If We Ought, We Can

If We Ought, We Can

Luke 7:36-8:3, June 16, 2013

Given at Palm Bay, Florida

by Rev. Scott Elliott

A young boy tried to talk his younger, more sin-resistant sister into lying so he could sneak a frog into the house. When she balked, saying, “Lying’s a sin,” the brother explained “You know how it was Jesus’ job to die for our sins? Well, see it’s our job to sin.”  (adapted from joke in 1001 More Humorous Illustrations, 294)

Most every week a number of churches across America focus on sin.

Most every week this church focuses on love. We also cover sin in relationship to love which I am pretty sure is a different view than many other churches focus on.

Sin is about our failure to hit the target of love God aims humans toward, by and large it is not about failing to figure out this or that religious belief.

Nor is sin about our somehow being naturally depraved, it’s about how in the course of living we fail to be loving. And we talk about it because ultimately it’s about a call to our need – and our God-given ability – to overcome such failures.

The word “sin” (as I’ve noted before) is actually derived from an archery term meaning “to miss the mark,” that is, God’s aim for us.

And actually, in the Bible the sins of ruling elites, of kings and kingdoms, of nations as a whole, are a bigger theme than the individual sins of the “you-s” and “me-s” of the world.

Consequently, conversations about sin from this pulpit are not about how we are going to hell if we sin, but how we can actively work to repent – which means to change direction – to repent and remedy our sinfulness, not through a correct set of religious beliefs, but through actions; actions by us to fix problems we cause as individuals and even more importantly, actions by us as a people to fix problems we cause as a people.

I mentioned two weeks ago how Paul’s theology was primarily based on the sins of Israel and humankind as a whole. But you know what? Individual sins are what most of us think about when the word “sin” comes up – as if the joke I just told is right, that our job is to sin. Many church sermons on Sundays focus on that notion of individual sin.

Of course, it is not our job as individuals to sin, we are to strive not to, but it is also clearly a Biblical edict that corporate and national bodies have a duty to strive not to sin and miss the mark God aims us all together at.

Seriously, the Bible can be heard to be more about that – sin of nations, sins of a people– than it is about the sins of each of us as individuals. That’s why prophets in the Bible speak over and over again to leaders about the corrupt nature of nations and leadership. Nations as a whole miss God’s mark in far worse ways than individuals do.

That mark, simply put, is love; the care, compassion and desire for the well being of all. . . The. Well. Being. Of. All.

We can argue about the means by which the care, compassion and well-being-of-all can be accomplished, but we cannot really quibble that it’s not being accomplished.

Nor can it be fairly said that the Bible does not call nations and leaders and community – over and over again–  to remedy that failing.

And that failing – the failure of our leaders, our nations, and our communities toward the well-being-of-all is a much bigger sin than any individual sin we are likely commit in our lifetime. In fact it’s much bigger than all of our sins combined that we are likely to commit in all our lives.

Today’s story is about a woman of ill repute who washes Jesus’ feet. She does this to the astonishment of community leaders at an elite religious leader’s home who is hosting Jesus’ visit and meal in the community.

The host admonishes Jesus for letting such a woman, a sinner, approach him.

As we heard, to Jesus’ Way of being and thinking, the woman’s sins are easily forgiven, she’s repented and is acting respectfully, she’s honoring Christ, she has no idol before her, but the Son of God. See she has repented– turned onto a new path. The elite did not do that.

It takes monumental effort for the elite to change the sins of a nation, of a people, of a community. The elite derive their power from the status quo (the way things are) and so repenting, changing course is harder for leaders and nations to do.

We can hear the elite patrons, the leaders, in the story grumbling and questioning Jesus among themselves, asking “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Those community leaders, don’t try and provide or seek forgiveness. They don’t try and stop the sinning that led to the woman being of ill repute. They don’t try and stop their own sinning in failing to love . . . They just grumble and continue to act unloving. Jesus is in their presence and they still don’t get it.

Great courage is needed to alter the path of sinful cultural behavior, and  great upheaval follows that courage and alteration. Moses led the slaves out of Egypt and it took them forty years of wandering to settle down.

Forty years is a lot but our Civil War, that led African Americans out of slavery, took a hundred years before we settled down and dismantled Jim Crow laws.

Non-loving oppression leads to upheaval for the oppressor as well as the oppressed. The enslaved Hebrews suffered horribly, but the Egyptians who allowed slavery suffered too – greatly at the end of the day – with numerous plagues and the loss of their first born, and the loss of an entire army.

The enslaved African Americans suffered horribly in this country, and the rest of the nation that allowed and promoted and participated in slavery, suffered too. There was an awful Civil War. Many a first born was lost by illnesses that plague armies and the violence of war itself. Indeed over 600,000 died in that war, surely an amount equal to or greater than the numbers of Egyptians who died in the Red Sea chasing Moses and the Hebrews.

Sadly the Civil War ending did not end the suffering, there was the brutal and oppressive Jim Crow laws and racism for a hundred more years. And even today our nation suffers from the ugliness of racism born out of our nation’s brutal enslavement of men, women and children.

Our nation still has prophets calling us away from the cultural sin of the awfulness of oppression and disparity of treatment that began centuries ago on the shores of this nation, terrible mistreatment towards those who’s skin is dark. Their skin is dark, that’s the difference.

Of course, there are prophets calling us away from other corporate and cultural sins.  It’s good and right to be proud of our nation and our communities, but it is a sin to make idols of the status quo, idols of a nation or patriotism, especially to the exclusion of God, to the exclusion of love, by ignoring God’s call for us to love everyone and see to the well being of all.

See, the biggest issues facing the world have never been the sins of us individuals. I know that some Christians and Clergy and Churches seem to argue that it is, but it is not. The biggest issues facing the world are created by national and communal sins.

And by sins I mean the failure to seek and provide love. And by love I mean, the care and compassion and the well being of others.

In other words, our failure is the failure to idolize only God, only love. Our failure to focus on doing the things that Love does and calls us to do.

In a chapter on sin in his wonderful book Speaking Christian, Marcus Borg notes that:

For . . . the majority of people who have ever lived – the issue is not so much that they sinned, but that they were sinned against. There are victims of sin as well as sinners. Victims of sin need not forgiveness (though they may need to forgive), but liberation, reconnection, healing, wholeness, and a world of justice and peace. All of this is central to God’s passion in the Bible revealed decisively in Jesus. (151).

Dr. Borg goes on to note that “God wills our liberation from bondage, our return from exile, our seeing again, our healing and wholeness.” (153).

These words of Marcus Borg’s match up with the words of Psalm 145 in verse 9 which reads: “The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”

That’s the God you likely believe in. It’s the God I believe in with all my heart. And I can believe in no other.

And here’s the thing, the Bible instructs that humans are made in the image of God. We are not made sinners, rotten to the core, as a lot of Christian tradition suggests. That tradition and theology not only makes us feel like worms, but ultimately casts blame on our DNA instead of on our decisions, our choices to act or not act.

We are not condemned to live a life of sin, we are empowered to break from it. We can hit the mark God aims us at.

We are made in the image of God. Jesus’ life and death and God affirming resurrection evidence humans can be good, AND can live a life of love. We can follow God’s call to love, that is to have care and compassion and desire for the well being of others.

Pelagius, a British monk who lived in 5th Century long ago asserted this stuff, that we are responsible for our own sin, and as such he argued Adam was responsible for Adam’s sinning, not God. Consequently, Pelagius reasoned that we – like Adam – are responsible for our own sins. God’s creative efforts are not responsible.

Pelagius did not like blaming other things, especially God, for immoral conduct, in the end (he argues) each person has the ability not to sin.

This is quite different from the notion that sin is a quality of our being. Pelagius argued that sin is a quality of our action, not a condition of our soul.

So his theology understands that God gives the grace of pardon to forgive sins; and that God gives the grace of revelation to show how we are to properly act.

The good news is that since we do not have to sin, we can be like Jesus. Whose life is a revelation as to how we are to properly act.

Like Jesus, we too are made in the image of God. Our lives can have a God affirming resurrection of a sort that ripples through time through our loving acts touching lives for generations.

We humans can be good, we can follow God’s call to love, we can have care and compassion and desire for the well being of others and act on it.

For Christians God’s grace calls us to repentance and baptism which symbolize sinning ways can be broken, but also professes alternatives may be lived out. Humanity has the power not to be sinful, not to miss the mark God aims us toward.

Pelagius put it simply: “If I ought, I can.” Meaning, if Jesus taught us to do something, if God commands us to do something, we can do it.

Can you hear how wonderful that is? If we cannot blame our failings on how God made us, that means we were made in a way that we can defeat sin, not just out own sins, but more importantly the sins of our nations.

The mark of love that God aims us at can be hit by you and me and this nation and other countries too! We can do it. That is good news for sure!

Our job is not to sin; our job is to love.

And it is important that we hear this job is not just something we aim to do as individuals, but something we push and prod and prophetically proclaim in and to our community and larger corporate groupings, such as states and as nations. We need to act for action by our culture and leaders.

One of the most powerful writings on this topic that I know of is Psalm 72. Tradition credits it to King Solomon, listen carefully to just a portion of this thousands of years old prayer calling leaders of nations to lead their nation and their people toward care and compassion and the desire for well being of others:

Psalm 72:1 Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.  May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.

May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.

In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more . . .

May all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service. For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.

I refer to that section of Psalm 72, that prayer of King Solomon’s to leaders of nations every so often. We need to pray that prayer, that leaders and nations might follow it.

I wish all faith communities focused on it more. I know that I need to mention it more often, it ought to be a prayer we all raise to God on a very regular basis in an effort to end the greatest sins in the world, those done by nations failing to hit God’s target for us, the well being of all – which is the definition of shalom, of peace.

Our job is not to sin.

Our job is to love.

And it is important that we hear it is our job to act with care and compassion and with a desire for the well being of all, and not just something we aim to do as individuals, but something we push and prod and prophetically proclaim as the aim for us as a people.

AMEN!

COPYRIGHT   Scott Elliott © 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Vistas of God

Vistas of God

A sermon based on 1 Kings 17:8-24

Given at Palm Bay, FL June 9, 2013

by Scott Elliott

I love this story of the Zarephath widow. It’s a story of honoring those of other faiths . . . and it’s a story of God’s care for those who have a faith that differs from ours.

As I was doing some research on this text I stumbled on a sermon I wrote my first year here. I didn’t remember it, but I ended up liking it so much I revised and revamped a lot of the ideas in it for this morning.

The trouble though is that I need for us to imagine a mountain top, and . . .  well, we live in Florida where the highest geographic point, Britton Hill, is only 345 feet above sea level. After seven years here 345 feet actually now seems like an impressive geographic feature, but it’s not a mountain.

In fact, I wonder about the “hill” part of “Britton Hill”– on the real West Coast where I come, from we’d call that a “sand dune.”

I’m going to assume you have seen at least a picture of a mountain, so don’t imagine a hill or a sand dune . . .imagine a mountain . . . I need for us to picture an imaginary mountain. I’m going call this mountain Mount Faith. Picture Mount Faith looming high above a valley, so high that anyone at the top can look in one direction for  forever.

And it’s not easy to get up the mountain, but imagine it can be done by various routes . . . each leading to a different place on the mountain top.  The top of the mountain is vast and rugged and covers more land that a person could hike in a month.

Up there on the mountain top there are places to sit with vistas, all of them different, all of them stunning and awe inspiring.

Now picture this mountain of Faith as a metaphor, for religion and the vistas as a metaphor for how religions experience God. We all go up there and sit with a stunning and awesome and vast vista.

All the faiths of the world are up there, each has a unique view.

One looks out over a winding river snaking though a valley far below.

Another looks at a series of distant blue snow-capped mountains continuing on past the horizon.

Another’s vista is of a lush dense forest stretching for miles and miles– as far as the eye can see.

There are other views on that mountain, I’ve only listed a few. But no two faiths share the same view, rather each has more to look at and contemplate and consider than can be absorbed in a lifetime.

Imagine now that all the world that can be seen is God, so that each one of those faith routes leads to a view of God, even though no faith sees the same view of God from its place on the mountain top.

The God is the same, only the view is different and limited by our perspectives and the great expanse of that which is Divine.

The faith that experiences the river vista would understand God differently that the faith that experiences the forest vista or the one that experiences the mountain vistas. Each view, each experience, would be of God, just not all of God.

If the various faiths would swap stories or share views the people on that mountain could learn a little more about God than their experiences from their own views can provide.

But even then all of God could never be comprehended. God’s existence expands way beyond the view of humans on the mountain called Faith.  No one religion can take it all in.

Despite the fact that God is way bigger than anyone or any one religion could take in, many in Christianity have claimed their view of God is the only view of God. In fact I’ve often heard it asserted that a certain type of Christianity is the only route to God.

This is not only counter-intuitive, the Bible itself suggest there are other views and ways to faithfully experience God. The Bible evidences not only God honors people with different faiths, but that we are to be respectful of such people and faiths.

Honest, the Bible can be understood to teach that God has long respected and honored people of other faiths.

Today’s Lectionary reading from 1 Kings is one such example. All of Israel is in a drought and God sends Elijah not to Israel and not to an elite, but to Zarephath to a poor dying widow and her son. Elijah is sent to perform miracles which rescue these non-Jewish foreigners and himself from starvation. And Elijah actually ends up raising the malnourished child from the dead.

And as we heard, the widow from Zarephath has faith, not Jewish faith, but faith in God, and she has respect for Elijah as one who speaks the word of God through his faith.

God’s nature is Love so it should really not be a surprise that God loves and tends to those of our faith and those of other faiths.  Nor should it be a surprise that God would love those of other faiths, just as God loves us.

We hear often in this church that we are called to love not just God, but everyone, absolutely everyone. Such a comprehensive umbrella of love covers the poor and oppressed to be sure, but it also covers those of other faiths, whether considered neighbors or enemies, or the lowly outcast, such as widows and orphans in places like Zarephath.

The nature of God shown in Jesus includes holding dialogue with other faiths, respecting and loving people of other faiths. For example, when the non-Jewish Canaanite woman convinces Jesus to provide her with equal access to his healing gifts we are told that Jesus helped the Canaanite woman because he respected her faith, not because she converted to his (Mt 15:28).

In addition to rewarding the faith of the Canaanite woman, in the Gospels Jesus otherwise affirms other ways besides following Christianity as viable paths to God and God’s realm.

In Matthew 15 he indicates that he did not come to abolish the Old Testament commandments and clearly validates Judaism and the commandments by declaring that “ whoever does [the commandments] and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

And just to prove to you that sometimes lawyers know what they are talking about, in Luke 10 a lawyer says ‘‘Teacher . . .what must I do to inherit eternal life?’’ [and Jesus] said to him, ‘‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’’ [The lawyer] answered, ‘‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’’

To make the point Jesus – and the lawyer– both declare that a good neighbor is the non-Jew whom we know as The Good Samaritan. And it’s no accident that the story requires a Jewish man to let the Samaritan, a person of another faith, tend to his woundedness, to  save him . . . if that is what it takes.

This ties in nicely with Jesus’ claim in Matthew 25 that anyone, anyone who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, tends to the sick or visits the imprisoned or welcomes the stranger will inherit the Empire of God.  In “The Story of the Sheep and Goats” Jesus declared that anyone and any nation that cares for others in need is on the path to God and will be rewarded for it.

In short, Jesus’ nature as recorded in the Gospels is such that time and again he shows respect and love for non-Christian paths to God.  Jesus’ love, God’s love, extends beyond those we think of as “of our faith.”

That’s what today’s story is about. Elijah is called by God to tend to the non-Jew Zarephath woman. And that lowly outcast to the culture sees through Elijah’s loving actions that he  God’s actor.

Just like when Jesus tended to the non-Jew Canaanite woman who saw through his action – and he through hers– that each is a person of faith for whom we need to have care, compassion and a desire for their well being.

Jesus and Elijah respected people of other faiths, because God does. So should we.

Of course, both Elijah and Jesus also challenged faith leaders. Elijah takes on Baal’s priests and royalty who failed to honor God – they were not you see, being righteous or doing justice.

Jesus challenges leaders of faiths too– temple elite, Pharisees, Sadducees and the representatives of the Roman cult– none of whom’s unloving acts were honoring God.

While they challenged those who did not act lovingly,  Elijah and Jesus both honored and respected those faithful to God.

You don’t have to be a Hebrew for Yahweh to do miracles for you, as the widow in Zarephath finds out. You don’t have to be a Jew or a Jesus follower for God to do miracles for you, as the Canaanite woman finds out.

God is God. In Exodus we are told that when Moses asked for God’s name God responded: “I Am Who I Am.” All our quibbling over what we think God is won’t change that. God is who God is.

And God it seems can be experienced, can be righteously followed, by many different paths and religions.

It’s as if all of God’s people have climbed different paths up a mountain, each way leading to a different look-out over a vast expanse of creation, of God. Each faith has a different view of God– BUT IT IS STILL GOD!

If different bits of God are seen and not seen by faiths of the world, imagine what might happen if religions talked with one another and actually considered what others were viewing. We all might just learn more about God, and certainly more about our neighbors.

People might turn to one another and echo the words of the Zarephath widow: “Now I know you are a person of God, and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth.”

Who knows what might happen if we started honoring other faiths. Hate might start losing ground. Love might start gaining ground. Heaven might start breaking in a little bit faster. We’s certianly get to know God a whole lot better.

Rumi, the great 13th century Muslim poet, did not use a mountain metaphor, but a large animal metaphor to illustrate this idea. Listen to his 800 year old poem called Elephant in the Dark :

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.”A water-pipe kind of creature.”

Another, the ear. “A very strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal.”

Another, the leg. “I find it still, like a column on a temple.”

Another touches the curved back.”A leathery throne.”

Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.”A rounded sword made of porcelain.” He’s proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way. The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant. If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.

Whether we chat on a mountain about what we see, or speak in the light about what we feel, God in the nature of Jesus and Elijah calls us to honor other faiths, those other routes to views of the same Sacredness we view and experience differently.

Our view is a good one, but so is theirs. We are all viewing God.

And as we proclaim here every Sunday, God is good! (All the time!). All the time! (God is good!).

AMEN.

COPYRIGHT   Scott Elliott © 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Pleasing People is Not Our Task– Loving Them is.

Pleasing People is Not Our Task– Loving Them is.

a sermon based on Galatians 1:1-12

given at Palm Bay, FL on June 2, 2013

by Rev. Scott Elliott

Every once in a while, I preach a sermon that is biographical; that is, I try to discuss in a general fashion a person in the Bible. This summer I plan to do a few biographic sermons summarizing bits of the Bible. I even had this idea that I will summarize the entire Bible later this month . . .We’ll see how that goes.

In researching the summarizing of things in the Bible, I actually found a writing called “The Bible in Fifty Words.” The happy news for you all is that I found it in a resource book called, “World’s Greatest Collection of Church Jokes”1. It’s pretty cool. It actually covers more of the Bible than most people probably know. It goes like this:

God made; Adam bit; Noah arked; Abraham split; Jacob fooled; Joseph ruled; Bush talked; Moses balked; Pharaoh plagued; People walked; Sea divided; Tablets guided; Promise landed; Saul freaked;  David peeked; Prophets warned; Jesus born; God walked; Love talked; Anger crucified; Hoped died; Love rose; Spirit flamed; Word spread; God remained. 1

If finding that was the happy news, the sad news is that I have not reduced my summary of the Bible person I chose for today down to fifty words. So Bob Evan’s and Applebee’s will still have to wait.

My subject today is Paul and I feel fortunate I was able to get the sermon  under twenty minutes.

On our last day of Bible Study we were to select a person in the Bible (other than Jesus) that we thought we’d like to be or who was like us. I picked Paul in part because of what he says in today’s reading “Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people. If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

See, given the somewhat . . .ummm, colorful responses I get to the progressive Christianity this church stands for and I preach and write about, I can relate to Paul’s reminder that a mark of Christianity is that not all people will not be pleased with you when you serve Christ boldly.

Jesus got in trouble for proclaiming love for all, and so did Paul. Why wouldn’t we expect the same when we follow Christ’s call?

Paul’s a hero of mine for hanging in there at a time when opponents to Jesus’ loving Way did more that just make ugly comments. They could, and did, hang you on a cross for it.

I like Paul for other reasons than he plowed forward knowing the message of Christ’s love for all would not please people and be of risk to life and limb. Paul is also passionate in his belief, bold in his service and open in his thinking.

Hear how Paul matches up to our vision statement? He is fearless for Christ’s unconditional love and takes Jesus’ message of good news to the ends of the earth regardless of the consequences.

We don’t know a lot about Paul’s life. We are pretty sure he was born early in the first century in a bustling crossroads city called Tarsus.

Although we don’t know exactly when Paul or Jesus, were born, Paul was probably a few years younger than Jesus but it is thought that they lived at the same time for twenty or thirty years.

Although Paul did not meet Jesus before the resurrection, Paul was alive when Jesus did all that he did in the Gospels.

Paul lived so close in time to Jesus that his letters are the oldest writings in the New Testament. He wrote about a generation before the first  Gospel was written.

We know Paul as a great Apostle and prophetic teacher and Saint of the church, but before he was a Jesus follower Paul was known as Saul and he vehemently opposed what at the time was Jesus centered  Judaism.

We get our knowledge about Paul from two sources, the letters he wrote and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, but neither of those sources make it clear why Saul opposed the early post-Easter Jesus movement.

It is actually quite possible he opposed the inclusion of non-Jews into the Jesus sect of Judaism. See there was a sense in the movement that Jesus’ promised non-violent world was breaking-in so – as John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg put it– a belief developed that  “Gentiles could now become full members of the people of God without following Jewish conversion requirements, for example circumcision for males.” 2 (69).

This means Saul’s likely to have opposed the inclusion of Gentiles, an exclusionary stance he would have taken zealously, because we know that Saul was persecuting Jesus followers, and violently so.

Keep in mind that Saul’s persecution was not an example of mainstream Judaism; it was an example of religious zealousness. As we know there are religious zealots around today . . . well, Saul was akin to one of those . . . until he had a transforming experience.

One day, while in zealous pursuit of the persecution of the Jewish Jesus Followers, Saul had a profoundly mystical encounter that changed his life and eventually changed the Jesus movement itself. On the road to Damascus, where he was going to persecute Jesus followers, The Book of Acts reports:

[Saul] was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Act 9:3-5 NRS)

The light blinded Saul for a number of days until “something like scales fell from his eyes” (Acts 9:18) and his sight returned.

Paul experienced a theophany, a God appearance.

Here is how Paul himself puts it in the texts that follow today’s reading:

I received [the gospel] through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard, no doubt . . . I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it . . . when God . . . was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles . . .. (Gal 1:12-16 NRSV)

The Book of Acts claims that Saul heard Christ, but Paul claims he saw Christ. “It is that sight that makes him an apostle.” 3.

Saul is so profoundly struck by this sight that he does a “180,” and becomes not only a Jesus Follower and an Apostle, but he dedicates his life to bringing the Good News that all are included in the wide embrace of the God of Jesus.

If all of what I’ve mentioned so far happened, then we can hear that Saul, who persecuted to uphold exclusion, becomes Paul who champions inclusion.

Oddly much of  Christianity has claimed Paul teaches exclusion. And when I came back to church, I discovered that this exclusive theology is more like Saul-the-persecutors’s idea of an exclusionary way to an exclusionary God, than Paul the Apostle’s idea of a theology of inclusion, where all are included into God’s love. Where – like Jesus’ table – all-all-ALL- are welcome.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians that we are considering in the Lectionary reading today contains some of the most beautiful inclusionary language in the Bible. In the third chapter Paul wrote the famous lines I referred to last week: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28 NRS).

Although it’s been claimed Paul supported slavery and misogamy, he actually wrote against slavery and wrote and worked for the fair treatment of everyone, women as well as men. The New Testament records that Paul treated women as equal partners and sisters in Christ. And as we heard in the sermon last week Paul considered slaves as equal brothers entitle to love and freedom.

A big part of the problem is that Paul gets blamed for a lot of words he didn’t write. Of the thirteen letters assigned to Paul in the Bible, most scholars conclude only seven appear to be genuinely Paul’s (though even some of those may have been altered in part). The genuine Pauline letters are Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1st Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon and Galatians.

And even those letters are often misunderstood when we fail to consider the context he wrote in. Paul did not write as a modern American Protestant. Paul wrote as a first century Jewish follower of Jesus in the Roman Empire; and he did not write with all the Christian doctrine and traditions that come to us layered on top of everything. 4

Modern Christians tend to come to Paul’s writing thinking he had in mind individual sinners being saved, that’s stuff later theologians layered onto Paul.

When Paul speaks of sin it is his understanding of the transgressions of Israel as a people, not as individuals that he has in mind. 5. For Paul Torah, Scripture, had not helped Israel, which was, as Paul wrote: “as guilty as the Gentiles.” 6 The only grace that counted for Paul was that available – equally to Gentiles and Jews – through Christ Jesus.

And Paul never thought he had been converted to Christianity, he considered himself a Jewish apostle of Christ’s working among the Gentiles, trying to claim and define a place for Gentiles in the Jewish Jesus sect.

Paul’s concern was basically fourfold. First of all, Paul trusted that the Messiah had come in the form of Jesus Christ who offered the  Grace that counted.

Second, Paul believed that the Gentiles needed to be allowed to come into the fold of those who are to be saved by the faith of Jesus, and the resulting grace of God.

Third, Paul understood that a prime barrier to Gentiles coming into the fold to be saved is the Jewish initiation rite of circumcision.

Fourth, Paul also understood that he had to lift the barrier of circumcision in order to open the floodgates of Gentile converts and he does this by arguing a way around Torah.

Specifically Paul argues in Galatians that Abraham who was un-circumcised was blessed by God, and it was through faith–that is trust– in God, not by circumcision that the blessing occurs. Putting it simply, Paul argued that since the founder of the Judaism, Abraham, was not circumcised Gentiles didn’t need to be circumcised either.

Essentially Paul hangs his hat on “faith” as the end run around Torah’s kosher laws for Gentiles. As a seminary professor of mine put it, “[J]ustification by faith is the good news to the Jews first, and also to the Greek. ‘For the just shall live by faith’” 7.

Paul’s argument is that if a person trusts in God as Abraham did, as Christ did, they can be justified, which means saved. Basically Paul sees Torah as a temporary guardian given by God to hold things in place until Jesus showed up. Torah was not faulty, rather sin and flesh were to blame for Israel’s inability to comply with it.

It is not until later that Augustine and his progeny skew Paul’s writings to appear anti-Jewish, but Paul was no such thing. Indeed, if Paul saw our churches today he would ask “Hey, where are all the Jews?” He would also no doubt point out that he and Jesus were both Jewish!

Paul was bringing Gentiles to the God of the Jews, the God of Jesus, through the promise given to Abraham and the trust he and Jesus had in God.

Paul’s primary mission was to figure out and teach how Gentiles could be included in the community of the Jesus movement, and he worked tirelessly toward that end.

Reading through Paul’s intended lens of bringing Gentiles to the God of Judaism spins Paul’s efforts within his churches differently than our notion of Jesus dying to atone individual sin.

Reading through Paul’s lens we see him as working to build up community making God’s table inclusive. Everyone gets to come to it and into Jesus’ community.

In this way Paul’s efforts are similar to what Jesus is remembered as having done. Instead of seeing Paul’s message as focusing on saving individual sinners, he can be seen as including, like Jesus, those the culture considered unclean. And for Paul, the unclean niche he focuses on is Gentiles.

Understanding Paul’s message as an extension of Jesus’ inclusive community makes Paul’s efforts much more cohesive with Jesus’ teachings.

By the time he writes Galatians Paul is defending his apostleship. As the letter unfolds it becomes clear that the primary issue is whether circumcision is to be required in the Jesus Movement or not.

Paul is accused of trying to gain favor with Gentiles by (pardon the pun) cutting out circumcision.

And the issue was not (for Paul anyway) at its heart a question about being law observant in general, but about circumcision, and the existence or non-existence of effective mission work among the Gentiles.

If circumcision was required, the Gentiles would leave or not join the movement and the separation between the Jews and Gentiles would continue. Paul dedicates his life to end that separation.

The Jesus’ followers had continued to include all Jews at the table regardless of their status. Paul takes this inclusiveness to its next logical step by adding to the movement a concerted effort to include all Gentiles at the table as well.

In Paul’s day the city of Antioch reeled from race riots between Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s mission to unite them through Christ was inhibited by the tension and differences.

Paul needed to find a way around the Jewish tradition of strict compliance with the law as the way to Judaism’s God, to Jesus and Paul’s God, to our God, to everyone’s God . . . to the God of love.

In order to get around the tradition, Paul first holds fast to his argument in his letter to those Galatians who began opposing Paul’s teachings.

Paul argues that he taught them Christ’s gospel not to please Gentiles who don’t want to be circumcised, but rather to follow, as he notes in the reading, a direct revelation from Christ (1:11).

Once Paul’s established his authority, the crux of Paul’s argument becomes that justification – salvation – before God comes through the faith (and by faith he means the trust) of Jesus, the trust of Jesus, in God.

It is not trust in circumcision.

It is  not trust in Scripture.

It is trust in God’s Spirit that we – you and me; all of us – are saved by God’s unfettered grace; loved just as we are. And that we are saved from our lesser self and a lesser world when we turn to love through new life in Christ.

Paul’s a pioneer blazing a trail for what later becomes Christianity, the religion of Jesus’ Way, of God’s Way, of unconditional love and inclusivity.

That Way, truly followed, has always been hard.

Unconditional love does not please a lot of people.

But pleasing people is not our task, loving them is.

That was Paul’s way, that is Jesus’ Way and that is our way to the God of love and to salvation for us all.

AMEN.

 

END NOTES:

1. World’s Greatest Collection of Church Jokes, (Barbour Publishing 2003), 208.

2 Borg, Marcus, Crossan, John Dominic, The First Paul, (2009), 69. This book and the Stephen Patterson’s course Biblical Studies III at Eden Theological Seminary (Fall 2005) greatly influenced this sermon and much of it’s factual contents are drawn from those sources as well as Paul’s letters and The Book of Acts.

3. Borg and Crossan,  71.

4 Ibid., 17.

5 Ibid., 81.

6. Ibid.

7. Patterson, Stephen, Biblical Studies Course, Eden Theological Seminary, December 5, 2005.

COPYRIGHT   Scott Elliott © 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED