Getting the word out.
Galatians
Scriptural Sermons
New Testament: Galatians
Growing up, I always had the feeling that I didn’t quite fit in. I am sure I am not the only kid who felt that way. In fact, I bet most people felt that as kids that there was something that set them apart. It might have been a learning disability. It might have been an atypical body size. It might have been a lower standard of living, or a higher one for that matter. It might have been what we today call a non-traditional family. In my case it was my dad. He was not like the other dads. And that’s the understatement of the century. I was raised in the 1960’s, and my dad had entered the struggle for social justice. You might think that since it was the 60's, this meant he had a lot of company, but he didn’t. None that I could see at least. This was because we lived in Du Page County, one of the most conservative counties in the state. And there’s no way to enter the struggle for justice in a subtle and unobtrusive way. When my dad's church preached a “gospel” of racism, he denounced it publicly, quit the church, and founded his own. That made the newspaper. And then there was the peace rally that he orchestrated at Elmhurst College where he was a professor of theology. At least that was conducted on a relatively secluded campus. I believe that only made the college newspaper. And then there was his march to end segregated housing. This received the most publicity. How could it not? We marched all over the town. Yes, we. My whole family marched, along with lots of folks who arrived in buses. Not surprisingly, the event that received the most publicity was the least well received. Even my dad was surprised at the amount of flak he took for it. But as a ten-year-old, I just wished that I could have a normal dad so I could fit in. Shortly after the march, I was at a friend’s house playing. My friend’s father came home from work, noticed I was there, and began railing to his wife against my dad. “What’s she doing here? What will the neighbors think, that I am some kind of supporter of her father? He’s trying to turn this whole city into a ghetto. I’d like to see him run out of town on a rail. And his daughter is never to set foot on this property again.” Imagine my shame and humiliation and devastation. I left immediately out the back door and ran all the way home, choking back the sobs. When I saw my dad, the flood gates opened wide. Out gushed what my friend’s father had said. I was arrested by my father's response. He hardly seemed to care. “I wouldn’t give it too much attention, Becca. It sounds like he doesn’t have much of a shrine, that’s all.” “What’s a shrine?” I asked, now distracted from my grief. “It’s the place within us where the holy dwells,” he said. I didn’t take much from his words. My dad was always saying things that were mysterious to me, quoting and alluding six ways to Sunday. I later learned that his words were taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson. My takeaway at the time however, was that it was bad thing if you didn’t have "much of a shrine." Some days later we were driving on the highway. My dad wasn't the best driver in the world. He cut someone off, and that someone laid on the horn. I glanced at my dad knowingly and said with what I hoped would be deemed wisdom beyond my years, "That driver doesn’t have much of a shrine.” “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Becca,” my dad said. My dad was trying subtly to dissuade me from taking this "shrine line," but it was too late. Pandora’s Box was open, and the spirits were abroad. Soon thereafter, I was at school, when my arch-nemesis Marla Stick made fun of my new pantsuit. “Your problem, Martha, is that you haven't much of a shrine,” I declared. “Well neither do you!” she retorted. That really stung. Sure, I had no idea what I was talking about, but she even less so. My arch-nemesis Marla Strick was always one-upping me. It wasn’t until many years later, after my father died, that, reminiscing, I recalled the shrine. I began to reflect about it. My only thought as a child was to use it as a weapon. I guess that reflects that the human tendency to see another's sin more clearly than our own is established early. My father had told me that a shrine is the place within us where the holy dwells, but what was the shrine, really? The apostle Paul would have understood all about the shrine. In fact, there's little doubt that it was his theology that in one way or another inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is clear from his letter to the churches of Galatia. Paul wrote his letter to the churches of Galatia because he was angry at them. And Paul was not one to mask his anger. He has never been accused of passive aggression. Paul had founded the churches of Galatia himself. He did it the same way he founded all his churches, by preaching the gospel. We all know the gospel, though we may have our own variations on the theme. Paul's was this: Believe in Jesus Christ. Receive His Holy Spirit. Through his Holy Spirit live by his love. But no sooner had he departed from the churches of Galatia to found other churches, than some kind of a delegation followed in his wake. The delegation told the churches of Galatia that the gospel Paul preached was faulty. Believe in Jesus Christ. Receive his Holy Spirit? Through his Holy Spirit live by his love? What kind of gospel was this? This was way too loosey goosey, the delegation insisted. Paul was a Pharisee, after all. He of all people should know the import of the religious law. The delegation then, literally, laid down the law. It declared that the loosey goosey stuff was well and good, but that no one would be allowed to enter the church without binding themselves to the religious law. So the churches of Galatia bound themselves to the religious law. Starting with circumcision. This is what caused Paul's anger. It was not so much the personal affront. It was that the delegation was dead wrong. Yes, Paul was a Pharisee. He knew the import of the religious law. The import of the religious law was legalism. It was rules. It was regulations. It was technicalities. It was standards. It was status quo. What was this next to revolutionary freedom from the religious law made possible by Christ's indwelling love? “I am in the anguish of childbirth till Christ is formed in you," Paul entreated them, "till Christ is formed in you." Paul would have understood all about the shrine, all about the place within us where the holy dwells. It is Christ formed in us. This is why it is indeed a bad thing not to have "much of a shrine." That much I got right all those years ago. And this is why it is a good thing to have much of a shrine. For when Christ is formed in us, it prevents us from succumbing to the evil all around us and, yes, within us; it keeps us sure and steady; it gives us right perspective for the daily task of living; it endows us with courage and strength to take a stand for truth; it gives us in this dark world bright hope for God's future. And it sets us apart in ways that our children may not appreciate when they're ten, but that they will when they come to maturity. I’m so glad now that my dad was not like the other dads. Amen.
Galatians 5:1-6 Mark 2:18-22
I recently came across a link entitled, “The Top Five Human Fears.” “What a time waster all these links are,” I said to myself disdainfully. No doubt you come across them too -- these links with their teaser titles: “This one will make you cry.” “This one will make you laugh.” “This one will surprise you.” “Open to burn belly fat.” “Amazing befores and afters.” “Celebrities Unretouched.” These links seem to exist to prey upon our tendency to procrastinate. Who of us would not rather click a link than pay bills, fold laundry, or clean the cat litter box? So there it was. “The Top Five Human Fears.” “Sorry, Link!” I said to myself confidently, “I am not susceptible to the allure of your charms.” A few moments later I began wondering if I were a fearful person. “No, of course not,” I told myself. “Just the opposite, I am a brave person… But what if my bravery is an over compensation for my fear?” I continued to ruminate. “No of course not,” I told myself again. “I am a really and truly a brave person. I have high self-esteem and self-confidence, and I am a person of conviction. These are the building blocks of bravery, so I am definitely not a fearful person pretending to be brave…. But I bet that’s what all the fearful people pretending to be brave say to themselves,” I began to worry. “Best to dig a bit deeper,” I cajoled myself. “Best to click the link to see if I resonated with what was fearful to the general run of humanity, of which I am a member.” Suffice it to say, in this way I seduced myself into clicking the link. When I saw the top five human fears, however, I no longer tossed over in my mind whether I was a brave or fearful person. That question shot out of my head like a sent croquet ball. “How trivial people are in their fears,” was the thought that now vexed me. Procrastination had taken full hold. At any rate, see if you agree with me about the triviality of people’s fears. Here is the list: number 5: the dark; number 4: spiders; number 3: heights; number 2: public speaking; and number 1: flying. “This is what people are fearful of?” I thought, chagrined. “How banal! How bland! How stereotypical!” What about the things that are really fearful; fearful, say, at an existential level? What about loneliness? Estrangement? Alienation? Absurdity? Insanity? Futility? Dread? Despair? What about failure? Rejection? Loss? Or the mother lode of them all: What about death? Or set aside the existential level. These fears are but abstractions. What about things that are fearful at a concrete level? Take world events, for instance. What about violence? The gun violence that massacres innocence all across our country, or the political violence that rages across the Middle East? What about the Leviathan we’ve wrought out of the created order whose avenging devastation is here to stay? What about the Goliath powers and principalities that subjugate us every way we turn? What about all the horrors of history that rehearse the horrors of the future? Nothing that was really fearful made the list. “Where was I when the poll was taken?” I fumed. “I would have given them an earful about fearful.” As I said, procrastination had taken full hold. I then began to wonder why people had answered so trivially. Spiders? The dark? Come on. It suddenly struck me that they did it on purpose. They delivered the party line, provided the pat answers, took the easy out, deliberately. Beneath the surface, then, their true fear could be seen to emerge. They feared separating themselves from the herd. Not long ago I clicked on another link. It was entitled, “Deathbed regrets.” The number one deathbed regret was that people had not simply lived their own lives. They lived by someone else’s expectations, lived according to someone else’s “should.” Accordingly, they lived, and they died, regretful and unfulfilled. Of course they did. They lived someone else’s life. Why did they? Why this fear of separating from the herd? There are many reasons to fear separating from the herd. The herd depends for its existence upon sameness – upon conventionality and conformity. The herd then does not like it when someone differentiates from it. It then criticizes. It judges. It ridicules. It rejects. And say you screw your courage to the sticking place and say to heck with the herd. I will live by my own expectations, according to my own should. I will live my own life. Well that’s just the beginning. Then you have to blaze your own trail, and trails are hard to blaze. They are risky. They are scary. They are uncertain. So there’s a certain safety in the herd. It may be stifling. It may be crippling. It may be dull, but this is the price to be paid for safety. I guess the bottom line is that those who answered so trivially, in that very triviality, indirectly gave expression to a fear that is anything but trivial – the fear of their own individuality. But what does any of this have to do with us as Christians? Plenty, for this herd mentality tends to be imported into religion. The herd mentality asserts that the highest expression of religion is to look alike, to think alike, to judge alike, to be of a social class, to share the same political enemies, to harbor the same prejudices, to employ the same jargon, and to erect the same facade. And heaven help you if you try to separate from this herd. As I said, the herd does not like it doesn’t like it when you differentiate from it. In this case the herd, often through the appropriate committee, will confront you and demand that you toe the line, and if you don’t, it will shun you in one way or another. The Bible, for its part, in fact is not supportive of the herd. Believe it or not, one of the mightiest theological choruses that runs throughout the Bible is one that sounds against the herd. Take the immortal words of the prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…..I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…And I will be their God, and they shall be my people….For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Most people know these words, but know little of their context. The nation of Israel was no longer on its last legs. It had been destroyed. And I mean destroyed - with unimaginable violence and decisive permanence. That nation in fact would not be rebuilt until 1948. It fell to the armies of Babylon. The few who survived were deeply traumatized. Any destruction would have been enough, but this was the destruction of God’s nation. Jeremiah was not deeply traumatized. For him the God’s nation had to go. It had become a herd. Self-perpetuating uniformity. Us against them. God’s people aren’t coterminous with a nation, Jeremiah declared. Nor are they coterminous with a race or ethnicity. God’s people are individuals possessed of God’s heart, regardless of nation or ethnicity or race. Paul has his own immortal words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Again you know the words, but probably not their context. Christianity was at first housed within the close confines of Judaism, so-called Jewish Christianity. The Gentiles wanted in, but the establishment said no. They weren’t part of the herd. They must become Jews first, circumcise themselves and bind themselves to the Law of Moses, before they could come in. So Paul declared that this Jewish Christianity had to go. God’s people were individuals who had heard the upward call of Jesus Christ and believed in his saving power. What the Bible is saying is that God’s people should and must be a various assortment of diverse individuals: individuals with unique personalities and interests, unique histories and stories, unique strengths and weaknesses, unique successes and failures. They need share only one thing in common. They must seek as their highest hope and aspiration to glorify the God of Jesus Christ. Jesus once told a parable. Three servants were a different number of talents, each according to his merit. One was given five, one two, and one just a single talent. The servant with one talent thought he didn’t rate much as an individual. So he hid what he was given in the dirt. This landed him in deep trouble. There is a negative lesson, here, obviously, it takes the form of a warning. But there is a positive lesson as well: It is this: You do rate much as an individual. You are important as that individual. You are worthy as that individual. You are needed as that individual. You can fill your role in God’s world as that individual. So love yourself and respect yourself as much as God loves and respects you. Expect as much from yourself as God expects of you. And this requires honesty. And this requires courage. And this requires faith. And this requires action away from the herd. You know, I think I will create my own link. It will be entitled, “Click here for the secret to life.” When it opens there will be but six words: “For God’s sake, just be yourself.” Amen.
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