Why We Do What We Do
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
Moving to Pittsburgh from Kansas when I was a teenager was weird. Not only did I get stupid jokes about The Wizard of Oz ALL THE TIME, the perceptions that people from Western PA have of people from Kansas are really wacky. They are rarely rooted in much reality and when they are, they are usually confused with another state altogether – usually Oklahoma or Nebraska. For example. . corn is from Nebraska. Nebraska is the cornhusker state. Kansas is all about wheat.
I had people ask me strange things like “why don’t you have a southern accent?” To which my answer was, “Because I’m not from the south. . .” I always made it a point to exaggerate my drawl when I said that. Everyone assumed I’d grown up in a farm and was totally shocked when I told them we had a shopping mall and a community college and everything in the little city I grew up in.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was the culture shock. Yes. . . people in Kansas are technically from the same country as people from Pennsylvania. And yes, English is the predominant language there just like it is here. But the Midwest – and I mean the REAL Midwest, not Ohio – is like a totally different universe. Now, it’s not so different as going from here to Latin America or the Middle East or Asia. In a way it’s more disorienting, because everyone talks and acts, for the most part, the same. But the subtle differences are just enough to make you feel like you’re slightly out of phase with the dimension everyone else is traveling in.
A few weeks ago, I talked about differences in language and how my mom didn’t even think that I, having grown up in Kansas, wouldn’t have known that “Jumbo” was a specific brand of bologna. There’s nothing wrong with calling bologna jumbo. It’s got historical roots in Western PA. There once was a brand – sorry if you guys already know this, but it was a major revelation for me in my life – there once was a brand that called their bologna “jumbo bologna.” And it stuck. So for generations, people from the same area of the world have been – much to the confusion of outsiders – calling all bologna really really big. And you have some kind of in to find out what in the heck they’re talking about.
“Wait. . . what?”
“Jumbo! Put some jumbo on their food for them.”
And I just stared at her some more.
“What on earth do you mean?”
And she looked at me like I was stupid.
“Take the jumbo out of the fridge and. . .”
“OK, you’re going to have to tell me what jumbo is, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And then she just stared at me as the light bulb appeared over her head. Apparently, where she grew up in Beaver County and where we were living at the time, jumbo is what they call bologna. For months, when people talked about jumbo sandwiches, I had just assumed that people in Western PA just like REALLY BIG SANDWICHES when all the while. . . they meant bologna.
There’s nothing wrong with calling bologna jumbo. It’s got historical roots in Western PA. There once was a brand – sorry if you guys already know this, but it was a major revelation for me in my life – there once was a brand that called their bologna “jumbo bologna.” And it stuck. So for generations, people from the same area of the world have been – much to the confusion of outsiders – calling all bologna really really big. And you have some kind of in to find out what in the heck they’re talking about.
That’s what was happening between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians in Galatia. Sort of. I’m pretty sure that bologna wasn’t around back then, and they weren’t struggling with literal language barriers, but there were two different religious languages happening in the church in Galatia. The Jewish Christians came from a cultural upbringing in which circumcision, food law, certain special meals and celebrations, and other rules and customs from the Torah – the first five book so of the Hebrew portion of the Bible that are called the Law – were how they had learned to grow closer to God. They were part of how they worshipped and communicated with God and one another as a religious community. The gentile Christians, the ones who hadn’t been brought up Jewish, had a completely different background and didn’t get any of that stuff. It didn’t even compute for them why on earth these thing made the Jewish Christians feel closer to God.
They had taken these two ideas and used them to create two separate classes of Christians and this was unacceptable.
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about a few weeks ago when I talked about language barriers that keep people out of church or keep them separate. This is why the way we say things in important. And not just the way we overtly say things with our words, but the way we say them through our spiritual practice as well.
Out of this misunderstanding, this culture shock of the two groups coming together, stemmed an argument. The Jewish people insisted that the gentiles couldn’t really be Christians unless they followed the Jewish religious traditions and the gentiles insisted that they were able to have a relationship with God without circumcision and food law, so those things didn’t matter.
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about a few weeks ago when I talked about language barriers that keep people out of church or keep them separate. This is why the way we say things in important. And not just the way we overtly say things with our words, but the way we say them through our spiritual practice as well. In letting themselves get sucked into a battle over circumcision versus non circumcision or traditional versus contemporary, they created two separate classes of Christians and this was unacceptable.
They were both wrong.
They were both wrong because they were both insisting that there was some sort of religious practice that would or wouldn’t save them. “By the works of the law no one will be justified.” That’s Jesus’ job!!! They didn’t need to rely on any set of religious practices or any lack of religious practices to save them and make them real Christians. THEY WERE ALREADY SAVED!!
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about a few weeks ago when I talked about language barriers that keep people out of church or keep them separate. This is why the way we say things in important. And not just the way we overtly say things with our words, but the way we say them through our spiritual practice as well.
There is some debate over the Greek phrase “pistou Iesu” in this passage. Pistou = faith. Iesu = Jesus. It is often translated into English that we are saved by “faith IN Jesus Christ” but given context and the way pistou is used other places, it’s more likely to mean we are saved by the “faith OF Jesus”. In other words, we can’t view faith as a saving action on our part. We can’t view anything as a saving action on our part, we can only sit back and say, “Whoa. Thanks, God!” and embrace the reality that we are loved and forgiven.
I sometimes get random strangers approaching me on Sunday afternoon before I’ve had a chance to change out of my clerical collar. They say a variety of odd things, but the thing I get the most are excuses or apologies for their absence from church that morning. When one of you call or text to check in when you’ve missed church - that’s nice. I worry about you if I don’t see you for a few weeks. But the random lady at the Eat N Park buffet? I wasn’t worried about her. I didn’t know she was even someone to worry about. There is noticeable guilt behind these apologies and excuses though. There is
This goes for
This opens up so much space for the Spirit to move, sisters and brothers! When we aren’t bolted to the floor by cumbersome rules and rites and traditions, we are free to dance and jump for joy and start wacky new partnerships in the community and do things nobody would ever expect from a little Presbyterian church.
I love a traditional liturgy. I like saying words that other saints have said for centuries and will continue to say for centuries more. I love singing hymns that I grew up with in my little Midwestern Presbyterian church. But none of those things will save us. The Methodists down the road from St. Andrew’s who have a praise band and a different sort of liturgy in their service are just as saved by Jesus as we are. The Roman Catholics meeting all over Pittsburgh right now with incense and ancient masses are just as saved by Jesus as we are. My Northside home church where the kids dance in the back of the room during the worship set and homeless men frequently get up to rap as part of the service? Just as saved by Jesus as we are. When we poo-poo or ignore different ways of worshiping God, of communicating with our Redeemer, we are excluding an awful lot of people who are just as saved as we are. God’s love is way bigger than any church’s way of doing things.
Structure is good. Structure makes things reliable. But it can also be a barrier when everyone knows the structure and the way things are, except the new person. Rigid tradition without explanation or understanding creates barriers that make it nearly impossible for different groups of practicing Christians to get together peacefully, let alone people who are coming from outside the Christian traditions to see what this is all about.
This world is changing rapidly. I’m not going to argue that’s not terrifying. I’m only 40 and I feel whipped around by the changing world sometimes. So it’s nice to have something stable and reliable to cling to. It’s a good thing to be able to come to church and know that there are certain things that are going to happen. We’re going to sing some hymns, pray a prayer of confession, receive pardon, hear a sermon – a good one if we’re lucky - we’ll pray for one another. And that’s all great. But we can’t make those things gospel in and of themselves and we can’t make them just rote functions because that’s what we think church is. Paul says that when we cling too tightly to tradition as if it’s going to save us, it’s as if we think Jesus died for no purpose.
The answer “because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” is the theological equivalent of saying, “We don’t need Jesus.”
Sometimes we do or say things in church that some of the folks gathered love and some of them are uncomfortable with or unmoved by. And seeing as we’re not a bunch of clones and it’s not the things we say or do in church that save us, that’s totally fine! That’s the way it SHOULD BE. If one person is always comfortable during church, that means there are a bunch of people who are not always comfortable during church and even more who have been driven away because they feel like they have no voice.
Please don’t panic. When you arrive here next Sunday, you will not find the pews gone, a jumbo-tron up front, and a praise band ready to lead you in whatever song is popular on K-Love right now. That works for some churches, but it would be a total misfit here. The Holy Spirit can move in subtler ways. The Holy Spirit has been moving through structured worship for centuries, I don’t know why that would suddenly change now.
But friends, God gives us imaginations so that we can actively participate in the worship of all the saints of all the ages in old ways and new was and traditional ways and weird ways. A few years ago, I had the privilege of attending a conference at the seminary at which Rachel Held-Evans was one of the keynote speakers. In it, she said something great when she was asked about how to get millennials – that generation born between 1982-2004 – to come back to church. And her advise? Stop trying to be cool. Not only does trying to be cool and relevant seem fake and therefore not work at all (“Young folks have a finely tuned BS meter” she said), it’s untrue to the church’s identity as being something weird and different and wonderful in the world. And it’s unfaithful to the unique identity of the congregation that’s trying to hard to be cool. Her exact words? “It’s not about making the church cool, it’s about keeping the church weird.”
Our job is not to make the Gospel relevant or to make worship appealing to other people. The Gospel is relevant on it’s own terms without our help. When we lose sight of the real meaning of why we do what we do, when we make our salvation dependent on our worship, how we do it, how many participate, when we do it, where we do it, who is welcomed in, or any other logistical element of it, it’s as if Jesus died in vain.
My dear friends, you are forgiven. You are saved. You are just as forgiven and saved right now as you were when you walked in these doors this morning. There is nothing in your sitting here this morning that has made you saved-er or forgiven-er.
I want everyone to take a moment to turn to a person or two near you and look that person in the eye and say, “You ARE forgiven.”
That is why we are here. Not to become forgiven, but to be reminded of that forgiveness we have already been granted and to remind others of it and to celebrate it. And that’s weird.
As the makeup of the congregation shifts and changes over the years with the neighborhood, as families grow and change, and more or less people think church is relevant or worth their time, as people sleep in or don’t because of the time of year, the things we do here on Sunday morning change and shift as well. I wasn’t here 150 years ago when the church was founded. In fact, not even the person sitting here who’s been here the longest was. But I’ll bet their worship services looked VERRRRRY different than this one today.
For starters, they probably would have been shocked to pieces to see a woman standing up here in the pulpit preaching. Many Presbyterian churches back then sang only Psalms – no hymns. The language they used would have been very different. Jumbo and bologna. And I’ll bet another 50-100 years from now, things will look equally different here in this sanctuary. I believe that this church can still be here in 50-100 years. But it must keep changing to do that. Change is a beautiful thing to be embraced. It’s something that we can embrace without fear when we remember that this church doesn’t save us. This worship doesn’t forgive us. Being here today doesn’t forgive you. That’s already done. You aren’t here to gain any sort of absolution you don’t already have. You’re here for the weekly reminder that YOU ARE FORGIVEN. Praise the Lord.
I promised prayer prompts each week as we enter into this new season of discernment and identity searching, so here it is for this week:
“Paul refers frequently to “pistou Iesou”: “We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through pistou Iesou.” (). Most translations and commentators, including the Reformers, have read this genitive case objectively: through our faith in Jesus. However, semantically the phrase is ambiguous and could also be read subjectively: through the faith/fullness OF Jesus. There are strong exegetical and theological reasons to prefer the latter option. In that case, Paul does not only make an opposition between two alternative ways in which our acts obtain justification: he would make an opposition between our acts (works of law) and God’s inbreaking in our reality through the faithfulness of Jesus.
Pray for insight into where you, as an individual are bolted to the floor by tradition or rites or rituals or habits. Pray that the Holy Spirit would show you which of those things are bringing you life and growth and which ones need to go to the wayside. Pray that God would show you new and exciting ways to break out of those. And then pray for insight into where we, as a faith community are bolted to the floor by tradition or rites or rituals or habits. Pray that the Holy Spirit would show us which of those things are bringing this community life and growth and which ones need to go to the wayside. Pray that God would show us new and exciting ways to break out of those.
In other words, Luther put up “Works of the law”, obedience to the law, as the way we get in versus personal faith as our condition for heaven. Richard Hays (“The Faith of Jesus Christ”) defines “Works of the law” as Jewish Identity” as compared to Jesus’ Faithfulness.
Let us pray:
God, give us constant reminders that we are forgiven, regardless of what we do or say. Help us each to live into that knowledge, rather than to get caught up in relying on our own power. Show us where we are stuck in ruts of tradition and habit and how we can break free from those ruts to move on to places of healing and growth. Continue to guide us and give us direction as we enter into a new season of ministry and life together. Amen.
From Barclay: There were essentially two classes of Christians and that was unacceptable.