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.