A Disciplinarian?

Our trek through Galatians is more than half-way over, but with this particular letter, the hits just keep on coming.  Take, for instance, Paul’s strong words on the Law and the role of Faith as instituted under the reign of Christ.  The strongest language comes in verses 25 and 26, “Now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”  I found this word, “disciplinarian” to be interesting, so I dug a little deeper, as you do.  Here’s what I found.

Galatians 3:25
NLT – But now that faith in Christ has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.
NRS – But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.
NIV – Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
RSV – But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian;
KJV – But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster
YLT – and the faith having come, no more under a child-conductor are we

The Greek word paidagogos, is the word from which we get “pedagogy” or the study of teaching, which gives this pericope a very different tenor as you read it across the varying translations.  Life is hectic these days, so I’ll leave this here and perhaps return to what it all means to me tomorrow.

A Curious Question

Jesus has many titles: Emmanuel, Son of God, and King of Kings; just to name a few, but the most often overlooked nickname for Jesus is “King of the Non Sequitur.”  Throughout the Gospels, Jesus confounds and befuddles by answering questions with questions or responding to challenges via parable, or just plain making no sense.  In the end, it works for Jesus because of the complete otherness of what Jesus is trying to convey.  To put words to God is to create heresy, in most cases, and at the very least, it will put God in a box that is much too small to contain him. (The immediately preceding male pronoun being a prefect example)

It wasn’t much of a surprise to me, then, to read in Sunday’s Gospel lesson a very curious question from Jesus.

“Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?”

In the scheme of the story, it seems to make no sense, and the explanation he offers doesn’t help.  Still, despite the seeming disconnect with the larger story, the question, curious as it is, is a helpful one.  As Dean (Bishop) Alexander said in class yesterday regarding the spoken Great Litany, “I’ll compete with you on depravity any day, but I’ve never been that sinful.”

I’ll compete with you on depravity any day, and I am ever so grateful for the forgiveness offered to me in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Some have sinned a whole lot more than me.  Some have lived lives a whole lot purer than me.  Either way, we share a thankfulness for the cancellation of our debt.  The non sequitur from Jesus is a curious one, but it is worth pondering in our hearts as we come to the altar: forgiven, restored, and renewed; and are sent forth empowered to do the work of ministry.

You are the man!

What is now an emphatic term of praise, “you da man!”, was once the very voice of disappointment from the mouth piece of God Almighty.  As I wrote about yesterday, David’s actions toward Bathsheba and Uriah were looked upon by God with disdain.  In order to teach David, God sent Nathan to tell him a story.

“There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.”

Rightly and instinctively, David finds the behavior of the rich man unconscionable, shouting, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”  To which Nathan responds,

“You are the man!”

The funny thing about sin is that deep down, we know that we’ve done wrong.  Sin is that which we use to separate ourselves from God.  Sin destroys relationships between people and between us and God.  The consequences of sin can be immediate and rather obvious, or they can take generations to rear their ugly head, but either way, we who were created in the image of a relational God can feel it deep in our bones when relationships are out of whack.  We are that man! Or, that woman!  We seek after our own self interests, leaving all sorts of collateral damage in our wake.  The Good News, however, is that God doesn’t leave us standing atop a heap of broken, smoldering relationships.  God offers us forgiveness, restoration, renewal.  God’s offers us grace, sufficient of all our faults.  Forgive the cheesiness of this last line, God want to turn the accusation, “You are the man!” into praise, “You da man!” through the grace of his Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.

A Mild Understatement

If ever there was an understatement, this line from 2 Samuel is it, “The thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”  That “thing” that David had done was to a) spy on Bathsheba as she bathed on her rooftop, b) fall in lust with her beauty, c) send her husband Uriah off to war, d) order his general to put Uriah up front in battle and then have the rest of his troops fall back, e) take Bathsheba as his wife.  To say that this was outside the bounds of God’s plan for humanity is to state the rather obvious.

In a recent radio interview, Rob Bell defined sin as anything that destroys and tears down the goodness given humanity in creation.  This series of actions by David not only tore down his own humanity through lust, envy and murder, but it turned Bathsheba into nothing more than a sexual conquest, oh, and by the way, it also cost Uriah his life.

In the military, I think this is called collateral damage.  David’s poor choices cost two people their lives: one literally, one figuratively.  It is no doubt, then, that the opening verses of the Track 2 OT Lesson for Sunday sounds so cold and calculated, “When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.”  There is no real joy in this story, only brokenness and sadness.  So, to say, “this displeased the LORD,” is very  much an understatement.

Your sins are forgiven

There are several moments in the Sunday liturgy that I approach with fear and trepidation.  Pronouncing God’s blessing is an amazing responsibility.  Daring to stand at God’s altar, and on behalf of the congregation, offering thanksgiving for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a true joy.  Rehearsing the weekly announcements makes me want to poke myself in the eye.  Above all the rest, however, the largest responsibility of my priestly vocation is standing up, solely, before the congregation after we’ve corporately confessed our sins and proclaiming God’s forgiveness.

“Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, keep you in everlasting life.” (BCP, p. 360)

I feel the weight of this awesome responsibility every Sunday, (and especially on Ash Wednesday), and I’m reminded of this in the Gospel lesson appointed for Sunday.  ”Who is this who even forgives sins?” the crowd asks.  The one who dares speak forgiveness stands in a precarious place; be it Jesus (who actually forgives the woman’s sins) or a priest (who speaks on behalf of the Church based on the authority given the Apostles in John 20.23 and elsewhere).  It is a dangerous pronouncement because of how powerful it is.  Forgiveness is a release from debt, a restoration to fullness of life, a chance for a fresh start.  And the good news is that Jesus offers it to us again and again and again.

What motivates you?

SHW and I have become runners.  Or perhaps, “runners”.  It is about the only exercise we have time for with two small children in the house, so we do our best to run three times a week.  Of course, we can’t run together because Child Protective Services wouldn’t like it much if we lift the children alone, so she runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while I get Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  It all sounds very good on paper, but when my alarm goes off at 5 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, running seems like the worst idea ever conceived.  This week, I’ve laid in bed and shouted in my head, “Get up!  Get out of bed!  You can do this!” for 5 minutes until my body was convinced to roll over and start the process of falling out the door to run.  Some days, it is even harder to get motivated, but in the end I run because I want to be healthy, I want to be able to play with my girls, and I want to feel good, which I always do when I run with regularity.

Finding motivation to do most of the things in life is fairly easy.  I’m motivated to work because I have bills to pay.  I’m motivated to work as a priest because I feel called to serve God and the Church in that capacity.  I’m motivated to study for a DMin because I enjoy the challenge and three weeks with friends in Sewanee, TN isn’t too shabby either.  There are other things, like running, that take some extra effort to get up and moving for.  I’m an introvert, so motivating myself to attend a cocktail party can be difficult.  I’m terrible at small talk, so getting up the gumption to make pastoral visits is really hard for me.  I’m afraid of heights, so cleaning the pecan limbs off my roof isn’t a top priority.  Still, most of my day-to-day activities in this vocation find a motivation in compassion – “the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”

In the Gospel lesson for Sunday, we find Jesus moved by compassion for the Widow at Nain.  I had a hunch that this wasn’t the only story that included compassion, so I did a quick BibleWorks search of the crazy long Greek word that is translated as “compassion” and found two other instances in Luke’s Gospel.  In chapter 10, the Good Samaritan is motivated by compassion to help the wounded traveler, and in chapter 15, the Prodigal Father is motivated by compassion to take off running and embrace his long-lost son.  All three instances of compassion in Luke include violating long held traditional values: touching the dead, the Hebrew/Samaritan divide, and basically everything about the Prodigal Father’s reaction to his son’s return.  As I reflect back on almost six years of ordained ministry here at Saint Paul’s, I can see times where compassion has pulled us out of our comfort zone in love and service, and I am grateful.  I’m proud to be part of a community that seeks to emulate Christ and is motivated by compassion to serve its community.

theophobia?

“Fear seized the whole crowd; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favorably upon his people!’” (Luke 7:16)

The concept of fear as it relates to God has taken on a lot of excess baggage over the last 6,000 years or so.  We’re to the point now where it seems as though we have totally missed the boat as we attempt to understand what Scripture means by “fear of the Lord.”  Many a preacher has used this to put forward the illusion that God is vengeful and that his wrath will fall upon us with great power and might.  This is often tied into a bad reading of the book of Job, creating what seems to be a totally capricious God who will smite even his most faithful followers just because he can.  We see this terrible understanding trotted out into the media every time something bad happens on the face of the earth: oil spill, earthquake, or mass shooting.  Over the centuries, the idea of fear has become hijacked so that our only understanding of it is in the negative: dread, alarm, panic; generally things that ignite our fight or flight response.  Let me be clear, if I haven’t been so already, I think this negative association of fear with God is bogus and should be condemned as heresy.

We get a glimpse into the positive understanding of “fear of the Lord” in Sunday’s Gospel lesson from Luke 7 about Jesus’ encounter with the crowd just outside Nain.  There is much in this story with which to wrestle: the Widow’s place in her community, 1st century Jewish funeral customs, Jesus’ compassion, his touching of the bier, and the actual miracle itself are all possible means of entrance into this short story, but in light of my unintended hyperbole in the above paragraph, I think you can see that my interest today in the fear (phobos) that “took hold” of the crowd.  The Freiburg Lexicon offers several definitions of phobos, giving it both negative (see above) and positive connotations.  ”(a) in a negative sense fear, dread, alarm (2C 7.5; possibly 1P 3.14); (b) in a positive sense respect, reverence, awe, (wholesome) fear (RO 3.18); respect for those in authority (EP 6.5)”

The crowd in this narrative is clearly reacting to the raising of the man at Nain with a positive sort of fear: respect, reverence, awe; because of the response that Luke records, “they glorified God.”  Proper fear of the Lord shouldn’t instill terror into our hearts, but rather should bring forth praise, worship, and glory.  Proper fear should lead us toward God, not insight us to flee from him.  Unfortunately, a proper, even healthy, fear of the Lord has been buried under years and years of bad theology and loud mouthed preachers who use God as a cover for their hate and fear.  Maybe this Sunday is an opportunity for us to reclaim a healthy and proper fear of the Lord.  Maybe the Widow’s Son’s resurrection can show us how we might approach God’s awesome strength.

A lot can change in three years

During the time of Elijah’s ministry, while the LORD was particularly angry with Ahab and his Ba’al worshiping wife, Jezebel, God shut off the rain in the fertile crescent for three years.  It was a drought of epic proportions.  It was a mess in those days, and people were hungry everywhere.  Which is why Elijah’s seemingly simple request, “bring me a morsel of bread” brings forth such a dramatic reaction from the Widow, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”  Elijah, however, has been shown the bigger picture.

Three years ago this week, oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig first rolled ashore on the beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.  I preached on the Widow of Zerephath story the following Sunday (you can read it here), during a time of much anxiety, when it was impossible to see the bigger picture.  Now, as the Lectionary cycle comes back around to Proper 5, Year C, I find myself looking back over the last three years and realizing that what was once a colossal mess has turned out to be a great benefit for my neck of the woods as for the second year in a row tourism numbers are record breaking, building has increased, and life in south Alabama is pretty darn good.  After 18 months of buckling down, caring for one another, and sharing the resources that were available in the midst of a crisis, South Alabama is stronger today than it was in early June 2010.

Just like the story of Elijah and Ahab, however, we haven’t yet touched the root problems that caused the mess in the first place.  We still hunger after cheap oil, and oil companies are still cutting corners to sell cheap and rake big profits, but the word I felt compelled to speak then remains true today, “God is here.”  But boy, what a difference three years makes.

The Gospel is all about grace

You can listen to today’s sermon here, or read on.

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For the two years between graduating from college and starting seminary, I worked for my Father-in-Law as the Business Manager for his construction company.  It was a nice title to carry, what with my degree in Business Administration, but in reality, it carried very little responsibility.  Perhaps the most important thing I did in the day-to-day operations of Thomas Construction was write letters.  I wrote cover letters for bids.  I wrote rejection letters for job applicants.  I wrote cordial letters to business associates.  I wrote less than cordial letters – lots of them – to attorney’s offices who were threatening various law suits, subcontractors who had butchered jobs or were billing beyond their scope of work, customers who were taking their sweet time in paying bills, and homeowners who decided three years after their home was completed that they didn’t like the paint color in their master bathroom.  In those two years, I got pretty good at the art of telling someone to “take a long walk off a short pier.”  As a result, I’ve also become pretty good at realizing when someone else is very politely telling me to shove it.

Here, as we begin the first of six weeks in Paul’s letter to the Church in Galatia, it is abundantly clear to me that we are privy to a first-century version of a “where the sun don’t shine” letter.  Most of Paul’s letters begin the same way: Paul introduces himself as a “servant” or apostle of Jesus, addresses the congregation, offers them “grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ”, and then follows up with some sort of thanksgiving for their witness or commendation for their faithfulness or blessing upon their ministry.  In his letter to the Galatians, however, Paul takes a very different tack.  He begins on the defensive: “Paul an apostle – sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead …”  From the outset, it is clear that this letter is intended to rebuke the fledgling Galatian church.  Scholars have long speculated that a group must have come in behind Paul and raised doubts about his position as an Apostle.  These Judaizers, as they’ve come to be known, believed that Paul had rejected the true message of Jesus because he opened the doors of salvation to Gentiles without making them follow the laws of Moses.  Mary Hinkle Shore of Luther Seminary imagines their teaching:

Paul of Tarsus?  Who’s he?  Paul was not with Jesus in Galilee.  Why should you listen to him about what Jesus taught or expected of those who would follow him?  You say he told you that you did not need to be circumcised or keep the Law of Moses?  Where did he get that?  He was probably just trying to make things easy for you, to be popular.  He sounds like a people pleaser.”[1]

Paul spends most of the first two chapters of his letter to the Galatians arguing his pedigree – shoring up for the Galatian Church that he is who he says he is so that he has the authority to say what he says beginning in verse six, “How dare you!  I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, perverted by those who have set out to confuse you…”[2]  These revisionists of the Gospel came flying in from out of town, denied the apostleship of Paul, and then added all sorts of extra rules to follow, as if faith in Jesus Christ wasn’t enough.  Stan Mast of Calvin Theological Seminary does the imagining this time:

Now you must complete your salvation.  You’ve believed in Christ, and that’s good, but that’s not enough.  Now you must obey the law of god. You aren’t really and fully saved until you do what God told his people to do in the Bible.  The Bible (for the Galatians that meant the Old Testament, of course) says that you must also obey the law of God to be saved.  Faith in Christ is not enough; you also have to be circumcised, keep kosher, observe the holy days, etc.[3]

It is so tempting to make faith more difficult than it needs to be.  In Galatia in the mid-50s AD, the issue for this Gentile Church was just how Jewish a follower of the Jewish Messiah had to be.  Did believing in Jesus require the sacrament of circumcision prescribed by God to Abraham?  Did it require following all 613 laws of the Torah covering everything from hand washing and food preparation to farming practices and slave trading?  Did it require pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem on the High Holy Days?  To all those additions and many more, Paul answers with an emphatic, “No!”  For Paul, the gospel is “timeless and fixed”[4] as he’ll write later on in chapter 2, “…we … know that we become right with God, not by doing what the law commands, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be accepted by God because of our faith in Christ– and not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be saved by obeying the law.”[5]  For Paul it is all about grace.  Undeserved.  Unearned.  Unimaginable.  Grace.

It is tempting to make it more difficult than it needs to be, which is why I’ve grown to love days like today, as we baptize little Marshall Long.  He doesn’t know what’s happening.  He can’t offer his intellectual assent to the three articles of the Apostle’s Creed.  His promises are worthless – mostly because he can’t talk, but also he won’t be able to enter into a legal contract for another 17 years and 10 months.  But none of that matters.  God’s grace is sufficient for him, and he is welcomed with open arms into the body of Christ this morning.  Much the same is true for us.  Even if you were baptized at the illusive “age of reason” or as an adult, chances are, you didn’t understand what was going on.  Not even the best theologians can tell you exactly what happens in baptism, and it doesn’t matter.  We can believe the articles of the Creed, but even when we question things, and let’s be honest, we all have doubts and questions from time to time, God loves us.  Our word may be worth more than the grunts of a 2 month old, but probably not by much.  We’ve all told our fair share of white lies, we’ve all stretched the truth for our own gain, and we’ve all fallen short of the ideal.  But none of that matters.  God’s grace is sufficient for us, and we are welcomed with open arms into the body of Christ again every morning.

Paul got really, really, angry when he realized that people were trying to make faith difficult for the Galatians.  He got so mad that he wrote one of the great theological treatises of all time, and in the end it all comes down to grace.  God’s grace, shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is enough to cover all our sins.  Trust in him.  That’s all that is required.  And when you can’t even muster that, remember the answer to the questions of the baptismal covenant that we will all reaffirm here shortly, “I will with God’s help.”  Amen.

 

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[1] Commentary on Galatians 1:1-12, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1744 (28 May 2013).

[2] Galatians 1:6-7 paraphrased

[3] This Week at The Center for Excellence in Preaching, http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php (29 May 2013)

[4] Ibid.

[5] Galatians 2:16 (NLT)

Limping is a sign of spiritual injury

Between the Track 1 lesson from 1 Kings and Paul’s opening sentences to the Galatians, this Sunday’s lectionary is packed with drama.  The story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal is almost too good to pass up, but I’ll save the details of Elijah’s snark for tomorrow.  Instead, today, let’s talk about the the set up to the story.

1 Kings 18 opens in the third year of a drought in the land.  The LORD appears to Elijah and instructs him to go to king Ahab and tell him that rain will soon come upon the land.  As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this isn’t the great news that one might expect, and Obediah, a servant of King Ahab and a devout follow of the LORD, is fearful of what sort of wrath Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, the power behind the throne and worshiper of Ba’al, the god of Tyre who was associated with lightening, will bring upon Obediah and the people of the northern tribes.

Eventually, however, Elijah and Ahab meet face to face and the exchange begins just prior to Sunday’s pericope.

1 Kings 18.16-19 – ” So Obediah went to tell Ahab that Elijah had come, and Ahab went out to meet him.  So it’s you, is it — Israel’s troublemaker?” Ahab asked when he saw [Elijah].  ”I have made no trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied, “You and your family are the troublemakers, for you have refused to obey the commands of the LORD and have worshiped the images of Ba’al instead. Now bring all the people of Israel to Mount Carmel, with all 450 prophets of Ba’al and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who are supported by Jezebel.” (NLT)

Here the lesson for Sunday starts with a peculiar word showing up early on.

1 Kings 18.20-21 – “So Ahab summoned all the people and the prophets to Mount Carmel.  Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, “How long are you going to go [on limping] between two opinions?  If the LORD is God, follow him!  But if Ba’al is God, then follow him!”  But the people were completely silent. (NLT, with an author’s translation).

This word, “limping” shows up later, as the prophets of Ba’al and Asherah are attempting to have fire set to their offering.

1 Kings 18.26 – So [the prophets] too the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Ba’al from morning until noon, crying, “O Ba’al, answer us!”  But there was not voice, and no answer.  They limped about the altar that they had made.

The idea of limping as a sign of spiritual illness is also found in the Greek New Testament in the story of Peter attempting to walk on water.  As Jesus pulls him back out of the water, he asks Peter, “why do you doubt?”  Why are you of two minds?  Why are you limping between two opinions?  As we look forward to another baptism at Saint Paul’s, I can’t help but think about how the Baptismal service, from its renunciations to the baptismal covenant, is an exercise in being of one mind, of choosing one opinion, of following the LORD alone.  Over the course of our lifetimes, we all limp from time to time, but the LORD is eager to splint us up, to carry us while we need it, and to bring us back to wholeness.