Birth of the Church: Being Radical

Last week, we heard about a conflict in the church in Antioch - a division between Jewish and Gentile Christians - that was resolved through listening and compromise at the first ecumenical council in Jerusalem.

As we near the end of the Narrative Lectionary year, we will be spending this last three weeks in Galatians - Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia, including the church in Antioch. This letter provides us with a view of Paul’s perspective of the disagreement we first heard about last week. This letter is also central to our Christian faith and our understanding of the doctrine of justification. It is also a letter that is often called the Magna Carta on Christian freedom. 

So, this morning, we read in Galatians, chapters 1 and 2.

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. --Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21 (NRSV)

Have you ever struggled with playing it safe instead of being radical? 

A few years ago in my former church in Pasadena, we experienced this. For several years, we had professed and believed that we were a hospitable congregation, welcoming all people. And, for the most part, we were.

Yet, we had a problem with the homeless population in our neighborhood. They liked to camp out overnight on the church property. Usually, though, if we gave them a little cash or let them use the phone or internet, or allowed them to stay overnight, well, eventually, they would move on. 

But, then, Monica and Vern arrived. (I’ve changed their names.) They lived in a beat up, broken-down van - a van they parked at the edge of our parking lot. Figuring they would move on as so many others had, we were polite. And helpful. And hopeful that they would eventually leave.

But, they didn’t leave. In fact, they started to push themselves into our congregation. When we opened up on Sunday morning, Vern was right there to help set up tables for morning fellowship. Both of them began coming to Sunday morning Bible study. Monica asked if she could sing in the choir. And on and on. They just continued to push their way in the
congregation.

Now mind you, most congregations would be thrilled with newcomers like this. How often do we proclaim our openness to visitors and our desire for them to become a part of us? How thrilled we would be if newcomers wanted to immediately become so involved!

To be truthful, we weren’t really all that thrilled. We weren’t thrilled because Monica and Vern were so different from us. For one thing, they were homeless. For another, well, they didn’t have regular access to showers. And so, sometimes, they smelled a little. Sometimes, they smelled a lot. They didn’t always say or do the “right” things. They didn’t fit into our norm. Into our small-minded, closed-hearted norm of what our church should look like.

And so, we struggled with being radical people. With being followers of a radical Gospel that teaches us that each one of us is enough and is good enough. That God has done it all for us and for every person. That there is nothing - nothing - we need do to be made righteous. That all of us, whether Jew or Gentile, whether white or black, whether gay or straight, whether binary or non-binary, all of us are made righteous before God through Christ Jesus. That is radical.

But, that’s not all. For too long we have used language that has rejected the validity of the covenant of God with the Jewish people. Parts of this letter, written by Paul, were used in the mid-20th century as a basis to extinguish the lives of millions of people. Even Luther, in his writings, used this part of Galatians to malign the Jews.  Because in large part, we have misconstrued what Paul is saying here. 

After decades of scholarship, it is now generally recognized that first-century Jews didn’t actually think that their “right status” with God came from keeping the Torah. Instead, like us, they believed they were saved solely by God’s grace. But, they also believed that their saved status was demonstrated by their obedience to the Torah, practices that marked them as God’s people, that set them apart. 

So, when Paul writes in chapter 2 that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith, this is not a diatribe against Judaism and the keeping of the Torah. Paul was a Jew, who kept the Torah religiously. Instead, if we look in the first chapter of Galatians, verse 16, we have a clue. Here Paul notes that Jesus was revealed to be God’s Son so that he might “proclaim him among the Gentiles.” Woven into the letter to the Galatians is a key idea - that the ancient promise of God - the covenant with Abraham to bless all the families of the world through his people - is now being fulfilled by the Messiah, Jesus. Christianity is not superior to Judaism. Rather, as one theologian puts it, “Christianity exists as the gracious fulfillment of the already gracious Judaism. It is the climax of the covenant, fulfilled in Jesus, through whom, as John writes, we have received grace upon grace upon grace. The holy Scripture tells this story - of how God’s past, present and future grace goes forth from Israel to the world through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

So, when Paul opposes Peter to his face, it’s not because Peter was a legalist, attempting to earn his way into heaven. Instead, Paul is saying Peter was acting hypocritically by leading others in a way that was out of step, even contrary, to the multi-ethnic, cross-cultural, radical nature of the gospel. By refusing to eat with Gentile Christians when a faction of Jewish Christians arrived in Antioch, Peter was essentially saying that there were two classes of Christians, divided by ethnic lines. And that to be a “real” Christian, one must live according to the markers of the Torah. But, Paul was having none of that. Because Paul’s idea of justification by faith in this letter is not an individual act of inclusion, but a communal act of inclusion - bringing the non-Jews into the sect of Jesus believers. It answers the question of who’s in and who’s not. For Paul, because of the radical faithfulness of Christ, nobody is out. Everybody is in. 

Monica and Vern eventually became a beloved part of our Pasadena church. Members. We learned to live into being the radical people of love that the Gospel called us to be. And, when they decided to move on, nearly two years later, we were heartbroken to see them go. 

This is what it means to be radical people of a radical Gospel, whether we are from Galatia or Pasadena, from Goshen or Louisville. To be people reaching out by grace to grab for dear life onto the perfect divine life of Jesus Christ, given for us. To be a new creation, given a new status. Included. Transformed by grace. To love. Deeply. According to the will of our God and Father. 

To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Preached May 9, 2021, online with Grace & Glory Lutheran/Goshen, KY, and Third Lutheran/Louisville, KY.

Easter 6

Readings: Galatians 1:13-17, 2:11-21; Luke 18:9-14

A Drink of Water

Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was making more disciples and baptizing more than John (although Jesus’ disciples were baptizing, not Jesus himself). Therefore, he left Judea and went back to Galilee.

Jesus had to go through Samaria. He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.

The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)

Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”

Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”

The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”

“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”

The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”

The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”

Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”

Just then, Jesus’ disciples arrived and were shocked that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done! Could this man be the Christ?” They left the city and were on their way to see Jesus.

In the meantime the disciples spoke to Jesus, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

The disciples asked each other, “Has someone brought him food?”

Jesus said to them, “I am fed by doing the will of the one who sent me and by completing his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then it’s time for harvest’? Look, I tell you: open your eyes and notice that the fields are already ripe for the harvest. Those who harvest are receiving their pay and gathering fruit for eternal life so that those who sow and those who harvest can celebrate together. This is a true saying, that one sows and another harvests. I have sent you to harvest what you didn’t work hard for; others worked hard, and you will share in their hard work.”

Many Samaritans in that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word when she testified, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is truly the savior of the world.” (John 4:1-42, CEB)

Water. A drink of water. That’s how it all started. A drink of water. That’s it. One simple request for a drink of water. That’s how my life changed in a moment.

Has that ever happened to you? One day, as you’re going along and everything, finally, seems like it’s going well. And, then, something happens to change your life. Dramatically.

In the past, this has usually happened when my husband has announced that he’s divorcing me. This has happened to me five times. My existence as a woman in my world is precarious. My entire worth is wrapped around whether or not I can bear children. I’m unable to have children. Or, I’m barren, as they like to say. (I hate that word because it makes it sound as though I’m completely empty inside--like I am nothing because I can’t have a child.)  Five times my husbands have divorced me. Five times. 

As a single woman in my world, I am nothing. Even if I’d been widowed, I’d at least have some place in our society, some status. But, the fact that I’m female, divorced, and have no children, well that puts me at the bottom of our world. Abandoned property. Nothing. 

That day, the day my life changed, I had gone to the well to get water. I was there later than usual. I’d been busy doing things in my household. So, it was near midday and very hot when I finally got to the well, to Jacob’s Well. 

You remember that well, don’t you? It was the well where Jacob met Rachel. There’s a significance to this well and to all wells in my culture. It has traditionally been where we’ve been courted. A place where, especially as young girls collecting water, we’ve been able to meet men, potential suitors, future husbands. I’d met some of my husbands at a well.

That day, as I was preparing to draw water, a man came up to me at Jacob’s Well. By this time of day, most men would be working in the fields or tending animals. So, I didn’t expect to see any man there. And I certainly didn’t expect any man to speak to me, much less a Jew.

In my world this was not proper. A woman didn’t speak to a strange man. And a Samaritan woman, like I was, certainly never spoke to a Jewish man or the other way around. You see there was a long history between our people--the Israelites and the Samaritans. Even though we were both descended from Joseph, the Jews considered us half-breeds, below them. 

We had other differences, too. Perhaps, the biggest one was where to worship. The Jews insisted the only holy place to worship Yahweh was the temple in Jerusalem. We believed it was Mount Gerizim, the place where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac. 

So, when this man, this Jew, asked me, a Samaritan woman for a drink of water at the well, I was stunned. I probably should have gathered my bucket and run away. Instead, I spoke to him. I even surprised myself that I spoke to him. I asked him how he, a Jewish man, could ask me, a Samaritan woman, for something to drink. 

What he said back confused me. Living water? He said that if I recognized who was asking for water to drink that I would be asking for water. For living water. I was so confused. I asked him what he meant.

Then, he said something that was almost silly. He said that anyone who would drink the water from this well--from Jacob’s well--would be thirsty again. But that, if one would drink the water he gave--that living water--they would never thirst again. How ridiculous that was! To think that one would never again be thirsty. So, it was with some sarcasm that I said to him, “Give me some of that water. I never want to be thirsty again.”

He responded, telling me to go get my husband. I said I didn’t have one. I didn’t. I was not married to the man I was living with because we were unable to be married. Then, this man, this Jew, told me my own history--the history of my five husbands. And of my current situation. He knew who I was. And, then, I knew who he was.

He was a prophet. He had to be a prophet to know those things about me. So, then, I asked him a question about worship. About whether we, Samaritans, were right about where to worship. Or whether the Jews were right.

And, then, he told me about a future time. A time when we would not worship Yahweh on a mountain or in Jerusalem. But in spirit. In our hearts. In truth. That this time was coming near.

I thought he was talking about the promised Messiah. The one to come. The Christ. So, I said that to him--that when he, the Christ, comes, he will teach us everything. Everything we need to know.

Then, this man, this Jewish man, said, “I am.” 

I am. Do you remember those words? You know the Hebrew scriptures, don’t you? I am. Those were the words Yahweh said to Moses, when Moses asked who Yahweh was. I am.

“Could it be?” I thought. “Could it be that this man, this Jewish man, this prophet--could he be the Messiah? The Christ? Could it be?”

It was then that several men joined us. I know now they were his followers. I knew they were shocked that he was speaking to me. It was obvious on their faces. So, I put down my jar and I went back to my village. I thought that was the best thing to do. Besides, I wanted to tell others about this man I had met at the well, at our watering place. I wanted to tell them to come and see. That this man had told me everything that had happened in my life. That they needed to come and see--to see if this was the Christ, the promised One.

Many returned with me to the well. He and his followers were still there. So, we asked him to stay with us. To come with us back to our village. To tell us more. They did. They stayed with us two days.

And in that two days, we began to understand and to believe that this man was the Messiah. That he had come. To save us. To save all of us. The whole world.

A drink of water. That’s how it started. A drink of living water. From that moment on, I was no longer on the outside of society. None of us were. That’s what happens when we receive the living water that Christ gives us. 

You have that living water here. In your baptism. With the water and with God’s Word, you are no longer on the outside, no longer alone. You are welcomed into relationship. Into relationship with God. Into relationship with each other. Into relationship with all believers so that you might invite all others into relationship. All those who, like I was, were on that edge of the world, on the margin of society. All those who are different from us, those with whom we disagree, those whom we hate, those who we think are less than we are. All others.

God--Yahweh--welcomes all of us into relationship. Here. Through this living water of baptism.

So, drink. Drink. Drink of this living water. Be filled. May your thirst be quenched forever. May your life be changed as mine was changed. Amen.

Preached March 19, 2017 at Grace and Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Third Sunday in Lent.
Readings: Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:1-42.