Sunday, November 6, marks the end of Daylight Saving Time, so it is time to “fall back” and set the clocks back an hour (or double-check that your phone did it for you).
The Princeton Half Marathon is also on Sunday, November 6, at 7:00 am. We will have both services as usual. Allot some extra time getting to the 9:15 am service, and check the route map PDF below to plan your trip.
Ephesians 6:10-17
David A. Davis
October 23, 2016
Just before Cathy and I were married thirty years ago, the congregation gave us a wedding shower one Sunday after worship. I started as pastor there in Blackwood on July 1. We were married on August 2. One Sunday in July in the Fellowship Hall during coffee hour they surprised us with a wedding shower for the both of us. The men of the church gave me gifts and the women of the church gave Cathy gifts. Yes, it was an unapologetic nod to gender role stereotypes. Cathy’s gifts were all kitchen related. The men gave me tools. Lots of tools. Not all of them were new tools. That’s a big deal, for a guy to give you one of his tools. Some of the tools, I didn’t even know what they were. But we were just starting out, just starting life together, and the folks knew I was going to need some tools. I still have those tools and the toolboxes they gave me. Both of our children have started out now in new seasons of life. First apartment. Getting settled. Almost immediately, from us and the parents of roommates they have enough plates to feed a baseball team (which would never fit in their apartment). And we gave them a small toolbox. When you’re just starting out, you need a toolbox.
It has been suggested that the end of Ephesians has the rhetorical flair of a baptismal sermon. Here at the end of chapter six, the Apostle Paul is tacking on the exhortation, part of the oration, a section of the sermon given at the time of baptism. With the newly baptized drying off, the congregation gathered, when joy is in the air: “Be strong in the Lord and the strength of God’s power!” When the baptismal garment is still fresh: “Put on the whole armor of God so that you may stand against the wiles of the devil.” With those new to the faith front and center and their now fellow citizens of the household of God gathered around: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness.” A word for those just starting out. The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. Shoes that proclaim the gospel of peace. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation. The words of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Fasten. Put on. Take up. For those just starting out. Truth. Righteousness. Peace. Faith. Salvation. Word of God. A toolbox for life in Christ.
Of course for Paul, it’s not a toolbox. It’s the armor of battle. I have shared with you before that New Testament commentators, weekly preachers, and devotional writers spend quite a bit of time with the armor metaphor. There is the one that suggested providing a labeled sketch in the worship bulletin of a Roman soldier all decked out in battle attire. Another catalogued the armor with such detail that it seemed important to note which part of the armor Paul left out (something to do with shins). Many have pointed out that all of the armor pieces are defensive except for the sword, and the sword is the Word of God. Defensive rather than aggressive or violent. Folks work really hard to make all the military gear more palatable to the gospel.
One of my own reactions when it comes to gun violence, and the horrifying statistics about teens and children and gun violence, is to be more aware of the use of language. I am trying to not use the term “bullet points” when referring to talking points on the page. When we move ahead on an idea or a program around here I am not going to say “it’s time to pull the trigger.” I’m not going describe a sporting event as a war, or a battle, or a bloodbath. Yes, maybe it’s all kind of silly. But I also never imagined having to arrange “active shooter training” for the church staff I work with. The words, language, and images we use are worth paying attention to. So, yes, speaking only for myself, I don’t find a biblical dissection of body armor to be all that meaningful when it comes to truth and righteousness and peace and faith and salvation and Word of God. When it comes to a toolbox for life in Christ.
To be clear, an aversion to arming the language of faith in no way minimizes the reality of the struggle or denies the existence of worldly powers that seek to pull us away from God. Whether one calls it the wiles of the devil or the spiritual forces of evil or the cosmic powers of this present darkness, or the magnitude of institutional sin or the impact of total depravity or the ugly underbelly of the human condition that never goes away, there is a reality to that which eats away at your attempt to lead the Christian life and works against the in-breaking of the kingdom of God pretty much every day. And it can make life, the Christian life, difficult some times. That kind of experience is less about defining it, labeling it, and more about acknowledging it, experiencing it.
John Calvin has this great quote from his Institutes of the Christian Religion as he is trying to define the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. “Now if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it.” That’s Calvin on the mystery of God’s grace at the Table, Christ’s presence at the Table, something holy, something godly. Well, the same logic goes for the struggle, the worldly challenge, the powers and principalities that you know try to tear you away from a life in Christ. We shall not be ashamed to confess that we can’t wrap our minds around it. We may not have the words to describe it. We experience it rather than understand it. It’s what the Paul calls “our struggle.”
Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, Word of God. The toolbox is not just for those starting out. It’s there for our struggle. Paul’s final exhortation to the Ephesians begins with “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power.” Be strong. It may be better translated as “Be made strong in the Lord” or “Keep being made strong in the Lord.” The verb in Greek is imperative and passive. Strength be done to you. It’s not your own strength. It’s the strength of the Lord. Or as one translation puts it: “Be strengthened by the Lord and the Lord’s powerful strength.” It’s similar to what Paul writes to Timothy in II Timothy: “You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Imperative. Passive. Better translated, “Take strength from the grace of Christ” or “Draw your strength from the grace of Christ.”
You see the difference. It’s not just parsing words here. The words, language, and images we use are worth paying attention to. The strength Paul’s talking about here belongs to Christ. The strength is not yours, it’s his. This isn’t Paul standing before the newly baptized and proclaiming, “Be strong, hike up your britches, pull up your bootstraps, buck up, suck it up!” It is Paul telling the baptized that the strength of Christ is theirs for the journey. “I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit” (Eph 3:16). It is Paul telling the newly baptized and the citizens in the household of God and the church, and you and me… when this all gets really difficult (and it will), know that the strength of Jesus Christ is for you. God’s strength. God’s power is there for you, for the struggle. “The immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us who believe… God put this [same] power to work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph1:19-20). It’s that kind of strength. “Keep being made strong in the Lord.”
A really long time ago I was sitting with someone in my office whose heart was just broken with grief. The person’s spouse had died months before and it wasn’t getting any easier. The struggle. Through some laughter and tears, the person said to me, “If you tell me I just have to take it one day at a time, I am going to punch you in the nose.” So I didn’t say that. We talked about how really hard it was. The struggle. At this point the memory of that visit in my office morphs into a collage of all the similar conversations I have had over the years. Time and time again I have seen people draw on a strength they never knew they had. It’s his strength. Not ours.
I can’t explain it, but I sure have seen it, and I bet you have too. Yes amid grief, but in so many other ways. Caring for a spouse whose mind won’t come back. Figuring out life with a new baby and no sleep. Stepping through the muck of a lost job. There is this strength. Walking into an AA meeting for the first time. Discovering how lonely a crowded campus can be. Juggling the needs of aging parents far away and the needs of the young children at your feet. Finding a way when the marriage ends. The strength isn’t yours, it’s his. Wondering if a job after college will ever come. Wading into a season of more questions than answers, more doubts than assurances, longing to know once again a peace within that passes all understanding, realizing one day that money wasn’t the answer or maybe the promotion wasn’t worth it, figuring out a bit too late that the world can be pretty nasty, discovering one day that maybe you can’t do it all by yourself. It’s our struggle and there’s this strength. I’ve seen it… at work… in you. “Keep being made strong in the Lord.”
A word for those just starting out. A word for all of us. Truth. Righteousness. Peace. Faith. Salvation. Word of God. When this all gets really difficult (and it will), know that the strength of Jesus Christ is for you. God’s strength. God’s power is there for you.
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Ephesians 5:21-6:9
David A. Davis
October 16, 2016
In worship this fall here at Nassau Church, we have been working our way through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in our preaching life. If you have been keeping track, or keeping score at home, or reading ahead in preparation, today we come to Ephesians chapter 5. Two challenges have become obvious in my sermon preparation this week. The first challenge is that the beginning of Ephesians 5 pretty much continues with the call to a holy and faith-filled life that I preached about last week using the text from the end of chapter 4. Ephesians 5 begins like this: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Live in love. And a few verse later, Live as Children of light and Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord and be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the first challenge with Ephesians this week is to not offer a repeat of last week’s sermon. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. The first part of Ephesians 5 follows from and repeats the end of Ephesians 4. Challenge #1. Challenge #2, the second obvious challenge, the challenge, well, it’s the second half of Ephesians chapter 5. Without a doubt, the more common approach to Ephesians 5:21ff would be to skip it. As you are about to hear, there may be good reasons for a kind of Thomas Jefferson approach (snip, snip, snip). My guess is that if you were born and raised Presbyterian, you will have a hard time remembering ever hearing a sermon from the second half of Ephesians 5. I have never had a couple request Ephesians 5 to be read for a wedding. A more common approach would be to skip it. Ignore it. Pretend its not there. But we’re not going to skip today. We’re not going to cut and paste around. We’re working our way through Ephesians so we’re going to wrestle with it. We’re going to chew on it. So hold on, we’re going in!
[Ephesians 5:21-6:9]
They call it “the household codes”. This part of Ephesians, along with other similar verses from others of Paul’s epistles; “household codes”. Writings that both describe and instruct regarding primary domestic relationships; husband, wife, parent, child, master, slave. Household codes. Paul’s attempt to address humanity’s fundamental relationships in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in light of the mystery of salvation made known in Christ.
The term isn’t all that helpful, actually. “Household Codes”. Though it is a kind of technical term in literature or in archived material not limited to scripture or to the first century. “Household codes”. It’s not like a puzzle to unlock or figure out or decode. It’s not really an extensive list like some kind of “code of ethics” signed in a contract or in an agreement with the human resources department at the time of hire. It’s not like Paul defines the term house, or household here (or even uses the term for that matter). “Household” for Paul, earlier in Ephesians is a powerful and compelling metaphor. Something far beyond a domestic term. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are citizens of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Household of God. Household for Paul is something greater. To refer to the second half of Ephesians 5 as “household codes”, or as it is described in my study bible, “The Christian household” isn’t very helpful.
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Paul’s initial call for mutual submission in relationships out of reverence for Christ would certainly seem to apply far outside the house. I bet I am not the only one who can remember a bible study curriculum or a devotional that took a kind of “thesis statement approach” to Ephesians 5 that privileges v.21. Be subject to one another. The argument is then made that if human beings are being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, everything else from Paul here shouldn’t be a problem. It’s sort of “a stop and affirm v.21 and don’t’ worry about the details, the specifics that follow” method. The method breaks down pretty quickly when you start to do the math in what follows, when you sense the imbalance in what follows, when you figure out it actually isn’t about being subject to one another, it’s about wives being subject to husbands, children being subject to parents, and slaves being subject to masters. Its all about one-sided subjugation, hierarchy, dominance, and gendered power.
Last spring I attended a talk at Mathey College next door here on Princeton’s campus. The speaker was Daniel Linke, the University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers at the Mudd Library. He was working on a Woodrow Wilson exhibit in the aftermath of the robust conversations about Wilson’s legacy related to race on campus and beyond. At one point he challenged a commonly held opinion that Woodrow Wilson was simply a product of his time, place, and culture. He shared with the gathering his own conclusion informed by pretty much his life’s work that when it came to race and racism Wilson was more than likely worse than his time. And no, it wouldn’t be difficult to find historians and biographers who might hold a different, and yet informed opinion on Wilson.
In fashion similar to Daniel Linke’s work, there are scholars who could share their informed opinions about the Apostle Paul on marriage, parenting, and slavery. Was he a product of his culture? Ahead or behind? And, of course, just as one could find historians who disagree with Linke’s opinion on Wilson, it wouldn’t take long to find folks who disagree on Paul. The conclusion that the household codes of Paul are “culturally and historically bound” and therefore of little contemporary use as a living word for the church certainly supports the skip it, ignore it, and pretend its not there approach.
Though scholars may disagree on Paul and first century domestic roles, there can be very little disagreement about how these specific verses have been used throughout history to subjugate women, to justify abuse, and to defend the existence of slavery. There can be no disagreement about the church’s sin when it comes to how the second half of Ephesians 5 has been used to sanction violence and justify evil and maintain the status quo for the ones who hold the power. Any discussions of Paul’s intended first century meaning here ought to be drowned out by the volume of the church’s lament for those whose voices have been long silenced (as it says in the Brief Statement of Faith), those whose voices have been long silenced by these verses and those who sought to impose and justify their power and position while skipping and ignoring and forgetting that Jesus said whoever wants to be first among you must be a servant of all.
You know its not just a matter of history, right? Of historical interpretation, of how these verses were used back then, back when? A skip it, ignore it, pretend its not there approach to Ephesians 5 takes away the opportunity for the church to be honest about its past and its present.
For those of us who take the name of Christ to look into the eyes of an abused woman and tell her we know you heard from a preacher this was somehow okay. To welcome back with tears the young man whose father quoted scripture to him every time he reached for the belt. To stand with the African American community in this town and on these campuses and offer a collective shout, a groan about how the bible was used to justify slavery, and Jim Crow, and the toxicity of racism in relationships in Princeton pretty much forever. You can’t just pretend the second half of Ephesian 5 isn’t there.
The household codes in Ephesians….it is the Apostle Paul’s (or one of his followers thereafter) attempting to address humanity’s fundamental relationships in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in light of the mystery of salvation made known in Christ. Last week, as we read the end of chapter 4, it was the “so then” and the “therefore” of a Christian life marked by the holiness of being kind and tenderhearted, forgiving another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Paul, then, takes the step toward the relationships that bind us together, the relationships that form a foundation of life, the institutions that set the parameters for who we are, how we live. The trajectory of Paul’s thought. Paul broadening, widening the impact of the gospel. The gospel’s reach, not just in your own devotion, not just in the body of Christ, but the gospel’s reach to the intimate and tender spaces of your life, to the institutions that shape you…in order that the glorious riches of your inheritance in Christ might infuse the fullness of your life; that God’s grace and mercy, and the love of Christ, and the inward power of the Holy Spirit might not just trickle down, but might spring forth into every corner of life, that you and I, we might be a part of how God’s kingdom breaks in and transforms and turns upside down and makes new and heals and saves the world.
Household code. It’s just not very helpful when it comes to grappling with Ephesians 5. But verses of scripture that lead God’s people to confess and lament and reconcile? Verse of scripture that challenge God’s people to discern what it means for the very promise of Christ to shape the very core of our existence in the world….the yes, this is the Word of the Lord.
And the house, the household… it’s not Paul’s, it’s not yours, it’s not mine. The household belongs to God and you and I are called to serve in it and bear witness to the living Word of the Gospel made known to us in Jesus Christ. Citizens of the household of God!
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Ephesians 4:25-32
David A. Davis
October 9, 2016
“Now to the one who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” That’s where we finished last week at the end of Ephesians chapter 3. The Apostle Paul’s ascription of praise that concludes his prayer that the faithful in Ephesus would know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. Chapter 4 of Ephesians marks a shift, for Paul, from doctrine to the practicalities that flow from “God’s good pleasure that God set forth in Christ” and the implications that arise since “God has put all things under his feet and has made Christ the head over all things for the church, which is Christ’s body, the fullness of him who fills all in all”, and the exhortations that surely come since “by grace you have been saved through faith”. Similar to other epistles, Paul does a half time turn toward the specifics of living in Christ and life in the body of Christ and being faithful in the world. In the case of Ephesians, it’s the Christian life in light of how “in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” and “He is our peace” and how “in him the whole structure is joined together and grows in a holy temple in the Lord.” Ephesians chapter 4, it is Paul’s unpacking of what it means, what difference it makes, why it matters, the mystery of God’s plan, the mystery hidden for ages in God, now made known in the “boundless riches of Christ”
The shift for Paul in Ephesians comes with a few “therefores” and “so thens”. “Therefore…lead a life worthy of the calling…bearing with one another in love…maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” With the “therefore” comes Paul on the gifts of the Spirit “to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.” With the “therefore” comes Paul exhorting the believers in Ephesus to put away the former way of life, the old self, writing to them about being “renewed in the spirit of your minds” and clothing “yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
“Created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”; which brings us to the reading for this morning. The reading begins with a “so then”.
Ephesians 4:25-31
Put away all falsehood…do not let the sun go down on your anger…have something to share with the needy…Let no evil talk come out of your mouths…give grace to those who hear…do not grieve the Holy Spirit…Put away from you all bitterness,,,,be kind to one another, tenderhearted… So then, therefore, so then…
Earlier in Ephesians, the second chapter…”For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life”… “So then…let us speak the truth to our neighbors for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin…thieves must give up stealing…Let no evil talk come out of your mouth but only what is useful for building up…Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.” So…then…
Writers point out how Paul balances the vice and virtue through these verses. More than just offering the do’s and don’t(s) in separate lists like the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, here Paul offers a balance, a point/counterpoint, a sort of rhythm for the reader. That when the believer sheds the former way and puts on the clothes of the new self falsehood is exchanged for truth, unbridled anger turns to reconciliation, stealing turns into the sharing of what you earn with those in need, the most vulgar of language becomes a word that gives grace, and bitterness, wrangling, wrath; they are replaced by the kindness of a tender heart.
“so then”, Paul writes, it ought to look like this; your life it should look something like this.
The columnist Cal Thomas wrote an article this week prior to the vice-presidential debate in which he suggests that candidates ought to be challenged to answer when the policies they uphold conflict with the faith they espouse. “Why does this matter?” Thomas writes, “If candidates for high office claim inspiration, even instruction, from an Authority higher than themselves, they should be asked about it. If they deviate from their faith’s teachings, they should be required to explain.” Of course as a person with his own perspective and theological convictions, Thomas goes on in the article to point out which positions and which candidate should be challenged. His focus was on marriage and abortion. He concludes his short essay with this: “These issues of faith and public policy should be raised during the one vice presidential debate Tuesday night.”
In studying our passage from Ephesians 4 Monday and Tuesday morning and trying to watch the Vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, an even more fundamental question arises about faith and politics. It is one of faith and rhetoric. Maybe the way people talk to each other and about each other and over each other isn’t exactly a matter of public policy, but it is a matter of Christian faith. If Ephesians 4:25-32, part of Paul’s so then and so what, offers a glimpse of what the Christian life in relation to others ought to look like, it is pretty clear that the vice-presidential debate and the current American presidential political process is not…that. Here’s where students of presidential elections and historians may want to point out that politics has never been for the faint of heart and all’s fair in politics and there are instances in the nation’s past when the discourse was worse. That may be true and may for some make it right. But it doesn’t make it faithful to the Christian life or consistent with what signifies the gospel of Jesus Christ. The vulgarity in the news at the end of this week only heightens the point and fuels the temptation in me to just read this passage from Ephesians and sit down. But I cannot go on lamenting the state and content of the loudest Christian voices out there and the consistent silence of preachers like me if I am not willing to stand before you and proclaim the “so then” of Paul’s thought; a Pauline-like holiness that ought to inspire all of us to live more faithfully and speak more lovingly and work for higher expectations when it comes to the common good. A call for an election season holiness that starts deep within you. That starts with “we are what God made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life”… “so then…let your words give grace to those who hear…Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Because, of course, before it is about presidential candidates or presidential politics or campaign rhetoric or some outspoken figure who claims to speak for all of Christendom, it is about you and me. It is not just be kind, be tenderhearted, be forgiving because God in Christ has forgiven you. If it’s a conditional or dependent equation, that we will go forth to forgive because we have been forgiven by God, the polling numbers for forgiveness are in deep trouble. Even as forgiven people, we’re not that good. We’re still human. God’s forgiveness is a daily thing, an ongoing thing, a once and future thing. By the grace of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s forgiveness is a present reality. God’s forgiveness has life, gives life. God’s forgiveness is a relationship. That’s the kind of forgiveness, the kind of washing, the kind of life in Christ we celebrate in baptism. The life-giving, Spirit-breathing, every moment presence of Christ in our lives to pour out grace upon grace upon grace.
Forgiving as God in Christ has forgiven you. Forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Forgiving not just because God forgave you in Christ. Forgiving because the only way to forgive and to be tenderhearted and to be kind is through Christ who is at work in you. It’s more than a poetic balance at work here in the rhythm of Ephesians 4. The trajectory of Paul’s thoughts points to Christ at work in us. It’s falsehood turned to truth, anger turned reconciling, stealing turned into the care of the needy, evil words turned into grace, and a hardness of heart made tender all as God in Christ has forgiven us. All as God in Christ is at work in us. All because of Christ within us. Live more faithfully, speak more lovingly, work for higher expectations when it comes to the common good for Christ has forgiven you. Christ is at work in you. Christ is present in you.
As I worked with this text from Ephesians all week it wasn’t just the presidential election news that was oh so relevant. Between you and me, I had a frustrating morning at the pharmacy counter the other day. These verses grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go…there. You and I are constantly reminded that we can’t do it, we can’t do this without the promise of God, without the presence of Christ, without that phrase from Paul etched somewhere in your heart…”As God in Christ has forgiven you.” I am a 54 year white man from the suburbs of Pittsburgh who pretty much defines privilege, power, and opportunity. I can’t get to where God wants me to be on racial reconciliation and racial understanding without the promise of God at work in me. I can’t get to where God wants me to be when it comes to understanding and speaking out and rising up against the culture of sexual assault on campuses far and wide without the promise of God at work in me. I can’t get to where God wants me to be when it comes to wrapping my head around the statistics of the prison industry and the realities of an unjust justice system and looking into the eyes of the exonerated of Centurion Ministries who were wrongly imprisoned for decades, I can’t get there without the promise of God at work in me. I don’t know about you, but I can’t be the father and the husband and the pastor and the man and the Christian God calls me to be without the promise of God at work in me. I’m just not that good and neither are you.
By grace you have been saved…so then
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
As God in Christ has forgiven you.
As God is at work in you.
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Ephesians 3:14-20
David A. Davis
October 2, 2016
World Communion Sunday
Every family. Every family in heaven and on earth. This prayer from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians ought to be a prayer for every family, every day. As memorized, as deep within, as the Lord’s Prayer. As routine as the night-time prayers offered at a child’s bedside. As common as a table grace passed on from generation to generation. That according to the lavishness of God’s glory, God would once again give you, give me, give us, give all, a sense of strength and comfort and peace and purpose deep within, a kind of assurance deep inside that only comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. That Christ may continue to fill our hearts, to live in our hearts, to make a home within our hearts through the faith God gives us so that you and I, that all would be, would still be, would continue to be rooted and grounded in love, the very love of Jesus, the love of God.
It really should be a once-a-day kind of prayer. At least once a day. A prayer we offer for one another, for ourselves, for all of God’s people. That we might have the power, the means, the bandwidth to comprehend with all of the children of God what is the breath and length and height and depth, that we might have some inkling of what reaches from the east to the west and from the north to the south, that we might have some glimpse of that which is so invisible, that we might have some sense of the weight that is beyond measure… that somehow we might taste and see that the Lord is good. Every day.
And to know the love of Christ. To know the love of Christ. Not just to know it. You just can’t know love. You have to feel it. You have to live it. Love is so much more than something to understand, something to figure out, something to explain, something to rationalize. Love is so much more than a head game. And the love of Christ surpasses all knowledge. It surpasses all knowledge but for goodness sake, for God’s sake, the love of Christ better have everything to do with what we think, with what we know, what we conclude, what we decide, what we teach our children, how we live, how we act, how we vote. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all your mind. There is no either/or here. To know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. To know something that surpasses all knowledge. To know… love. It’s not an oxymoron; it’s a prayer. It’s not a paradox. It’s a daily prayer. It’s not a contrast. It’s a longing. To know the love of Christ. So that you, you and I, so that all might be filled with all the fullness of God, which is to be filled with the love of Christ himself, which is to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge. Every day.
It’s everyday prayer and everyday praise. To God be the glory. To God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus. To God be the glory in all generations, in every family in heaven and on earth. To God be the glory. All day long. All day long. This oh so glorious God has a power at work within us to do, to accomplish, so much more, so abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine. God can do more in us than we can even dream about. God can do more than we even know to ask. The fullness of God so fills us. The love of Christ so overwhelms us. The piercing light of Christ so shines on us. The matchless grace of God so washes over us, that God can use us, work with us, transform us in ways we can’t even begin to imagine. It’s not just prayer. It’s not just praise. It’s promise. God’s promise. Not just promise but expectation. That according to the riches of God’s glory that God is at work within us to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. Prayer. Praise. Promise.
As I led worship in the congregations I served in Scotland this summer, I kept stumbling over the Lord’s Prayer. It took me a few weeks to realize why and how my cadence of leading the prayer was out of sync with the congregation. It was the phrase “thy will be done… on earth as it is in heaven.” When I say the Lord’s Prayer (when we say it), the comma comes after “thy will be done”; thy will be done… on earth as it is in heaven.” Folks in the Church of Scotland place the comma, take the breath, say the prayer a bit differently at that point. They say “thy will be done on earth… as it is in heaven.” “Thy will be done on earth,” not “on earth as it is in heaven” but “thy will be done on earth… as it is in heaven.” Because I kept messing up the prayer, I decided one Sunday to just listen. That change in the cadence, the change in the comma, offers a kind of shift in perspective. “Thy will be done on earth.” “The will be done on earth.” It bears some urgency, some expectation, some immediacy. A sense of right now. A timeliness. That God has the power to work within us, beyond us, despite us, to accomplish abundantly far more than we can even ask of imagine. Now.
Paul’s prayer here in the middle of Ephesians. It has a timeliness for the day-to-day of life right now. That no family, no lineage, no people, no race, no one is beyond the reach of the love of God. That God’s immutable glory, so distant, so awesome, still manifests itself when hearts are full of love. That there is a breadth and a length and a height and a depth to the presence of God that stretches to the world’s farthest corner and illumines life’s darkest spot and breaks down death’s door. That the love Christ offers comes with such a fullness that hearts and souls and minds can be inspired and sparked and changed and guided and protected and calmed; all in service to bringing about the kingdom God intends even when the mind-numbing, heart-hardening, and soul-sucking powers and principalities of this world rage. That the children of God can dare to believe in and work for God’s will being done on earth… as it is in heaven because God is able to accomplish more abundantly than we can ask or imagine… that God can bring a peace in Syria that we can’t imagine, that God can bring a racial harmony to a divided nation greater than we even ask for, that God can see to a prosperity for all people that doesn’t even cross our minds, that God can infuse our public discourse with a dignity, respect, and love we long since gave up on… by the power at work within us, God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. It absolutely has to be an everyday prayer with the exclamation point of praise in response to God’s promise. To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
I was in New York City this week for a denominational meeting. Both our children live in the city now so I was able to take them out to dinner on Wednesday night. In planning for the evening I made a tactical error, a significant parental misstep. I texted Hannah and Ben and said, “Why don’t we go to a place you wouldn’t ordinarily go.” Turns out I maybe should have been more specific or offered a few more parameters. Actually I’m joking a bit. A night out with your grown children, that’s actually priceless. But I did text that. “Let’s go somewhere you wouldn’t ordinarily go.”
A dinner that’s not the norm. A table that’s not ordinary. A meal that is set apart. There is absolutely nothing ordinary about this table, this meal. A table of prayer, praise, and promise. Yes ordinary bread, ordinary juice. What’s extraordinary is the gift God offers us in Christ Jesus. What’s extraordinary is the invitation for us to bask in his self-emptying love. What’s extraordinary is how Christ promises to be present here. What’s extraordinary is our chance to praise and worship here at the table of doxology. What’s extraordinary is that in the mystery and mercy of God, here at this Table you and I are invited to eat and drink as an act of thanksgiving to the God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and ever.
This meal, this feast, this dinner, your place at the Table, it is an “amen” for us who are being rooted and grounded in Christ’s love.
Come to the Table and this morning let your life say, “amen.”
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Genesis 26:17-25, 32-33-22
Stephen Heinzel-Nelson
September 25, 2016
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Ephesians 2:1-22
David A. Davis
September 18, 2016
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” It’s a difficult piece of scripture to read out loud. It’s a long sentence. The sentence actually continues one more verse: “so that in in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus… But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The length isn’t the tough part; it’s that abrupt insertion, that phrase that interrupts the grammar, that affirmation that Paul seems to blurt out in the text. How are you supposed to vocalize that?
By grace you have been saved. Stuck right in there in the middle of that long sentence. It’s not just awkward to read out lout, it’s kind of awkward period. Clunky, jarring. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The New Revised Standard Version that I read to you uses punctuation marks for assistance to the reader. A dash before and after to set the phrase apart. Other translations use parentheses. One breaks up the long sentence, uses an exclamation point, and makes it an imperative: You have been saved by God’s grace! One of my living, breathing sources down the street assures me that that grammar in Greek doesn’t make it any easier. While it doesn’t seem to be the case that some later author or scribe came along and inserted the phrase or transcribed it in the wrong place, it is nonetheless abrupt in the Greek text as well. In fact the Greek has the dashes as well. By grace you have been saved (with a yell). By grace you have been saved (with a whisper). By grace you have been saved (slowly).
Think how a composer, a playwright, a novelist, a poet may tag or foreshadow something important early in a piece of work. An image is casually introduced only to become fraught with meaning as the play moves on, the narrative develops, the poem peaks. The cellos play just a few bars that stand out early but that tune comes back to dominate the melody and moves through the orchestra the rest of the way. Perhaps what we have here in Ephesians is Paul’s offering of a theological foreshadowing. It’s a tag, a teaser for what comes more beautifully, and a whole lot smoother, a verse later: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… It’s just that there’s nothing all that subtle or artful about how Paul introduces it here in Ephesians 2. By grace you have been saved.
Imagine the father who takes his child along on a shopping trip to prepare for mom’s birthday. Cards, a cake, some presents from both husband and daughter. On the way home they talk about keeping the secret until the birthday dinner the next day when Grandma was coming over. That excited four-year-old doesn’t get two steps into the house before she shouts out, “Mommy, mommy we got you a watch for your birthday!” Excitement can be better than surprise. Maybe the Apostle Paul just couldn’t hold back when it came to that theological exclamation that rests at the core of the gospel. By grace you have been saved.
Or think of two falling in love. It’s one of those “O.R. conversations,” as in “our relationship.” Amid the back and forth and circling around and attempts to clarify feelings and stomach knots and butterflies in the heart, one of the two says it, kinds of sneaks it in, less like a blurting out, more like air squeaking out of a balloon: “I, I love you.” Maybe Paul was searching for the right phrase, stumbling for the right way to say it, trying to describe all that God has done for us in Christ. By grace you have been saved. Yes, yes, I said. That’s right. So he comes back to it with confidence. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
Paul drops it in here in the middle of that thought, that long sentence about the great love with which God loved us. But he could have interrupted a whole lot of other places too. God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made Christ the head of over all things for the church — by grace you have been saved — which is body, the fullness of him who fills all in all… But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ — by grace you have been saved… For Christ is our peace… In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord — by grace you have been saved — in whom you also were built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. Maybe Paul was introducing the memorable phrase as a refrain of the faith, a rallying cry, a chant to pass on to your children. Like “USA, USA” or “JETS” or “Bruuuuce,” as in Bruce Springsteen. Passing that kind of stuff on to your kids. It’s just good parenting. “Saved by grace. Saved by grace. Saved by grace.” Of if your texting, “SBG”!
You remember that the Apostle Paul is the one who crafted the most complex and coherent of theological arguments in Romans. And the Apostle Paul is the one who created the beautiful ode to love in I Corinthians (though it had nothing to do with marriage). Paul made those list of spiritual gifts and the sins of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. And he so artfully describes his own struggle, and his own faith, and his own conversion. In the annals of New Testament criticism, scholars have debated whether Paul wrote Ephesians or whether it was one his followers. Here this morning the intrigue is much simpler. It’s about these awkward, dropped in, abrupt, urgent, parenthetical few words that ought to at least give us pause. By grace you have been saved.
Presbyterians have forever run their meetings and process discussions and decision-making by Robert’s Rules. When calling for the vote, the moderator says, “All in favor, please say, ‘Aye.’” It’s a simple way to offer an affirmation, to say yes. “Aye.” It’s a common answer in a crossword puzzle that links saying yes with Scottish, Celtic heritage. There’s nothing like several weeks on the Island of Islay in Scotland to change forever how you think, how you hear, how you experience a simple “aye.” To say that it is a common expression among those we talked to on Islay would be an understatement. To conclude that it is a synonym for “yes” is just not enough. It is “yes” and “excuse me” and “you bet” and “of course” and “what” and “awesome” and “dude” and “mate” and “I can help you” and “over here” and “please” and “thank you” all rolled into one. Whenever I was struggling to understand in a conversation after church or at the pub or in the checkout line, I always knew what someone meant when they said “aye”… even though it means so much and so many things. Maybe I’m all wrong but it seems like an expression that comes from a deeper place, deeper within, deeper in culture, deeper in context.
I was standing with the funeral director next to the open grave as the bap piper started to play. He had led us from the church up the hill to the cemetery as we followed the casket. Now the committal was finished and he was playing again as folks shared hugs and tears all around. He was a very young piper and close to the family. I learned later it was his first time playing at a funeral. As I watched and listened, I realized he was crying. He was playing the bagpipes through tears. I said to the funeral director in a soft voice, “Have you ever seen a piper cry like that?” He shook his head no, never took his eyes off the young man, never looked at me, and said, “Aye.” It was like he was saying “my, my, my” or “Lord have mercy.” Aye.
God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. An affirmation for Paul that wells up inside, comes from deeper, ignores the rules of grammar. Rather than blurting it out, or sneaking it in or dropping the mic, what if it’s more like a surprising groan, a kind of guttural affirmation about God’s love and mercy that comes from deep within, one of those expressions that leaves the lips and someone says, “You know I can hear you, right?” By grace you have been saved. Kind of prayer-like. Aye.
Princeton, West Windsor, Montgomery, Bucks County, the University, the Seminary. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but you and I live in communities where there is no shortage of opinion about pretty much everything. When we first moved to Princeton, I coached Little League with a guy who told me “Princeton is a town where people have lots of opinions and the time and inclination to express them.” Most of us, if we’re honest, fit right in. And we could all benefit from a rule-breaking, grammar-shaking reminder that it is only by God’s grace, that it is nothing other than God’s grace, that without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.
It’s not only the new students around here that bask in the glow of an admissions office stamp of approval. Every one of us walks the campus of our lives trying to be smart enough, rich enough, connected enough, fit enough, hip enough, liberal enough, conservative enough, organic enough. We could all benefit from an abrupt, guttural reminder that it is only by God’s grace, that it is nothing other than God’s grace, that without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.
An urgent, interrupting, intrusive, disturbing, awkward groan that attests to God’s mercy and love for you. You don’t have to understand it, or figure it out, or explain it. You don’t have to be right, or particularly pious, or sign on the dotted line of beliefs A to Z. For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. You and I, living to God’ glory. And it is only by God’s grace, it is nothing other than God’s grace, without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Ephesians 1:15-23
David A. Davis
September 11, 2016
September 11, 2001, was a Tuesday. That first Sunday after, September 16, of course we were in here for worship. I wrote about that remarkable Lord’s Day worship years ago and I described it like this: “It looked like Easter morning at the church that Sunday. There were no extra flowers but the pews were packed. People went looking for a church that morning. It was like Easter without the trumpets. Joy was nowhere to be found. The events of the Tuesday before turned that Lord’s Day into something like the dark side of Easter, not quite the antithesis of Easter. But it was Good Friday content with Easter Sunday crowds.” People weren’t just looking for a church, they were searching for some comfort, looking for a place to weep, trying to make some sense, find some sense where there was none to be found. Nobody came for answers, they came to pray, to be together, to remember, to try to sing, and to be anointed within by the very tears of God. September 16, 2001, we came here searching with our hearts, looking with our hearts, the eyes of our hearts.
So when the Apostle Paul gifts the reader of Ephesians chapter one with the poetic image of “the eyes of the heart” — I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know God, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you – when Paul writes about “the eyes of your heart,” you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to grasp, to get, to sort of know deep down what it means — that your heart has eyes.
Ephesians 1:18 is the only time the expression appears in scripture. The eyes of your heart. For some the notion of a heart with eyes, that wisdom and revelation and enlightening would be a matter of the heart rather than the mind must be unsettling. The King James translates it “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” Another contemporary translation puts it like this, “May God enlighten the eyes of your mind.” One New Testament scholar offers his own translation in his commentary: “May your spiritual eyesight be enlightened.” Spiritual eyesight? Really? You don’t have to know Greek to read opthalmous and cardias in the passage. It is the eyes of your heart. Eyes and heart. Perhaps Professor Clifton Black puts it best, “so that the eyes of your heart may light up.”
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know God, so that, as the eyes of your heart light up, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what are the riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us who believe, according to the working of God’s great power.” That you may know, with the eyes of your heart, God’s hope, God’s glory, God’s power. God put this power to work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. Paul’s just singing now. It’s a hymn here in Ephesians chapter 1. Just like Colossians — He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Just like Philippians — therefore God has highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. In the middle of the Apostle’s prayer for the faithful at Ephesus, in the middle of his pastor prayer, as he prays for their hearts to have eyes, he starts to sing the doxology.
And God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made Christ the head over all things for the church, which is Christ’s body, the fullness of Christ, who fills all in all. The last line in the hymn of praise. Christ’s feet, Christ’s head, Christ’s body. As one commentator puts it, Christ who is over the church is also in it and fills it. The fullness of God resides in him, and from him the Body of Christ is constantly supplied with and by Christ’s presence. As Professor Black puts its, “Christians [as the body of Christ] are conduits of Christ’s immeasurably redemptive power: the church is the very body of his fullness that fills all things with loving goodness.”
The church as Christ body bearing the fullness of his love to the world. Even as Paul breaks into song, his prayer for the body of Christ continues. Yes, it’s doxology but it’s also discipleship. His song, his prayer, is praise and it is praxis. Singing, praying, promising that the body of Christ would carry his fullness into the world. When the eyes of your heart light up with God’s hope, God’s glory, God’s power, according to Paul, as the follower of Christ so transformed by his fullness, how can you not turn and baptize the world with his grace and mercy. The fullness of him who fills all in all. Christ alone is head of the church and he also fills it. It is one thing to give up on trying to wrap your head around the world and its seemingly never-ending chaos, but with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you can still give a witness to the wonders of his love, you can still pass forward the selflessness of his compassion, you can still bear his light every day in your corner of life. It’s the discipleship in doxology, knowing that when it comes to God’s hope, God’s glory, God’s power, and the very fullness of Christ, you and I actually have a part to play.
Just this week I was taking my dog out for a walk on what was yet another sweltering early evening. I ran into one of our next-door neighbors. I hadn’t seen him since we had returned after being out of the country for two months. It was clear right away he didn’t know we had been gone. After I told him, he said, “So you have missed this unbearable summer.” I thought he was talking about current events, the news, all that has been going on since I have been away from you. He was actually talking about the weather, the heat, the humidity. When the confusion became clear to both of us, he responded with a wave of his hand and a wipe of his brow, “Ah, the news, we will always have the news,” he sighed. His was a tone of resignation, even detachment. Maybe that was his only means of coping with the sweltering tensions and the tragic grief and the terror unleashed and the disheartening partisanship of the summer of 2016. At some point this summer I imagined standing before you on this morning and making a lighthearted reference about “not much going on while I was away.” The problem, of course, is that there is absolutely nothing lighthearted about it, about any of it.
Some will know that one of Nassau’s members, Dave Kershner, was in charge of the development of the One World Observatory that now stands at the top of One World Trade Center. The exhibit begins in the lobby of that skyscraper as you pass through video presentations of those who built the new building and you see displays of the rock foundation upon which the structure was built. In the moving voices and tears of architects and iron-workers and carpenters, a visitor can’t miss the symbolism of strength, determination, honor, spirit, hope, and life rising out of despair and death, one person, one heart, one voice, one life at a time. Of the many, many things the fifteenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, means for us, and for families that still grieve, and for this nation, and for the world, maybe one piece is that today can also serve to lend a perspective to the oppressive summer of 2016, that from a firm foundation new understandings can arise and that hope can still rise out of despair and that unity among our leaders doesn’t have to be lost forever.
When I think back to this summer of reading the news and being so far away from you, it wasn’t the preaching that I missed. I preached the whole month of July in Scotland. Honestly, some of those other Sundays I was quite relieved to not have to stand up here and offer a gospel word. “Ah, the news, we will always have the news.” For the Christian, that resignation, that detachment, that defeatism in the face of the world’s darkness isn’t really an option… Because of the fullness of Christ and his promise that our hearts would see his light, that the darkness shall never overcome that light, that our hearts would see our salvation, which God has prepared in the presence of all people, that our hearts would see the very face of Jesus in hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, that our hearts would see what the Apostle Paul called “a more excellent way”.
What I missed this summer was you and I putting our hearts together, searching, looking, with the eyes of our hearts. Because God has promised us that Christ is here above us, here with us, here within us, in all of his fullness. And that we, the Body of Christ, shall always be anointed, comforted, fed, and sent by that same fullness. That the eyes of our hearts will light up with God’s hope, God’s glory, God’s power. It’s not just that God has promised us; it’s that we’ve experienced it. Over and over again. Right here, when we are together, in worship, in this place.
One Sunday after worship in one of the congregations I served this summer, a big burly man came up to me. He had a wonderful flow of white hair, a beard, and this weather-worn red face. He had to be either a sea captain or Santa Claus. He took both my hands in his and as he thanked me for the service, for the sermon, he said, “Now could you please just talk slower and use less words. You’re American, you know.” Then he got teary and with his voice breaking, he said, “There’s just so much there, you have to give us time to take it all in.” He wasn’t talking just about the sermon, of course. He was talking about the gospel. He was talking about God’s grace. He was talking about the fullness of Christ. God’s hope. God’s glory. God’s power. And one man’s yearning for the eyes of his heart to light up again and again and again.
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Lauren J. McFeaters
September 4, 2016
Freedom comes in many shapes and sizes. Madeleine L’Engle tells an old legend about Judas, that after his death, Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit.
For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent, he looked up, and saw, far into the distance, a tiny glimmer of light.
After a time, he began to climb up toward the light. The walls of the pit were dark and wet, and time and time again he kept slipping back down.
But finally, after great effort, he reached the top and as he dragged himself into a room; he saw it was an upper room; and he saw people, people he knew, people seated around a table.
And Jesus said to Judas,
“We’ve been waiting for you, Judas.”
“We couldn’t begin until you arrived.” (1)
Freedom in Christ sets us free.
For Judas, freedom came in the form of Love, a Love that liberated with forgiveness, lifted restraints, set at liberty a life, and gave him joy.
Today we travel to the Galatians: New Christians for whom Christ’s love has liberated with forgiveness, lifted restraints, set at liberty life, but who find no joy in their freedom.
Instead the Galatians are held captive by unending arguments about the law and food and circumcision – all outward skirmishes taking a lead over inward peace with Christ – all biting and devouring one another rather than living in the commandment they have yet to accept: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For Paul, whose Gospel message is the unbound and unrestrained life lived in our Lord, the Galatians’ fighting is the outward and visible sign of their ongoing captivity.(2)
Freedom comes in many shapes and sizes. Paul knows freedom in Christ. Perhaps more than most. He’s lost physical freedom many times. He says:
The wonder of Paul is his ability to find liberty in Christ in the midst of captivity.
Frederick Buechner puts it like this: There was hardly a whistle-stop in the Mediterranean world that Paul didn’t make it to eventually. He planted churches the way Johnny Appleseed planted trees. And whenever he had ten minutes to spare, he wrote letters.
He browbeat, coaxed, comforted, and cursed. He bared his soul. He ruminated and complained. He theologized and arbitrated. He inspired and gloried. And everything he said, wrote, did (from the Damascus Road on) was an attempt to bowl over the human race as he’d been bowled over.(5) The day Paul found freedom in Christ was the day nothing became impossible.
And this is why he is so distraught over his beloved Galatian Church. They’ve taken the gift of salvation and turned it into a reason for self-indulgence and immaturity. For freedom Christ has set us free, yet we, insist on our own way.
It’s obvious what happens to our lives when we try to get our own way all the time; when our wills run riot, and our pleasure-seeking knows no bounds. Without living in Christ and through Christ, our days turn into one big roulette wheel of “Choose Your Fortune!” Paul lays it out for us – what we become without freedom leading the way:
How about our:
But freedom comes in many shapes and sizes. What happens when we set aside our burdens and live as those set free? Why God grants such calm and simplicity, such serenity, much the same way fruit appears on a tree. Amazing things happen, in the blink of an eye we grow up and mature. We gain:
You see, for those who belong to Christ, there’s not one detail of life that he will not set free so that we might belong to God body and soul. Living our days in that kind of freedom is like:
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“And we couldn’t begin until you arrived.”(8)
1. Madeleine L’Engle as cited by James T. Moor. A Place of Welcome. Luke 7:36-50. Day1, A division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, Georgia, June 17, 2007.
2. J. William Harkins. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 3. Eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, 186.
3. 2 Corinthians 11:24-27.
4. 2 Corinthians 12:7.
5. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.
6. Galatians 5: 19-21 adapted from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993.
7. Galatians 5: 22-25 adapted from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993.
8. Madeleine L’Engle as cited by James T. Moor. A Place of Welcome. Luke 7:36-50. Day1, A division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, Georgia, June 17, 2007.
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.
Galatians 1-11
Lauren J. McFeaters
August 28, 2016
Having read to you from Paul’s Letter I’d say that was a very calm and steady reading. I interpreted it for your hearing. I read it for meaning. I used evocative pauses and expressive pacing. It’s how I’ve been trained in the art of Oral Interpretation. My teaching degree is in Oral Interpretation. My acting background is in classical stage and voice. The scripture was read for you in the way I have been taught and in the way I uphold.
However. However. There is a more fitting way to begin Paul’s Letter; a more suitable way and it goes like this:
Paul, and my companions in faith here,
send greetings to the Galatian churches.
My authority for writing to you does not come from any popular vote of the people, nor does it come through the appointment of some human higher-up.
It comes directly from Jesus the Messiah
and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
Glory to God forever!
[Huge gulp of air…]
Now! I can’t believe your fickleness—
how easily you have turned traitor by believing some idiots who say you need to become Jews to be Christian. Males do not need to be circumcised;
no one need keep kosher,
or follow the Laws of Moses
to belong to the family of Jesus.
You pervert the Gospel!
I am so enraged!
Flummoxed – twisted in my gut –
that you are forsaking the grace of Christ!
If even one of us — regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you originally received let them be cursed and go straight to hell. [1]
Whew. Welcome to Sunday.
Paul’s sound and the fury is a tsunami of Biblical proportions. Can’t you see him in some far off region; perhaps from prison feverishly pacing with a fist in the air? He doesn’t stop for the niceties, or blessings. There’s no “Peace be with you,” or, “O how I love you Galatians!” “How I give thanks for you!” He doesn’t give thanks. He’s infuriated because news has reached him that the Galatians have succumbed to an exclusive gospel – meant only for those who follow Moses. [2][3]
The man is a tidal wave of vehemence. And I love him for that because sometimes we need to be shocked and shaken out of our Greeting-Card faith; our soft-indulgent faith; our cheap-grace faith, our passive faith; and plopped back into the faith of the tumult and whirlwind where Christ crucified is not a reward to be earned, but a gift given. For Paul, all authority in heaven and on earth has never been in the hands of a group of people. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to God.
Before I was a pastor, I was a pastoral counselor, and I served at a counseling center here in Princeton called the Northeast Career and Pastoral Counseling Center. This Counseling Center was founded by our General Assembly in 1965 as a place for people, often clergy, seminarians, and church folks to go and do the work of vocational discernment and psychological assessment.
Through a series of evaluations, assessments, and conversations, we guided people to evaluate their work and life and to ask the central questions: Who is God calling you to be? Where is God calling you to serve?
It’s really meaningful work to take stock of your life and to prayerfully discern what’s coming next. Everyone should have a chance to do this. It’s not easy. It takes willingness, honesty, and risk to lay our lives before God, and to change the things that keep us from maturing in Christ.
What I found, and I include myself, is the number one thing that that holds people back from full maturity in Christ is having issues with authority. And what I mean is:
The Galatians have issues with authority and so do we. For an ancient church it’s new teachers who’ve swept in after Paul to begin scorning his authority.
Scott Hoezee puts it this way: Galatians you are Gentiles, not Jews, and Paul’s authority in saying ‘salvation is by grace alone’ should be abandoned. Grace, these new teachers claim, gets you a good ways down Salvation Road, but if you really want to be saved, you have to do a lot of other stuff yourself to get across the Finish Line. Get circumcised, keep kosher, watch your step, and follow the rules. No doubt about it: Jesus got the salvation ball rolling but you have to keep it rolling yourselves. Jesus did his best and as to the rest… that’s up to you.
Well, Paul will have none of it. The Salvation Road is life and death so he curses and damns those who are pedaling this false message that humans have anything whatsoever to do with their own salvation.
He says that if he wanted to be a people-pleaser, he’d preach a message like that too. No one likes to be told they are totally helpless, completely lost, and disobedient. No one wants to feel inadequate and upset. That’s off-putting. That offends. Someone might get anxious. Far better to tell people “Well now don’t change a thing. You’ve gotten this far on your own. Total self-reliance is a virtue and God loves virtue, so go ahead and make your own rules. Be obedient to yourself and by your own authority.”
But for Paul, when we rely on our own way, the effects on our lives are beyond devastating. You know what I mean:
Paul’s level of flummox (twisted from the gut) and rage at the corrupting of the Gospel is an instructive thing for us; especially in a country where we are regarded as successful and morally intact when we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and need no assistance.
We want to believe in ourselves and be proud and optimistic and embody a can-do spirit of opportunity and achievement.
The harm, Paul believes is fatal. And if there is anything to Paul’s warnings about being cursed if we water down the centrality of Christ’s cross, then those of us in the pews have more than a little cause to sit up straight,[4] offer our obedience, and come to terms with the One:
Thanks be to God.
[1] Adapted from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993.
[2] Margaret Whyte. “Sermon: Galatians 1.” www.churchofscotland.org, June 2013.
[3] Jaime Clark-Soles. “Commentary on Galatians 1.” Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, workingpreacher.org, June 2010.
[4] Scott Hoezee. “Galatians 1:1-12, Proper 4C.” www.calvinseminary.edu, May 23, 2016
© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.