jewish faith fit into this puzzle of Roman life too.

Paul was steeped in this Roman life.
He was a Roman Citizen, he knew about it, he lived it

he climbed the Roman ladder of justification as a Pharisee.

He knew the Galatians struggle and temptation.

Now, hear this line of the letter again that Paul writes to the Galatians.

“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.”

In comes Paul, once a Pharisee,

who used violence to defeat Christians --

a common enemy and a threat to the Roman Empire --

talking about the Way of Jesus.

Using words like forgiveness, compassion, love your enemies,

reconciliation, peace, visit those in prison, care for the poor.

The Galatians were told they didn’t need to try and climb up that ladder any more,

they didn’t need to rely on the structures of the Roman Empire

and find an enemy to defeat in order to be justified,

simply believe in Christ who was defeated for us.

The Galatians were not in danger of backsliding into Jewishness

and we are not in danger of backsliding into Jewishness.

What we are all of us in danger of is defining our life by

this national or societal definition of victory,

and success, and might, and strength

trying to justify ourselves by the outward measures of

that the world tries to apply to us,

those definitions only lead to competition, to enemies,

and eventually to violence.

I hope you can see some correlations between Roman empire

and some of our own empire and ways

The way we demonize enemies,

they way we worship success and victory,

how the only way to move up in our

society is to assimilate with the dominant culture,

how we look with suspicion on the defeated

in our midst: the poor, the incarcerated, the other.

Even in our own congregations the way we work to

achieve to be the largest the richest the most solvent

the most creative, the most, the best.

And I’m not picking on America,

maybe it’s accentuated by capitalism and the American dream,

But this Roman way was a very human way

It is the way the world works.

Divide and conquer, succeed, win, defeat.

This is how it was explained to me by my

Lutheran theology professor

and how I’ve explained it in every new member class

since I’ve been a pastor. With stick figures.

We all desire and we want to believe so bad

that there is a ladder to heaven, well-being,

happiness, nirvana, God, whatever we like to call it.

That we can climb and justify
ourselves by reaching the top.

But we never, ever reach the top.

But Jesus Christ crucified has come down to

the bottom, where we all will eventually fall.
So we don’t have to go up any more.

Paul tells the Galatians, and us, not to define ourselves and others

by these ideals, by how high we’ve climbed the ladder.

we should can define ourselves and others by Christ’s grace and love alone.

That stupid, un-climbable ladder up to heaven or the Elite of Rome

or mount Olympus is folly, ridiculousness,

we don't need to climb anymore.

God came to us.

We are freed.

Can you see why this would be a radical notion?

A subversive idea for the Galatians and especially for the Romans?

The message is a modern interpretation of the bible by theologian Eugene Peterson.

He interprets the next part of Paul’s letter like this:

The Message – Eugene Peterson

^19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules

and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work.

So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man.

Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it.

I identified myself completely with him.

Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.

My ego is no longer central.

It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you

or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.

Christ lives in me.

The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is defined by faith in the Son of God,

who loved me and gave himself for me.

I am not going to go back on that.

Or as the Reformers wrote:

“We are justified as a gift on account of Christ”

We just have to believe in that truth and everything of value is already ours.

For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free - Galatians Pt. 1

Galatians 1

May 29, 2016

This is part 1 in a 6 part sermon series on Paul's letter to the Galatians

Paul’s letter to the Galatians

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is widely regarded as one of the most important letters of the new Testament.

It’s sometimes called the spiritual equivalent of the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence. 

In other words, it is a letter that declares freedom,

and it is a letter on which our understanding of our faith rests.

Luther said it was his favorite book, calling it his “Katie Von Bora” (his wife) because “he was married to it”.

It is an important letter that’s worth our time,

not just for the sake of the letter itself, but for what it has meant to Christians.

I know that some people here know lots of stuff about the bible,

but we all come here from different places and

I want to make sure we all have a basic understanding

of the New Testament where we find Galatians.

The New Testament

The first part of the New testament is the four gospels, and Acts.

These are written in story form.
They are a narrative of Jesus life and for Acts, the life and work of the Apostles in the early church.

The rest of the New Testament (except for Revelation) are letters written to individual people or to congregations or to groups of congregations in a region.

They are not stories of Jesus, they are talking about the faith, what it means to live as followers of Jesus, what to believe, how to understand, how to behave, and a lot of it, is how to live in a world that largely does not believe in Jesus.

The first section of letters – 12 of them were written by Paul, or are credited to Paul.

The rest are written by other people.

The 12 letters written by Paul are put in order by their size.

Romans being the longest and Philemon being the shortest.

Not all are Written by Paul

Scholars don’t believe that every letter accredited to Paul

was actually written by Paul.

That sounds bad, but it’s not as horrible as someone doing it today.

Could be another follower or student,

could be paying honor to Paul.

But some letters were inevitably written by people trying

to use the accredited author’s name to get their own agenda across.

Of the letters accredited to Paul, the ones that they believe were written by Paul are:

Romans

first & Second Corinthians

Galatians

phillipians

first Thessalonians

philemon

Everyone thinks that Paul wrote Galatians.

And they believe that the letter was written from 40-60 AD.

Letter to the Galatians

Now, the letter to the Galatians was not written to one church or even one city, but to a whole area, a province, a region, some even think a certain ethnic group.

Paul visited the area of Galatians in both of his trips to this area.

In Paul’s time, Galatia was a province of the Roman Empire, and the Galatians were subject to Rome.

We’ll talk more about that next week.

Galatia is where modern day Turkey is today.

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

Paul’s letters, and all letters at that time, I think,

They don’t start with “Dear June”. or “To whom it may concern” or “sir or madam”

They start more like memos, they have a line that says FROM clearly

and a line that says who it’s TO clearly.

Now most of Paul’s letters start very clearly, like this   (2 Corinthians)

From:  Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, (and Timothy our brother)

To: The church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

(Philippians)    From: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus

To: All the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every other letter by Paul has the same short FROM and TO and the same kind of greeting or shorter,

“grace to you and peace.”   Or “Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

But look at Galatians:  

From:  Paul an apostle – sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the members of God’s family who are with me,

To: The churches of Galatia

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever. Amen.

What are a couple of things you can pick up just from his introduction?

If I opened this e-mail up, I would dread reading the rest of it!

If you were writing a letter to someone a letter, you usually start it with some nice pleasantries.

And Paul USUALLY does

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the Grace of God that has been given to you in Christ
Jesus…”  1 Corinthians  

“We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers…” 1 Thessalonians

But in Galatians, Paul has no niceties, no compliments to shower them with, he just goes right into it:

 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 — ⁷not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But 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! ⁹As 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!

What is Paul’s emotion here? Just from the verses here, what is he accusing them of?

Why was Paul so angry?

A little back story on paul

Paul was the apostle that was specifically sent to the Gentiles --

That is the people who were not Jewish -- to share the message of Jesus with them.

Christianity started as a movement inside Judaism,

but Paul was sent to those outside Judaism.

And the Galatians would have formerly been pagan, like most people in the Roman Empire.

Paul  went to this area of the empire and apparently was sick or injured,

and the Galatians welcomed him and helped him

so he stayed there quite a while and started some churches.

Paul shared the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection

and told the Galatians that he died to free all people.

You became a part of Jesus family by just believing Jesus Christ is the son of God

and by being baptized .

But now, someone was coming into these churches in Galatia

and are “perverting the gospel of Christ”.

We don’t know who that is, but it’s probably followers of some of the other disciples.

They’re not just messing with Paul’s teachings.

They’re not just changing or adding a couple of rules.

According to Paul, they are perverting the gospel.

They are changing the main idea that:

 everyone is invited to be a part of Christ’s family no matter who or what they are.

That there is no distinction between the children of God.

The relationship that God had with the Jews,

God is now coming to share with the whole world,

circumcised and uncircumcised.

And if you say that People have to become

circumcised, and have to become Jewish to be a part,

that is perverting the gospel of Christ.

  How did the ones who were perverting the gospel selling it to the Galatians

And the way that these interloping Christians were selling it to the Galatians was

 by questioning Paul’s authority as a real apostle

and by questioning his motive in spreading the gospel as he did

10 Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul has apparently been accused of changing the real message because he’s trying to please people.

I also think this part is funny, because he’s been so rude in his letter so far, and he’s like, “you think I’m a people pleaser now?”

When I was on internship, we had these events and the interns and supervisors would meet together and have a meal and share. And the time came to our unique, urban church in Milwaukee. We talked about our vision at Reformation, we tried to model the congregation on the kingdom of God where everyone was welcomed and valuable, everyone counted, everyone had a voice, no matter what their background or if they’d been in prison or on drugs. And one of the supervisors was obviously not buying it. He said, “what is this the 60’s” and we were like, “What?” He said, “Sounds to me like you’re just kowtowing. Like you’re just trying to please everyone instead of following the word of God.”

I think that sometimes when we proclaim the gospel as Lutherans,

with an understanding of God’s welcome and love for all people

we get accused of “just trying to make people happy”  instead of serving God.

I know I have been accused of that.
We’re just bowing down to culture, we’re just trying to get more members,

we’re just being politically correct,  

we’re just trying to bend or break some of the laws to make some people happy.

The people were apparently saying that when

Paul told the Galatians they didn’t need to be circumcised,

 that he was just trying to “make them happy”

he was “Seeking human approval.”

He was just trying to soft-sell the requirements in order to get more gentile followers.

But Paul was not sharing this message in order to make some people happy. This is Jesus message to all people.

And it’s the same for us too.

We don’t welcome people just to please them or to make a good show

for the neighborhood, or cause we’ll get more people in here on Sunday.

We  share this gospel because it is the truth as we understand it from God.

It is the story of Jesus as we have received it from Paul and other teachers.

I like to make everyone happy,

but I don’t share this message to make people happy.

I share it because I firmly believe that’s what God wants from us.

That’s God’s vision of the kingdom on earth.

That is what God’s Word tells me.

That is what I have been driven to by the Spirit.

That is what Paul is saying to the Galatians. This is the gospel.

God loves unconditionally-- circumcised or uncircumcised. If you put a requirement on, you don’t have the gospel.

How the letter has usually been talked about

This letter has usually been talk about Christianity

in opposition to Judaism:

Judaism is about a bunch of laws and Christianity is about being freed from those laws and rules.

This has sometimes been used to fuel anti-Semitism in Christianity and has even been a cause for violence.

In Luther’s case, he made it about the

Church laws of the Roman Catholic church vs. the gospel of Jesus.

And this letter is about these things,

but I hope you see as we go through this letter,

that it’s about more.

It’s about slavery  (all kinds of slavery, mostly the kind that we impose on ourselves)

and freedom.

When Paul met the Galatians,

 the gospel freed them like its freed so many people.

But did they need to be freed from Jewish law?

Did they need to be freed from the harsh requirements of the Christian church?

They were freed from something else,

and then they adopted new laws in the name of Christianity

enslaving themselves and dividing themselves again.

CONCLUSION

NT Wright, a popular biblical commentator today writes about Galatians:

Imagine you’re in South Africa in the 1970’s/ Apartheid is at its height.

You embark on a risky project: to build a community center

 where everybody will be equally welcome, no matter what their color or race.

You’ve designed it; you’ve laid the foundation in such a way that only the right sort of building can be built.

Or so you think.

You are called away urgently to another part of the country. A little later you get a letter. The new group of builders and building on your foundation. They have changed the design,

and are installing two meeting rooms, with two front doors, one for whites only and one for blacks only.

Some of the local people are mightily relived. They always thought that there was going to trouble, putting everyone together like that.

Others though, asked the builders why the original idea wouldn’t do.

Oh, said the builders airily, that chap who laid the foundation had some funny ideas.

He didn’t really have permission to make that design.

He’d got a bit muddled. We’re from the real authorities. This is how it’s got to be.

If the Galatians had just stopped believing,

stopped gathering in Christ’s name and went back to their old Pagan religion,

 I think Paul would have been sad, but okay.

We wouldn’t’ have gotten this letter.

By saying you had to follow a specific rule or be a certain type of person in order to be followers of Jesus,

they were changing the building, changing the whole premise.

They were changing his message.
They were changing Jesus message.

And he wasn’t going to let that go without addressing it.

This was God’s message and it was given to Paul to share and to protect.

This was the message that had set Paul free and set the Galatians free too.

And this is this same wonderful message of Jesus that we are given.

The message that we have been given to protect and to share.

and the one that sets us free too.

Jesus Leaves Again (But This Time It's Better)

Luke 24:44-56

May 8, 2016

Jesus is gone. Again.

Ascension, Brian Whelan, 2011

I mean this time he just went up in to the sky,

instead of dying horribly. But he’s still gone.

And yet, the disciples seem happy about it.

It says they went away joyfully.

I would think that it would still be

as un-joyful as the first time 43 days earlier.

Because Jesus is still gone. 

For me, that’s what is the worst about death.

The person is gone.

I have sometimes thought that

it would have been a better choice on God’s part

if Jesus had just stuck around with us forever.

If he just stayed on earth in his resurrected form

and lived in some house down by the beach.

Then when we needed to,

we could make an appointments

with him and ask him questions

and he could keep sharing his definitive

wisdom and parables with us about current topics

so there wouldn’t be any infighting.

And since he would be around and

would be alive for so many thousands of years,

no one would have any doubt that he was God

and things would be great.

But then I think of the things that would go wrong.

Where would Jesus live? Who would have access to him?

Wouldn’t someone inevitably try to limit that access,

or do away with him,

or lock him up so no one could get to him.

Or, maybe worse, we’d always rely on Jesus

we’d always be going to the beach to ask Jesus what to do

and we’d never learn for ourselves.

It’s like the best parents start to leave their older

children to learn and do things on their own.

That’s how we learn and become independent

If a parent is always there correcting them,

or making decisions for them, or doing everything, we don’t learn.

Jesus was a leader who left his followers in charge

in order for us to embody his ministry and

to truly understand and to learn by doing.

Jesus sacrificed his life so that his power would be given to us.

And that’s what Jesus instructions are before he leaves.

He explains the scriptures to the disciples,

he tells them that the Messiah had to suffer and die

and that gospel of repentance and forgiveness

should be told to the whole world.

Then he tells them that they will receive power.

They would be taking over the work that Jesus started.

  

In the Acts passage -- by the way,

Acts was written by the same person as the gospel of Luke was--

When Jesus is finally carried up into heaven,

the disciples look up and follow him and keep staring.

Which seems to be the natural thing to do

when someone rises up into the air like that.

But then two mysterious people in dazzling white robes

come by -- maybe it’s the same two people

in white robes that met the women at the empty tomb --

and they give the disciples some good advice. They say:

“What are you looking up there for?”

They say, “that’s not where you’ll find Jesus.

Jesus will come the same way you saw him go.”

In other words, look for Jesus the same way

you met him the first time: in a real human life.

He will come to you as your neighbor.

So, “stop looking in the clouds,

you’ve got a lot of work to do.”

So this time when Jesus leaves,

the disciples feel joyful.

Instead of feeling hopeless

and neurotic and thinking about

everything that they did wrong

and being all gloom and doom about

what’s happened, they leave with

great joy and blessing God.

They understand that Jesus death

was not some big mistake and failing on

their part or the part of Jesus or God.

And they know that it wasn’t the

empire and the religious leaders winning

and God losing, it was part of the plan.

They have a promise of power,

they know that Jesus hasn’t left them

completely alone, they will be given the tools

to do the work that they need to do.

And, they know that they have a job

a mission, a purpose, something to do,

and that God trusts them to do it

and will give them the power to do it.

And they know where they will find Jesus,

in the world, in other people,

in the city of Jerusalem and then to all the

ends of the earth.

So Ascension is about Jesus going away.

But it’s also about finding Jesus again.

But not up in heaven.

it’s about us finding Jesus here in others,

it’s about finding Jesus mission in our lives

it’s about finding Jesus power in us,

and it’s about finding Jesus Spirit alive in this world.

And it’s about knowing that in the end, the Love of God will win.

I think again, Luke has again left us with a story about us.

We are alive in Christ and Christ is alive in us.

We are God’s complete ministry plan.

A great delight and a great responsibility.

So let us be joyful and bless God continually,

in our worship and with our lives.

The Road of Faith

Luke 24 13-35

May 1, 2016

This is a peculiar story when you think about it.

Two people, Cleopas and the other one,

are going back home.

They’ve been in Jerusalem,

maybe for the Passover, but they’ve

also been witness to Jesus crucifixion and death.

We haven’t heard about Cleopas before,

and we don’t hear about him again.

And the other one isn’t even named.

It’s been three days since Jesus death and

they seem depressed, discouraged.

They figure they’ll just go home resigned

that nothing has happened AGAIN.

They say in the most pitiful way,

“We had hoped that he was going to be the one to free Israel”

In other words, it’s over.

Road to Emmaus, Diane Fairfield

The story gets strange right away

Because Jesus comes and finds 

them and starts talking to them,

but they don’t know it’s Jesus.

In most of the stories of visits 

from the resurrected Jesus,

Jesus followers have trouble 

recognizing him.

They think it’s a ghost,
or they think it’s someone else.,

Mary thinks it’s the gardener when she sees him.

And it’s is the same for Cleopas and the other one,

they are standing right next to Jesus and

he’s talking to them about the scriptures,

He’s explaining why, even though Jesus death

was terrible in some ways, it was really a great thing.

It sounds like a long conversation really.

It says he went through Moses and the prophets

And all this time, they still don’t know that it’s Jesus.

Then they invite this stranger into their home

he sits at their table, and he breaks their bread

and that’s when they first realize that this is

Christ is alive and with them.

And just as soon as Cleopas and the other one

know that it’s him, he disappears.

Then they are so excited, they immediately

make the 8 mile journey back to Jerusalem -

in the middle of the night I guess -

to share this good news with the other disciples.

This is a strange story.

But this strange story is also a familiar story,

even if we haven’t heard the whole thing before

the pattern and order of the story sounds familiar.

People are on a journey,

Jesus meets them,

they tell their story,

they read scripture,

they break bread together,

they feel Jesus presence,

and they go out and tell others about the experience

I think that this story is familiar,

because Luke has given us a story about us.
This is a story about the followers of Jesus,

and all followers of Jesus, for all times.

The well-known and the unknown.

This is a story about Christian worship and life together.

This is a story about living our faith in Christ.

This is a story about YOU.

  

You can put your own name

in as Cleopas traveling companion.

So YOU and Cleopas are walking along a road.

You are witnesses to amazing things,

but as time marches on in your faith,

you struggle with the way things are.

Things can get depressing, hopeless

not as exciting or sure they once seemed,

you end up discouraged and lost

the things you had hoped for haven’t materialized.

This is the road that many people of faith find themselves on.

And this is the road that Jesus finds you on.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t wait until you’ve

had an epiphany, or until you’ve reached your destination.

Jesus doesn’t wait until you’re absolutely ready and eager.

Jesus finds you on the road your traveling on

wherever you are, and meets you there,

He enters your life and your conversation there.

Now as things do happen,

you don’t recognize Jesus right away.

Now a days, Jesus comes to us through other people.

Through friends, families, fellow church members, even complete strangers.

Sometimes we just don’t recognize Jesus when we meet him.

Sometimes we are too clouded by our grief or sadness,

or we are too preoccupied with our own life.

and you  just don’t see Jesus right in front of your own eyes.

Sometimes even Jesus is working through you

to help other people, and still

you don’t even recognize him at the time.

And like our life in faith,

we get clarity from understanding the scriptures.

And just like these two, we can’t do this part alone.

None of us can just read in the privacy of our homes,

by ourselves and hope to understand what it means for us

Only in a community sharing the word

together do you grasp the scripture’s meaning.

And finally, it’s at the breaking of the bread,

in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood

that you really feel Christ’s presence.

that you know that Jesus is here with you,

and you realize that has been with you all along.

It’s at this table where you really see Jesus.

Then you and Cleopas –

or whoever your traveling companions are

are sent out from this meal

to tell other people about what you’ve found.

You go to meet someone else on the road they’re on

and share the good news of Christ’s resurrection with them.

And then you find yourself on the road back to Emmaus again.

Your faith worn-out and struggling.

And the story repeats itself,

When Jesus comes and finds you again.

This strange story is your story.

It is our story together.

As people of faith,

we are called to be on this road to Emmaus,

This journey of faith, mourning and celebrating

the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We are called to go on our way with Christ.

And the good news we can share is that

Christ is alive and with us today on this journey.

Christ has always been with us on this journey.

And Christ will be with us on this journey forever.