Sermon 24th June Trinity III YrC
Don’t try to live by rules; be ruled by your relationship with Christ
Some rules:
These rules are from the 10 Commandments for Reducing Stress1, but there are others, like these rules for Teachers dating from 18722:
Harsh perhaps, but not as harsh as the rules governing the life of a Convict in the 1800s at Port Arthur, one of Australia’s largest and severest penal colonies. Here the Rules for Prisoners3 state that the undermentioned offences are liable to punishment:
Rules.
We all have to live by certain rules.
But in today’s Epistle reading Paul reminds his readers (the Christians in Galatia) that before Christ came, they were imprisoned (by rules) under the law ... the law was their disciplinarian. Their lives were dominated by the rules.
Even if the law itself is good, the need for the law is seen by Paul as a negative thing. A focus on the law can imprison us to the rules themselves rather than what they are trying to achieve.
The Law in the end identifies a sort of minimum.
The Smoking Ban is a good example. I’m not a smoker anyway, but if I was, the law against smoking in a public place doesn’t help me reach my potential as a human – or even necessarily make me any healthier. I can still smoke somewhere, and indeed I might even take up eating 20 hamburgers a week to make up for it. All I need to do is the minimum to comply with the law. So this law and others like it will never help me to reach my full potential – only Jesus Christ can do that.
So our theme for today (based on this Galatians reading) is “Don’t try to live by rules; be ruled by your relationship with Christ.”
For Paul, as a Pharisee, the law had been his master, then it became a prison. Eventually after his experience on the Road to Damascus, Jesus had been his liberator from the law. All this was exceptional for a 1st century Jew from such a strong legalistic tradition.
So let’s look briefly at today’s passage in Galatians.
In the previous section of the letter Paul had written of their justification by faith in Christ. We are justified, made right, forgiven, accepted by our faith in Christ
Jesus, which leads us to live a life based on the way Jesus lived: ethical,
moral, sacrificial. All we need is faith to enter into this new life of
the Christian.
However, some in Galatia had emphasized the need to follow the Jewish law, to the letter, in order to be accepted by God.
The Law was a very complex set of instructions governing virtually every part of daily life; it was seen as the way to live as God wanted. If you followed the law, to the letter of the law,then you were a good person and were looked on with favour by God.
Of course living by the law placed a lot of restrictions upon
you. You had to act certain ways at certain times and in certain
situations. If you didn't, then you were breaking the law, which was
equated to sinning, and you were cut off from God until you had made up for
it, by doing what the law required in order for you to be restored.
The law was also very good at setting up divisions between
people. Who's in & who's out is obvious. Natural, genetic Jews were in
first place. Converts to Judaism were next in second. Gentiles, that's
everyone else, was last, out.
Paul disagrees with all this vehemently. The law never saved anyone, he claims. Only faith in Christ can do that.
Why be slaves to a bunch of rules and traditions, which don't accomplish anything, when you can be free through the life of the Spirit which comes through faith in Jesus Christ? It's within the context of freedom vs. Law, that this passage comes.
We are accepted by God not because of observance of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
According to Paul there are at least three consequences of being ruled by our relationship with Christ rather than by living by rules.
1. freedom: No longer being chained to the rules. No longer being held
hostage emotionally and spiritually to the law. This of course doesn’t excuse us from a law-abiding, moral and ethical life. We can't just do whatever we please, but when
we do sin, God is waiting with open arms.
The Gerasene demoniac is freed not by rules but by Jesus Christ – one who will not be ruled by the rules.
2. Heirs: Through faith all are heirs to the promises of God. That's
especially important for those Gentile Christians Paul is writing to. They
are just as included as the Jewish Christians in the Kingdom of God. All
Christians are "One in Christ."
3. unity in diversity: Now the old distinctions don't matter anymore.
Instead, the Christians can focus together on their new relationship with
God. They don't have to expend energy on who's in and who's
out. They can instead work on living a Christ-like life.
Importantly the Turning Point in all this is faith in
Christ.
Paul uses Baptism specifically in this passage as a turning point in the life of a Christian when we don’t just take on a set of intellectual principles, but when we are clothed in Christ. We put on Christ. We are changed;
given new life; and expected to live for Christ there after. Baptism is
the entry into the Christian community and defines our mission and ministry.
That was Paul's message to the churches in Galatia around
2000 years ago.
What does it have to do with us today?
We too are "clothed in Christ." We too experience baptism and re-birth.
Baptism was the entry point for each of us into the church and the life we
call Christian. We too have a sense of "Before and After."
No longer...Under the "law." Not a Jewish Law, but a society's law. An unspoken,
hidden law. A Law that says, you are most important and your needs must
come first. A Law which says spend, spend, spend. A Law which places
personal freedom and "rights" above all else. Think about our society as
reflected in the media and around us. Peer pressure to conform. Marketing
ploys to get your money. Traditions and "proper ways" to act. People who
don't follow those unwritten "laws" are quickly, either pushed into line or
forgotten. You have to dress the part, or you aren't taken seriously.
But in Christ, we are
Free to forget about protocol and tradition when need be and instead to focus on Christ-like behaviour.
Loving our neighbour, when everything we are told by the people around us indicates otherwise. The story of the Gerasene demoniac is a dramatic story of how Jesus is our example of reaching out across the divide of what society says is acceptable.
Free to give, when society says hoard.
Free to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of someone else.
The rules are still there and we still need to live by them (as of course did Jesus most of the time), but we don’t live for the rules: we live for Christ. We are ruled by our relationship with Christ.
Like the well known passage about Jew & Greek, Slave and free, we are also
no longer to focus on our distinctions and differences. Maybe for us that
verse should read, "No longer...
City and rural?
Local or incomer?
Lay and Clergy?
Young and old?
Male and female?
The old distinctions are still there, but they don't matter. We don't dwell on them and get caught up by them. It's not "who's who" that matters, but "Christ in me and Christ in you." Now we can deal with each other on a new level, as "One in Christ." That implies, respect, listening, honesty, trust and real equality. The old has gone,
everything is made new.
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, some questions:
1. Who do I have a hard time treating as "one in Christ?"
2. How am I dedicating this freedom that I have to the service of God?
Almighty God, who taught us in your holy Word that the law was given by Moses but that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; grant that we, being not under the law but under grace, may dedicate this freedom to your service, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 4