Reminders of Home

 May 23 2021

Galatians 3:29, 4:1-11

         Over the past few months, Jennifer and I have had fun being the hosts of our AirBnb. Now, the fun, of course wasn’t in the vacuuming and cleaning of our rental space sometimes two and three times a week nor was it found in the mountains of laundry that needed attended to anytime a guest departs but the fun and joy of being a host lies in our interaction with our guests. There was the guest who locked his keys in his car one evening which we helped out by calling AAA. And there was the Korean guests who showed us how to wrap our toilet paper to make it more attractive and there was another guest who left us a sun catcher as a parting gift. Just recently we had a couple show up with their dog which was a surprise because we put on our preference list that we did not want pets. So, we had to make an exception which they appreciated. A week ago we had some people stay with us who had an unusual request, as they asked if we could bring them down some milk because they saw that we had provided instant oatmeal and at home they always had milk with their oatmeal. It was this idea that they wanted their morning experience to be as much like their experience they were used to at their own home that got me thinking that this is probably what every guest wants. One of our guests said she loved how fresh our linens smelled which we explained was because they had been hung out on the line. This surprised them because they didn’t know anyone still did that. Out of that experience I learned that the way things smell is also a way that makes people feel at home. This ability to have something that gives people an experience even in a small way that gives them a sense of home when they are far away from it is something I have found is pretty important to our guests.

         It is this insight as to what gives our guests comfort in our space when they are far from home that has surprisingly helped me understand what Paul is getting at in our scripture for today which comes from his letter to the church at Galatia. I say its surprising because at first glance Paul doesn’t even seem to write at all about our being at home. No, what Paul does speak a great deal about is being an heir. I have to admit that I struggled with this concept that Paul writes about, that as Abrahams offspring by faith then we are heirs according to the promise. And then a little later he says that we are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, than an heir through God. The reason I have trouble with this is that the way I think about being an heir is that one becomes an heir only after someone dies. It’s a pretty common way of life that after the death of a loved one their property and possessions are divided up to those specified as that person’s heirs. If this is true then just how does this fit with what Paul is saying? I mean, after all if God is our Father in this scenario and God is eternally alive then how can we as his children be his heir? So, I meditated about this idea a bit and what came to me is that in this setting of the people of God that Paul was from, a son would know that what his Father had, the land promised to him by God, this land was, in effect, his because he was an heir. We see the truth of this in the common parable of Jesus called the Prodigal Son. There the youngest son asked his Father for his inheritance and the Father fulfilled his request because the thought was that the inheritance was his even if his Father was not dead. Now, I think Paul is using this idea to convey to us something very profound which was that God our Father is giving what is his to us. This is a difficult idea perhaps to wrap our minds around but I think that this is why Paul uses this idea of being an heir. It is also this idea of being an heir which is behind this thought of being a son. Paul’s use of being a son, not just a child of God when just a few sentences before he tells us that there is no difference between male or female might seem contradictory until we remember that only son’s could be heirs. So, Paul’s use of the word ‘son’ is shorthand for being an heir.

         So, if we understand that when Paul declares that we are an heir and that as an heir we share in what the Father has, then we have to figure out just what does that mean? Our discovery of what Paul is saying here in Galatians is helped by what he wrote to the church at Ephesus where in the first chapter we read, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even us he chose us in him before the foundation of the world  that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption of sons through Jesus Christ according to his will…” Here we must stop for a moment and figure out what Paul has just said. We have to remember that verses such as these have been used by great teachers and theologians to bring about beliefs that make God to be a cruel God who chooses some to end up in heaven and some to end up in hell and we are never quite sure just what category we are in until its too late. What they did not stop and consider is that Paul says that we have been blessed and this does not sound like much of a blessing, not knowing ones destiny with certainty.  You see, the problem is that Paul is not writing this from God’s vantage point but from our vantage point.  What Paul is saying is that if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ as being the guilt offering for your sins, accepting the forgiveness he has provided us through the shedding of his blood then the correct way to think about your salvation is that this is not some random event but is instead your salvation has been known by God before the foundation of the world. That’s kind of mind -blowing isn’t it?  Paul wants us to remove as much of our human work out of our salvation as possible so that we understand that us being in right relationship has been the work of God not just from our birth but before even the birth of the world.  God chose you, Paul says, even before there was a “you”. How can God say that he knew that we would be here standing before him holy and blameless? He can say this only because here we are people made righteous by the blood of Christ. In much the same manner God had a destination for us before he even created us and how is this possible? We can be certain this is real because again we have been given the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, Paul tells us later in this first chapter of Ephesians, is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. The inheritance we have obtained is this destination God has planned for us before the foundation of the world. Now, even knowing all of this it is difficult to figure out just what Paul has in mind until we read again from this first chapter of Ephesians, in the middle heart of Paul’s opening declaration where we read, that through Christ and what he has accomplished on the cross he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and on earth. You see, the cross of Christ is the bridge which at last has connected God and the humanity he loves, bringing about a long sought out unity. The inheritance then, this destination God has planned for us is none other than his very life.  What our Father is and has is life. Jesus in the fifth chapter of John tells us that his Father is the very origin of life. This then is what we inherit, this life of which the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that what we experience in the here and now is just a part of the greatness we will possess in eternity.

         This passage in Ephesians clarifies much of what Paul is writing about in his letter to Galatians. Paul explains that all of us at one time were as he puts it, enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.  Here again it is hard to figure out just what Paul is talking about but thankfully for us he speaks about these elementary principles in his other letters. In the book of Colossians, the second chapter, Paul writes, “If with Christ you died to the elemental principles of the world, why, as if  you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?” So, from this we can understand that these elementary principles are the ways are order is brought to our world. They are the man made rules and regulations that keep life from dissolving into chaos.Now, what is interesting is that Paul says all these man made rules and laws and regulations are nothing more than a means of keeping us a slave. We have to wonder just why this is?  The answer as to why this is, is as I believe, found in the second chapter of the book of Hebrews where we are told that Christ when he destroyed the power of death delivered all of those who through fear of death  were subject to lifelong slavery. What puts power behind all these rules and laws we are under is fear, fear that at its root is grounded in death. I mean think about it, you’re driving down the road, it’s a beautiful day and you are enjoying the bright sunshine and the fluffy clouds and all of a sudden it hits you that those clouds are flying by really fast and suddenly you are jolted back to reality and you first look down at your speedometer and secondly, you look in your rear view mirror. Why? You look behind you to see if there are any blue shiny lights behind you and as you do that you notice your heart is racing and your hands are sweaty. You see that’s what fear does to you because you don’t want to get caught or you will have to pay a hefty fine, money that affects your livelihood. You see, fear can’t give you life it only tries real hard to keep you from dying which really is a far cry from living. Living a life corralled by fear, worry and anxiety really is as Paul describes it, is nothing but enslavement.

         The whole world lived in that enslavement right up and until our heavenly Father’s plan which he had from before the foundation of the world was at last revealed to us in the one called Jesus, the one as Paul tells us was, one born of a woman, one born under the Law and therefore one who redeemed us who were under the Law. Now, we have to understand just what Paul is saying here in this thumbnail sketch of the birth, life and death of Jesus and how it all pertains to a life no longer enslaved to fear. When we think of Jesus being born of a woman, we first must remember his resurrection, strange as that might seem. It was the resurrection of Jesus that Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans, “declared Jesus to be the Son of God in power.” So, what Paul was speaking of when he says that Jesus was born of a woman is that he is none other than the Son of God. The very Son of God took on our flesh, corruptible, mortal flesh yet he was still without sin otherwise he would not have been the first fruits of the resurrection. The reason that Jesus could be without sin while still being born in fallen corrupt flesh is that from his birth the Holy Spirit was always present. As the Son of God, part of the Holy Trinity, when one of the Trinity is present they are in fact all present. So, it is the Holy Spirit whose holy presence which kept Jesus holy.This doesn’t mean that Jesus was never tempted; the gospel accounts tell us different. In those times when the desires of Jesus demanded his obedience , it was the Holy Spirit that revealed to Jesus the heart of his Heavenly Father, the great love that had always been his, and because Jesus treasured the one in heaven more than anything else he never desired the treasures of his earthly home. This is why even though Jesus lived under the Law, the Law was not a curse for him because he alone was able to love his Heavenly Father with all of his heart, with all of his life and with all that his Heavenly Father had given to him. Out of this union of love flowed a holy love which touched every person Jesus met even those who despised him. In his time on earth, Jesus was never consumed by anxiety, or worry because he knew that his Heavenly Father would provide all that he needed; his Heavenly Father was indeed his source of life. This is why the life of Jesus was solely concerned with one thing and that was  declaring that the kingdom of God had at last arrived. This meant that now the Holy Spirit was present in him empowering Jesus to give his life to the glory of his Heavenly Father. And as Jesus lived, he died, as one under the Law , the sinless Lamb of God offered up through the Holy Spirit. There upon the cross, Jesus took the humanity of the first Adam, the humanity that was subject to disease, decay, deterioration, disintegration and death and there on Calvary, the Son of God crucified it once for all. This is why Paul writing in the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians could write, that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all  that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. You see, it was not enough that the death of Jesus might be the means for our forgiveness because this would not have addressed our enslavement to sin. There is a reason that Paul speaks of Jesus being the one who has redeemed or bought those who were under the curse of the Law. This is what Jesus has done, he has paid the price that we owed when he took upon himself the sins and the sorrows that were our very own in order that through his death they might be destroyed once and for all. Jesus took upon himself our corrupt and mortal flesh, this which is our life so that by his death and destruction of this flesh we might at last experience his life, the life and the love that have always been his from before the foundation of the world.

         Paul gives us here in the fourth chapter of Galatians a glimpse of the life that has been the life of God from eternity. In the fullness of time, the Eternal Father gave his Son, the Son gives his life so that the Holy Spirit might be given to us and the Holy Spirit gives to us the heart of the Heavenly Father.Here it is easy to see that the life of God is a life of three persons bound together in self-giving love. As bearers of the image of God, this holy life of God is the reason that humanity has been redeemed by the blood of Christ. As there is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the holy three in one, so too we as God’s people though many and different are to be united as one, as a  community of self-giving love because this is the very life of God. This is what ultimately we are to understand when Paul states that because God has now adopted us as his sons, those who are able to inherit what is the Father’s, we now have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that was always present in the life of the Son, Jesus Christ. This is the Spirit which reveals to us what God, our Father has prepared for those who love him; these Paul tells us are the very things that are on the mind of our Heavenly Father. What God is preparing for us, what God is preparing us for, is the greater life that is to come, a life where the life of God is and always has been our destiny.This is our eternal home that we must never lose sight of while we journey through this life here on earth.

         So, at last I come back to my thoughts I had about how Jennifer and I do what we can to make our AirBnb a little more like home for our guests who are far from home. We live here in this broken world, a world where, yes, the kingdom of God has come but admittedly is not in its fullness here yet. So, the question is just how can we make our time here have those touches of the home we are headed for? The answer Paul tells us is that we let our faith work through our love. If we have faith that our God is going to share his life with us then what we must do now is to live like we are already home. We know that God is one God in three persons who loves with a self-giving love, so this means that if this is our eternity then this should also be the mark of our present stay here today. As Paul says through love serve one another. Love your neighbor whoever that might be, love them in the same way that you love yourself. Bear one another’s burdens for this is the the way Christ lived his life. And when you do these things it will be like pouring a little milk on your oatmeal or the smell of sunshine upon the sheets, a small reminder of home, God’s eternal destination for those who believe. Amen!

         

Beginning and Ending By the Spirit

 May 16 2021

Galatians 3

         As part of my ordination process I am working my way through what is called the Nazarene Course of Study. What is involved with this study is that there are twenty different subjects that have been deemed important for pastors to know and these subjects are then taught over a five week period. Sounds like fun doesn’t it? The current course that I’m in deals with part one of the history of the church which covers from the time of the apostles and Paul up through the Middle Ages not quite to the Reformation. All of this covered in five weeks, again, sounds like fun doesn’t it. The textbook we are using has a meager four hundred and ninety pages out of which we had to write one two hundred word overview of the textbook, two, five hundred word essays over various events from the textbook and one, final essay one thousand words in length on a person covered by the textbook. Now, even though the textbook is about four hundred pages too long and is a hard of a read as one can find, what it does do is to make me amazed that we sit here today with some idea of means to believe in Jesus Christ. I mean, I cannot tell you how horribly Christianity has gotten derailed and not just once but multiple times throughout history. There were many wrong beliefs that had sprung up and numerous abuses conducted in the name of the church, there were some very evil popes and the allegiances that the church had with various countries, which led to the holy wars and the Crusades. As you read along in this history of the Church it isn’t hard to hear Paul speak from the fifth chapter of Galatians that the works of the flesh are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness and orgies because each one of these seems to make an appearance. I say this as a reminder that what Paul is writing in his letter to the Galatians is one of those things that has always plagued the church. The temptation is always present to give in to the ways of the flesh which is evident by the results. Now, if this is all that was found in our history as a church most likely we would not be worshipping Jesus this morning. We have to praise God for two very important graces that he gave to preserve the life of the church these being his holy Word and his Holy Spirit. Time and time again, someone would be confronted in the Holy Scriptures by Jesus and take to heart what he taught, how he lived and how he died willingly upon the cross and the truth of his resurrection and ascension and the Holy Spirit would convict their hearts so that they began to live out the truth that compelled them and as they did so others would be moved to join them. There, in the midst of what seemed like a hopeless and lost case, arose a people whose lives were once again marked by love, and joy and peacefulness with each other. They were people who were kind, who treated each other like family, they were renowned for their goodness and their undying trust in the God they believed in. Their’s was the way of gentleness and an undivided heart in their love of God so much so that even when faced with death they never wavered. It was these fruits which marked out that they were of a good tree, the tree of life, a life of the good and Holy Spirit. Time and time again, there would be these people who would keep the holy flame alive not willing to let it go out. This too Paul knew of when he wrote his letter to the Galatians, this life caught up in the work of the Holy Spirit.

         So, what history teaches us is that Paul rightly understood the danger at hand when the people who followed Jesus got off track, deciding to try their luck at going it by the strength of the flesh. You hear Paul’s urgency as his words fly off the pages of his letter, “O foolish Galatians ! Who has bewitched you?” To be bewitched meant that someone had cast a spell that rendered a person unable to make reasonable choices. In these words we begin to hear Paul reveal that he regards himself as a spiritual parent who wonders just why their children are making such dumb choices. Like a parent Paul is wondering had they fallen in with the wrong crowd which had persuaded them to mindlessly go along with them to their own peril.

         Now, what follows Paul’s impassioned pleas to come back to having their wits about them is that he tells them that it was before their very eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. It seems as if Paul has made a very abrupt change in what he is talking about until we remember another letter Paul wrote, his first letter to the church at Corinth where he begins that letter with what he called the wisdom of the cross. So, knowing this then as a rebuttal to the foolishness of the Galatians Paul holds up the wisdom of the cross. Yet as soon as Paul holds up the cross as true wisdom then he, once again, makes what seems like another abrupt turn in the conversation, when he asks the rhetorical question, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or did you receive the Spirit by hearing by faith?” This is again followed by a question which echoes Pauls first words of condemnation, “Are you so foolish? And then further questions, “Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh? Here Paul reveals just what is at stake, what some scriptures translate as being perfected but what is perhaps better understood as attaining the goal.  Here we must push the pause button and ask just what is the goal that Paul believes all believers are to strive to obtain, a goal that apparently cannot be obtained by the flesh, by our own personal resolve or strength or good intentions? This goal that I believe Paul is speaking about is what he earlier referred to in the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians as having Christ live in us. This is the same as what we the Church of the Nazarene know as being entire sanctification, the giving of oneself completely over to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. This is the goal of all believers, a goal that cannot be obtained by the flesh because it is precisely the flesh, the very root of our sin nature that must be destroyed, crucified with Christ. This crucifying of the flesh had begun to be at work in the lives of the believers in the church of Galatia because as Paul tells us they were willing to suffer, to be vulnerable to the point where the wounds of the flesh no longer dictated their actions. Paul knowing that they had suffered because of their faith wanted to know, if their suffering would be for nothing? Would their suffering teach them nothing about the faithfulness of God in all circumstances? Paul knew that only as the faithfulness of God transformed their hearts could their hearts respond in like terms, with faith. The faithfulness of God was like God breathing life into them and their faith was them exhaling out this gift of life. Faith is a breathing in of the faithfulness of God and breathing out our faith in him; it is a continual, relational response to God understanding him as our very source of life. It is here in his letter that Paul brings up the great hero of faith, Abraham, the one who had faith in God and it was this faith which was accounted to Abraham as being righteousness. It is Abraham who rightly understood the dimensions of what faith in God are. As we read in the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read that to have faith in God means that we know that God alone is the one who gives life to the dead and God alone is the one who can call into existence those things that do not exist. Those who trust that these things are true of God alone are the ones that Paul insists are the sons of Abraham. Now, to our modern sensibilities such a statement doesn’t arouse any emotions but to those who heard this statement who were of the Jewish faith it is more than likely that some would have been angered by it. To many Jews, to know themselves to be a son of Abraham, one who could recite their lineage all the way back to their founding father Abraham, this was a source of great pride. But to this idea, Paul says that this way of thinking was not necessarily true. No, just to say that Abraham is your flesh and blood is no longer the criteria; what really matters is do you believe and have faith in God like Abraham did, if so then you are indeed a child of Abraham. Now why this understanding of just who is Abraham’s child is so important is that it ties right in with the promise God had made to Abraham when he first called Abraham, the promise which stated that through Abraham all of the nations would be blessed by God. Paul here reveals that how this promise is fulfilled is that those who have the same faith as Abraham will be blessed just like Abraham was blessed, the blessing of being in right standing with God.

         Once we understand that believing like Abraham believed that this is the blessing that God was promising would come through Abraham, then it becomes understandable why in the next breath Paul begins to speak of curses, the polar opposite of being blessed. What God did when he gave the people of Israel the Law was that he put them under a curse. The law itself was good and holy as Paul tells us in the seventh chapter of the letter to the Romans. But what the Law did was to demonstrate through one people, the people of the Israelites, that the flesh, the strength of who we are is not able to do the good that is demanded by the Law. Moses even points out the fact that God would have to act in the lives of his people in order for them to be able to fulfill what the Law demands. In the thirtieth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul that you may live.” So, this tells us that apart from an action of God, the people would be unable to love God with all that they are and apart from God they would be unable to be out from under the curse, the certain death that comes from their inability by their own power to do what the Law demands. The good news is, Paul tells us, is that Jesus has redeemed us from the curse. Even though we, as Paul himself said, that no good dwells in us, in our flesh, the good news is that Jesus, the Suffering Servant, the one who knew no sin, became sin, our sin, so that through our offering him up to God by faith as the offering for the guilt of our sin we might become people able to be the justice of God. This is what Paul is saying when in our scripture for today that in Christ Jesus the blessings of Abraham has come to the Gentiles. It is Jesus who is the embodiment of the one who gives life to the dead because we were the ones who were dead accursed under the law and through faith in Jesus we are now alive. Now, the Holy Spirit, the one who raised Jesus from the dead has raised us up to life and the Spirit remains as long as life remains.

         Now as Paul continues through this second chapter of Galatians to hammer home the problems of the law, in believing that it in some way had the ability to give life, Paul says something that is so important to his whole argument. Paul simply says, “But God is one.” Why does Paul right here want to bring up what had to be a very obvious fact? I mean, of course Paul, God is one, what’s your point? The point is that as God is one so there must be only one people. Yes, when the Law was given to Moses the mediator between God and his people, there most certainly were two sets of people, the Jews who had the Law and everyone else. But the Jews were to understand by their recital every day, that the Lord their God was one Lord and since this was so then ultimately the plan was that there was to be one people on account of their being one God. Their life under the Law served only to prove the weakness of everyone to be people who could bring forth justice. Even with the most perfect of laws the people of Israel still killed the perfect Son of God when he walked within their midst. Nowhere was it more clear than at the cross that the Law had imprisoned the people under sin and it had done so that the world might be saved through faith in Jesus Christ and nothing else. It is this entry into Christ by faith that has created a new oneness in the family of God, one where all the old designations of this world, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, none of these no longer matter when Christ becomes our all in all.

         It is this oneness that is found in Christ that is witnessed to by the giving of the one Holy Spirit. Listen to how Paul writes about this unity of the Spirit as he writes about it in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, as he tells them to be, “…eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-just as you are called to the one hope that belongs to your call- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all.” Here, just as we heard in the letter to the Galatians, we listen to Paul state that we are to be extremely diligent to guard the unity, to watch over this unity as a precious jewel.Then Paul explains that the foundation of this unity is that there is one Jesus, and that there is only one faith in what this one Jesus has done for us. There is one baptism where we understand the death that we deserve and the new life received through the Holy Spirit. All of this unity though is to witness to the fact that there is only one God, a God who is one Father, a reality that becomes known to us by faith and thus brings us back to where we started. Yet there is more that we cannot simply ignore because Paul says that this God, the God who is the one Spirit, the God who is the one Lord, Jesus Christ, the God who is the Father of all, this God is over all. This is fairly understandable, that God being in heaven and heaven is often thought to be over us in a way, pointing perhaps to God the Father who is in heaven. But then God is said to be through all, which means that it is God who is the bond which binds us together, the God that is understandably the God we know as the Holy Spirit. Then Paul tells us that God is in us, and here we remember the term Paul often uses, that Christ is in him, this is his hope of glory. This is, I believe the goal Paul believes all of us are to strive for. This is what Paul meant when in our scripture for today he tells the Galatians, “Having begun by the Spirit are you going to obtain the goal by the flesh? The beginning of the Spirit is as Paul explains is when we place our faith in Jesus he being the offering for the guilt of our sin, this is when the Spirit enters into our life as a witness to our new standing with God. This is the moment of new birth, the moment of our adoption into the family of God. Yet as wonderful as this new life is Paul is clearly stating that there is a goal beyond this moment, one that cannot be obtained through human effort but must be reached again by faith. When we understand this then we can understand Paul’s disgust with the Galatians church reliance on the flesh. What Paul knew is that God is not finished with us until all reliance on the flesh is crucified, until we embody the wisdom of the cross. Only as the flesh is fully crucified, only as the sin nature is cleansed away by the blood of Jesus can God be Lord of our life without reservation. In the book of Hebrews, the ninth chapter, we read in the fourteenth verse of the purifying work of the blood of Christ who we are told offered himself through the Holy Spirit without blemish to God. To have Christ in us is to be united with Christ, allowing ourselves to be offered up without blemish in service to God. So, as Christ offered himself up to us we are to end up through the Holy Spirit offering ourselves, our flesh, in full submission to God, so that he might be glorified. To attempt anything in the power of the flesh is to be going against the very goal that God has for our life, a life God so graciously has given to us. So, as we have begun our new life by the Spirit let us remember that we are to finish the goal by the Spirit, allowing the Spirit to offer us up as an act of worship to the glory of God. Amen!

          

In Step With the Truth

 May 10 2021

Galatians 2

         As I said a few weeks ago I began my work in ministry being among the youth of the church. At one point I was on staff as the Youth Minister and as part of that position I was asked to help with lunch duty at the local Middle School which was just up the street. So, once a week I went and hung out with a bunch of sixth, seventh and eighth graders watching them as they ate and played out on the playground. In doing so I become aware of so many things the first being that everything you can eat is better with ranch dressing. I saw kids eat so much ranch dressing it made me a bit queasy watching them slurp up the stuff. The second thing that I became aware of, something I’m sure I knew all about when I was younger, is that lunchtime is the time when the student body gets separated into a bunch of neat and tidy divisions. There at the one table sat the jocks, the up and coming athletic heroes of the school and over there was a group of girls dressed to the nines with immaculate makeup and well groomed hair. And then there would be a table of band geeks and one for the science and math nerds and of course, there was one table for those who didn’t fit into any general category, the kids who seemed to be the rather invisible ones who slipped in and out of the room hoping they wouldn’t be noticed. Now, there was nothing more terrifying for one of these poor adolescent children that when they came to the end of the food line, their tray in hand loaded with food slathered in ranch dressing, of course, only to find that their respective table was too full for them to find a spot to sit at. Their face witnessed to their inner panic because they had to go somewhere and they had to decide quickly because there were always more classmates coming through the line. So, off they would go to sit in a place of exile with whoever hoping that their  good reputation would not be ruined by their hurried choice. Only then would the divisions that brought order to the cafeteria jungle would get a little blurred.

         Well, when I was told that I was to teach the confirmation class for the church where I was on staff, I remembered that cafeteria scene and as part of the confirmation lesson I decided to have the parents bring a meal that could be shared by the kids in the class. The only dividing I did was to have boys at one table and girls at another because you know, middle school boys are gross, end of story. Now, what ended up happening is that there at one table sat kids who were athletes, kids who were geeks, kids who were special needs and kids who just didn’t fit into any pigeon hole. I remember quite vividly one night looking through the window of the door where these kids were eating and seeing all these kids from very different walks of life eating and laughing and sharing life together. That perhaps was one of the best lessons that I ever had the pleasure of teaching.

         So, it goes without saying that there is something very important about being the church and our eating together. That is one of the sad side effects of the pandemic that its really hard for us to get together and eat as God’s family. There is a very good reason why eating together is so important in the life of the church and that is that eating together is a God given image of the wondrous future that God has planned for us. In the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah we are given a glorious image when Isaiah declares, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, of aged wine well refined.” So, let’s pause for a moment and imagine that here is God, the the God of the angel armies but he does not have his battle armor on but instead he has on an apron as he is busy grilling up the steaks, my version of rich food, and he is being the gracious host bringing out the very best for those who are guests at his table. Then Isaiah continues, “And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, ‘Behold , this is our God; we have waited on him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” As we read this it is interesting that as we think about being at this great banquet of fine food that God has set forth and of course as we eat we will swallow our food but what is going to be swallowed up we are told is instead, death. There as we sit and eat, God takes the corner of his apron and with great love takes and wipes the tears that death has caused us all our years and God tenderly will wipe them all away. This is what God means when he speaks of his salvation.

         Now, I think it is extremely important to understand these verses from Isaiah to grasp just why in our scripture for today that Paul is making such a big deal about Peter acting like a middle school kid who can’t figure out just which table he ought to be eating at. You see, it is very clear from reading this verse in Isaiah and many others throughout the Old Testament that God’s salvation is for all nations, the Jewish nation and every other nation on the planet; everyone is invited to the banquet. Now, Peter and his Jewish buddies would most likely have protested such a thought as they had been forbidden from eating at any table that wasn’t a Jewish table as their Law commanded. But what, or rather who they forgot was Jesus. It is Jesus who is God’s salvation that Isaiah spoke of that we are to be glad and rejoice in. As God’s salvation, Jesus through his death and resurrection ushered in the final days and because of this the church is called to live out the final reality captured in the image of a great picnic where all will eat together.

         You see, Paul, more than perhaps anyone else in the early church, understood just what was at stake when the people who called themselves followers of Jesus did not, in his words, have a conduct that was not in step with the truth of the gospel. This is why he had no fear when it came to getting in the face of Peter because Paul knew Peter stood condemned. Peter we remember was at the Council at Jerusalem and said there was to be equality among the Jews and Gentiles.This was perhaps the reason why Paul gave Peter an earful. While Peter was at the church at Antioch he never gave it a second thought about whether he should grab a bite with his non-Jewish brothers and sisters. All was all fine and dandy until the day that some Jewish big wigs from Jerusalem showed up and all of a sudden Peter grabs his lunch and hurries over to eat with them all because Peter was afraid of what they might say about his eating with those people. When Paul got wind of what Peter had done, he blew a gasket and the next time he saw Peter he laid into him like a man possessed. You see, when Peter, a man who was good friends with Jesus during his days of ministry decided to stop eating with the non-Jewish brothers and sisters then even people like Barnabas, Pauls good friend and missionary companion, started grabbing his lunch to go eat elsewhere. So, Paul called Peter on the carpet right there in front of everybody and said, “Peter if you a Jew, thought it ok to live like a Gentile because you know, you were eating with them, then why would you run off to huddle with your Jewish brothers implying to your Gentile brothers and sisters that they were second class followers of Jesus and if they wanted to fly first class then they should just become Jewish themselves?You have to admit, Peter’s actions were really messed up. What we have to keep in mind about Peter though is that the reason for him becoming such a major hypocrite was that he feared the Jewish big wigs who had come up to Antioch from Jerusalem. When we know that it was fear that motivated Peter to be so hypocritical it isn’t hard to hear Paul’s words from the end of the fourteenth chapter of Romans which says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

         So, Paul points out that even someone like Peter could succumb to fear and through his fear end up in sin as he lived as if the salvation of Jesus had not changed everything. With Peter’s fear clearly in mind, Paul then goes on to state what the church at Galatia should have known that a person cannot act in a just manner simply by following the rules. No, what is needed to be just people is that they must place their faith in Jesus the anointed one of God. This little phrase, “faith in Jesus the anointed one of God” is loaded with meaning, pointing us to his being the Suffering Servant of God who suffered and died for each one of us to be for us the offering for the guilt of our sin. In doing so, Jesus became our hope of life because he died in our place. Faith then is what makes what we hope for, a life in right relationship with God, real to us. This faith is not of our on doing but is a gift from God who gives us the sight to at last see and live in the new creation, the new creation that came about at the resurrection of Jesus. All of this is what Paul means when he speaks of placing our faith in Jesus Christ. Yet Paul not only tells the readers of his letter that they are to know that a person becomes part of God’s just people by faith but they have also done what they know is the right thing to do and that is they have believed in Jesus Christ. So, they knew what they needed to do and they did what they knew to do which was to place their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ, this is how the justice that God commands of his people will be achieved not by adhering to the laws commands because what the Law does is to point to the justice which is outside and beyond the law.

         So, when Paul pounds it home that the only way for God’s people to bring his justice upon the earth is through faith in Jesus Christ then he asks the rather obvious question, “But if in our endeavor to be just people in Christ, we too are found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Here I believe Paul is pointing back to his encounter with Peter, one who obviously had faith in Jesus Christ yet found himself driven by fear sinfully fracturing the unity of the church. This was certainly not what was supposed to happen. No, we are to understand that when Jesus died upon the cross he died in our place, dying the death that we deserved. This is why he is the acceptable offering we give back to God for our sin. So, if this is true, then we are to live knowing that we have died in Christ, died to a life condemned by the law, died to a life enslaved to sin. Now, because of Jesus, the old us is considered dead and in Jesus we have been risen with him from the dead to live a new life in God’s new creation.

         So, here in this second chapter of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, he has laid out the reason for his letter and in the last few sentences of this second chapter, Paul gives this church his plan to resolve the problem. It is clear that the people of this church have rightly understood that in order to be in right standing with God that they had to have faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing else could provide their salvation, not obeying the law, not hanging out with people who tried to keep the law, nothing could save them except what Jesus had accomplished through his death upon the cross and his resurrection from the dead. What Jesus had done is to create a new reality in which all could live, a reality that could be entered in through the gift of faith that God created within the hearts of people, a faith that gave people sight to see God’s new creation being brought about before their eyes. This is what was meant when Paul writes about being in Christ, it is an entering into a life united with Jesus and all those united to him as well, a life marked by the justice God commands. This is what is known as the first act of God’s grace, his justifying grace which in the Church of the Nazarene is also held to happen at the same time as our new birth and our adoption into the family of God. This first act of God’s grace when received by faith affects our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that because of the sacrifice of Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are given a not guilty verdict when Jesus is the perfect offering for us to present to God. This first act of grace is what Paul speaks of when he writes about being “in Christ”.

         Now, this is wonderful news, that we can have a right relationship with our Heavenly Father because of what Jesus has done for us. Yet, as amazing as this act of grace is, Paul teaches us throughout his writings that there is indeed more, a second act of grace and it is this second act of grace which is one of the main points of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. This is what Paul is referring to when he writes at the end of the second chapter, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.” First, by faith in the grace of Jesus Christ we find ourselves in Christ, in a right relationship, the same relationship Jesus, the Son has always had with the Father. But here Paul speaks of Christ in him which is different. Now, as Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, God is within him to will and to work for his good pleasure. This experience of the Spirit of Christ uniting with our spirits empowers us so that no longer do we have to be enslaved to the power of sin that has long held us back but instead we are free to be God’s agents of righteousness as he has always created us to be. This experience is the center piece of the beliefs of the Church of the Nazarene, an experience they call entire sanctification. This is the possibility by faith of being able to completely overcome sin’s control so that the life and power of God make us completely holy unto God. While there is much mystery with this experience, what is clear is why Paul speaks of this experience here. Listen to what John writes in the fourth chapter of his first letter, “So, we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected in us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in the world. There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear.”You see, Paul knew that when we abide in God and God abides in us, this is when we realize that this is the love we were meant to experience; this love we experience when communing with God, this is as perfect as love can get. And it is this perfect love that so fills us up that there just is no longer any room for fear to find a place to live in us. Fear is thrown out because love has filled us up. What a contrast to Peter who out of fear broke the fragile unity of the early church. Pauls answer to this controlling fear is Christ in us, a controlling and compelling love. This is what Jesus hoped for when he prayed with his disciples on the night he was betrayed as found in the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel “The glory that you have given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, so that they are perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” The oneness of the early church that was broken by the fear of Peter is restored as Jesus tells us, when Christ is in us, so that we have a perfect oneness not only with each other but also so that we might have a oneness with God. This is the way the world will witness that something has entered into our world, a salvation to be received with joy and gladness. In this way we can know we are loved in the very same way that Jesus, the Son of God has always been loved by our Heavenly Father. This is the perfect love that casts out all fear, the fear which is the root of all sin, the sin whose price is death. This then is our hope that one day at the great banquet we will celebrate the promised end of death. To God be the glory!Amen.

Strangers No More

 May 2 2021

Acts 15:1-21

         As many of you know I am a big sci-fi fan. I like Star-Wars, Marvel Comics and currently I am watching all of the episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation which originally aired in the late eighties. These episodes are just as great as they were the first time. What I have discovered about these sci-fi shows is that even though the technology is portrayed as being advanced and pretty cool what drives the story is actually something very old, that being, the basic ways people are to treat each other. You know, treating one another as you would want to be treated, justice for everyone even the weak and undeserving, working together for the common good; these very ancient values are still what makes the story understandable even one thousand years in the future. It doesn’t matter if on these shows you see humans interacting together or if they are dealing with some strange alien beings, the same basic rules seems to apply which is also rather interesting isn’t it? Its as if even far in the future people know that whether one is dealing with somebody who is like them or if they are dealing with somebody drastically different, the rules of basic conduct still are what we turn to. Now, you might be wondering just what does all this talk of how aliens being treated on some sci-fi show has to do with Jesus and the life we live together as his followers and the answer is that it is more relevant than you think. You see, we may not have to ever deal with aliens from outer space but I’m pretty sure we will have to deal with people who are alien to the way we live, people who have different ways of living, people who look different, people who have strange ways of looking at the world, at least to us, and the question is, just what do we do with that? Will we insist that they become like us before we will no longer judge them as being somewhat less human than we are or will we be able to live with the tension that exists between our differences? This, as it turns out is one of the central questions of this new future world life that the Holy Spirit was forming in the book of Acts and is still at work forming out of us today, this question of how to handle the dangers of strangers. By this, I mean, how do we deal with people who Jesus has saved but do things different than we do, do we judge them and therefore insist that that our response of faith is the only right way to believe or do we just love them and let God sort it all out in the end? This is the fundamental question of our scripture for today.

Our scripture from the fifteenth chapter of Acts is about the first council held by the early church. What brought about the need for the early church to hold its first council meeting in Jerusalem was the great problem of the conversion of the people of the nations, the people known as the Gentiles. On the surface, the problem appeared that there was no clear answer as to what to do about those who were not of the Jewish faith who had come to place their faith in God’s suffering servant, Jesus. It was the suffering and death of Jesus that we are told in the fifty third chapter of Isaiah that was necessary so that God might have an offering for our guilt for the sins we have committed. This is what the Ethiopian had learned from Philip in last weeks scripture lesson. The actions of the suffering servant were to bring forth a new era, one where people once excluded from intimacy with God, those such as eunuchs and foreigners, would now be brought near, to serve God and to experience his joy in the house of prayer for all people. Yet in spite of prophecies such as this from the fifty sixth chapter of Isaiah, there were some of the people of Israel in the time after the ascension of Jesus who felt that foreigners had to become Jews in order to be in right standing with God. Paul and Barnabas, two of the early missionaries of the church, came against this idea because they had seen first hand how God had saved  the people of the nations who had no knowledge of Judaism. So, its pretty easy to see that these two ways of considering the salvation of the Gentiles were pretty far apart and this is why the early church gathered together to consider the matter. It was Peter who got right to the heart of the matter which was this: are people saved by faith through believing in the gospel or does salvation happen because of any additional action on the part of the believer? As Peter reminded his Jewish brothers, their salvation was by faith alone just as it was that way for the Gentiles.

         As you read Peter’s account what begins to be clear is that there is more to the issue than whether or not one is saved by faith. As Peter told his Jewish audience, they, the very people of God, had been saved by faith, of this no one could argue. So, if the Jews had been saved through faith one has to wonder just what was the underlying issue that really needed to be addressed? Well, one clue as to what the real problem is found in the nineteenth and twentieth verses of this fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts. There we hear James the chief elder of the church of Jerusalem, put forth the answer as to what is necessary for the Gentiles to do saying that they should abstain from the things polluted by idols, abstain from sexual immorality, and to abstain from what has been strangled and to abstain from blood.This answer of James might surprise some people who wrongly believe that since we are not Jewish there is nothing more for us to do then to believe in Jesus and do as we please, or at the very least love each other. No, James is telling us that there are a few rules that have to be abided by, rules that have been taken from the book of Leviticus. It is as if the Holy Spirit is telling the early church that the answer to the future lies far back in the past in a book of Holy Scripture that was over a thousand years old.When one examines these rules set forth by James what is found is that the members of the church council searched in the book of Leviticus under the power of the Holy Spirit, searching for the places where God had spoken about the strangers living in the midst of the people of Israel. There in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapter of Leviticus is where God set forth rules of conduct for those strangers who joined themselves with the people of Israel. This is very similar language of Paul who in the eleventh chapter of the book of Romans where he compares the Gentile believers as being wild olive branches that have been grafted upon the nourishing root of the domesticated olive tree, the people of Israel. As people of the nations we have to understand that our salvation is from the Jews just as Jesus teaches us in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John.

         So, when faced with foreigners coming to salvation through Jesus, the early church understood that this situation was much like the situation was for the people of Israel in the days of Moses. This understanding is very important for us as we try and get to the real issue that prompted the necessity of the first church council. If you do a quick study of strangers in the life of the people of Israel within the book of Leviticus what you find is that there is no mention of strangers before the sixteenth chapter. Then in the next eleven chapters of Leviticus the mention of strangers is found quite frequently which is rather interesting. It quite naturally makes you wonder what happened in the sixteenth chapter to cause this change? The answer as to what has happened in the sixteenth chapter which opened the way for strangers to mingle in the life of the people of Israel was the Day of Atonement. This was one day God commanded his people to set apart each year for the atoning of the sins that the people of Israel had committed over the past year. It was one of the most solemn times marked off by fasting and repentance. In the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus we read how God, speaking through Moses tells the people that on this day that there were two actions that would happen, the first is that they would have their sins atoned for and the second action was that they would be cleansed of impurity. This helps explain the unusual requirement that God set forth that there were to be two goats to be offered up, one was for the forgiveness of the peoples sins and the second was to cleanse the people of their impurity. Now, as we find in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus, the life of the flesh is in the blood and God gave the blood of the first goat upon the altar to atone for the souls of his people, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the life of the people. So, what this tells us is that God has made a way through this sacrifice that his judgment against the sins of the people would be poured out upon this animal, its life given in place of the life of the people in order that God might show mercy to his people. In this way, justice remains because the guilt of the sin is dealt with while at the same time allowing God to extend mercy to his sinful people. It is important that we understand that God has made a way for mercy to triumph over judgment in order for us to understand the purpose of the other goat that God required. This other goat was not sacrificed but instead upon his head were laid the hands of the high priest who placed upon the goat the sins of the people. Then this goat was sent out into the wilderness, carrying with him the sins of the people.This goat was to fulfill the necessity of the cleansing of the people of their defilement.Yet just what was this defilement that had been ceremoniously sent out into the wild places? Well, as we read through Leviticus what we find is that this idea of impurity or uncleanness has to do with those who were tearing apart the fabric of their community. It was the gossips and those who spoke wrongly about others, these were the ones God declared unclean and marked with a dreaded skin condition so that they had to be put outside the community so that they would do no further harm. So, at its root, what is meant by impurity is those things that tear apart the community and the cause of this disruption to a community is judgment. The reason for this is easy to understand because when a person judges another they present themselves as being superior in some way to the one they are judging. No longer is one able to love another person as themselves because the other person is now not on equal footing because they are judged to be in some way, less than the one judging them. So, what happens on the Day of Atonement is that as God has allowed mercy to triumph over judgment with the sacrifice of the first goat, with the second goat the people are to send away their sins against each other, the sins whose root is an attitude of somehow being superior than others which prevents one from seeing others as their equals. Nowhere was this more true than when the people of Israel interacted with the strangers, the foreigners, the aliens in their midst. How easy it was for them to look down their nose at these pitiful creatures who God had not chosen. This attitude is what Isaiah was addressing in the fifty eighth chapter where he writes specifically about the Day of Atonement. We know this to be true because he writes about the fasting which was almost exclusively done on that day. The people of Israel wondered why God did not seem pleased with them even though they had fasted just as he required. God told his people, “Is this not the fast that I chose: to lose the bonds of wickedness , to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the bruised go free, and to break every yoke?” We need to pause here to grasp the importance of what is being said because what God is pointing out is that this situation referred to is one of slavery, the ultimate situation of inequality where one is treated as a second class person. God then tells his people the fast that he desires telling us, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?” You see the fast God requires is to see everyone as your equal especially those who others might judge as being beneath you, those who are poor and in need. This is why after God tells the people about the necessity of the Day of Atonement he further tells them in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus that when a stranger would journey with the people of Israel they were to do them no wrong. They were to treat the stranger as one of their own and they were to love the stranger as they would love themselves. And why were they to have this attitude? They were to treat the stranger as one who was on equal terms with themselves because they themselves had been a stranger down in Egypt. You see, what God is saying here is that instead of focusing on the differences that they found between themselves and the strangers among them they were to instead focus on what they had in common, the experience of being a stranger. They were to remember how it felt to be treated as something less than human, to remember the unease they had as they were looked upon with judgmental glances and to hold fast to those memories as a way to temper how they treated strangers who now looked for mercy and not judgment from them.

Now, it seems like we have gotten far off track from our story in the book of Acts but in all actuality we are right where we need to be because the issue at hand is the same issue addressed in the book of Leviticus and the book of Isaiah. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and this means that now he is the once for all offering for our atonement. As the Suffering Servant he bore our judgment suffering and dying to be the offering that we present to God to be the atonement for our sins. In Jesus once again we see how mercy has triumphed over judgment. Jesus has made a way for all of the people on the planet to be made right with God, to be declared righteous on account of what Jesus has done for them. This is what has set the stage for what we read in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts. What has caused the issue is that some of the Jewish followers of Jesus have forgotten the full picture of God’s atonement of their sin as is portrayed in the account of the Day of Atonement that was in their scriptures. They had forgotten that as God allowed Jesus to bear away the judgment so that we might experience God’s mercy so too in that moment our judgmental attitude was to have been bore away because Jesus made us all equals by making our response to his actions be nothing but faith. And if we are all equals at the foot of the cross then what becomes of judgment, this idea that one is in some way better than another so much so that they are in a position to lord over another? This idea is abolished. The Jewish followers of Jesus thought that the answer to what this new society of believers is to look like is uniformity, that everyone should look like them and act like them. Yet to do so would have witnessed to the false idea that not everything  has changed because of Jesus. Jesus has, through what he has done on the cross, transformed the world; he has made all things new. This means that now, all who place their faith in Jesus live their lives before the face of God and their faith response to God is theirs to live out as their faith leads them. As Paul writes in the fourteenth chapter of Romans, “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls.” In other words, we are to leave the judging up to God so that God can leave the loving up to us.

         This helps us to understand those strange stipulations that James put upon the Gentile believers, those that had been read in the synagogues for generations. I believe the key to understanding these rules is found in the  statement against drinking blood which was that one should not do so because the life of the flesh is in the blood. It is this life within the blood that is given for the atonement of sins.  What has to be destroyed to have a oneness with God is the life of the flesh, the life ordered and lived on the strength of our own selves.This life of the flesh is what one must not rely upon. We cannot live by the desires and cravings of the flesh which find their greatest strength in our sexual impulses. We cannot live by our desires because it is the life of the flesh that destroys the oneness of our community. Only through God’s Spirit are we able to find fellowship together. The oneness that we have through our faith in what Jesus has done for us must not be ruined through our giving into the desires of our flesh that oppose the good work that God is doing. So, instead of judging one another which causes others to doubt their faith, I believe God instead calls us instead to encourage one another, to strengthen each other’s faith so that no one becomes hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. This is what we should do when we know that we together share in Christ who is our life. Amen.