BRAGGING RIGHTS
Scripture: Galatians 6:1-16
FOCUS: We are called to lives marked by humility, service and commitment to matters of the kingdom and ought to brag only on the wonderful grace of our loving Lord.
We live in a chest thumping society; just watch any professional sporting event. We are taught from an early age to be proud of our accomplishments. And there is nothing inherently wrong with taking pride in who we are and what we have accomplished, if we are who we ought to be, and if we have been about that which we ought to be about. But so often the chest thumping and the pride are not proper reflections of a sense of accomplishment, or satisfaction with a job well done, but are, rather symptoms of an unhealthy arrogance born of a misguided sense of self-importance.
Self-importance, pride, arrogance, bitterness, anger. On this Independence Day I fear that such emotions have become an ugly stain on the fabric of our national pride. Just watch the talking heads on cable TV, from both the left and the right. Just read the campaign materials of our candidates for public office. When was the last time you heard any of them say anything remotely positive about their opponents? But before we throw too many stones at those politicians, before we lay all the blame at the feet of the screaming cable anchors we need to step back and consider the truth that we are a large part of the problem. The politicians use dirty campaigns filled with half truths and outright lies because it gets them elected, by us! And the cable news guys scream and yell and engage in biased reporting because we the people watch, all day long!
Self-importance, pride, arrogance, bitterness and anger are certainly not new problems and are not unique to American culture. Paul was confronting just such destructive emotions in his letter to the Galatian churches. Over the past couple of weeks we have talked about how factions were cropping up among the faithful, of how people were choosing sides then tossing theological stones at each other, seeking to tear down those brothers and sisters, fellow members of the body of Christ with whom they had disagreements.
Paul was concerned about those on one extreme who called themselves the Judiazers, the legalists of the day who insissted that for one to become Christian one first had to become Jewish. Paul disagreed. Paul understood that Jesus came into the world so that the whole world might have access to eternal salvation and abundant life. That is why he was so quick to mkinimize the importance of circumcision. Paul was not against circumcision, in fact when he wrote to the church at Philippi to remind them of his credentials as a religious leader he spoke proudly of being circumcised on the eighth day. But the Judaizers were not focused on circumcision as a symbol of obedience, for them circumcision was simply one piece of a complex, legalistic moral structure, which conveniently offered them an excuse to exclude from the church those who were not their kind, those Gentiles whose lifestyle and ethnicity were not to their liking.
On the other extreme Paul had gotten word that there were those among the faithful in Galatia who had come to incorporate Gnosticism into their worship. The Gnostics were the radical libertarians of the day, folk who had adopted the attitude that once you became a part of the kingdom of God, once you “got saved”, that it really made little difference how you lived daily life, your ticket was punched and hence you had nothing to fear! Eat, drink and be merry! Do your own thing, grab for all the gusto you can, such would have been their mottos. Gnosticism was extremely attractive then, and without being given the name is still popular today. It is bread by prosperity theologians and is championed by those who have mistaken what Bonheoffer deemed “cheap grace” for the real thing.
Recently the Wesleyan Sunday School class completed a study by Adam Hamilton of the Church of the Resurrection entitled Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White. It was a challenging study which called on us to consider the fact that in most matters of faith as in most matter of life in general God’s truth generally lies somewhere between the two extremes to which folks tend to be drawn. Such was Paul’s attitude when it came to legalism and libertarianism. He recognized that having rules and moral codes is, for the most part, a really good thing as they help keep us focused on that which is right and good and just. Paul also understood that it is a wonderful thing to be gifted from God with free choice. But Paul further understood that true Godly living takes place at neither extreme. That is why he said, “Neither circumcision not uncircumsicion is anything.”
In the Message paraphrase we read, “Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do – submit to circumcision, reject circumcision, it is what God is doing, and God is creating something totally new, a free life.” In the New Revised Standard we read, “a new creation is everything.” We are called to become nothing less than new creations, new critters as we southern folk would say. As those who have chosen to follow Christ we must seek to put aside the ways of the world. We must seek to allow the Spirit of God to work in our lives that we might not ever grow weary in doing good, in seeking to so live that, in a spirit of gentleness, our lives benefit one another and all the children of God.
Transformation of any kind is not easy. And what the world needs is not just a minor change of course. What we need is no surface modification; rather we need what one leadership writer calls deep change. What the world needs, what the church needs, what you and I need is a radical transformation, from being those who are of the world into those who though in the world are of God’s kingdom, deep change from selfish souls who sow to our flesh into selfless spirits who sow to the Spirit of Christ.
Change doesn’t come easily. No matter how sincere we are in our desire to be transformed we will on occasion still fall back into old habits, even habits we despise. Did you see the news reports of the slip Thomas Jefferson made in drafting the Declaration of Independence? The Associated Press reports “Preservation scientists at the Library of Congress have discovered that Thomas Jefferson, even in the act of declaring independence from Britain, had trouble breaking free from monarchial rule. In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, the famous founder wrote the word "subjects," when he referred to the American public. He then erased that word and replaced it with "citizens," a term he used frequently throughout the final draft.”
Old habits, old ways of thinking and acting, old ways of identifying ourselves are often difficult to put aside. So it is if we choose to make deep spiritual change, if we commit to a new, more radical way of following Christ our Lord. But the rewards are incomparable. That which Paul promised the churches in Galatia, we are promised as those who are the church in Daleville. All who walk through life as new creatures are promised that which the ways of the world can never provide, God’s peace and God’s mercy. They become ours as we come to recognize that we are not subjects of the world, but citizens of God’s kingdom.
I read recently of a pastor who, when it came time to recite the creed began by saying “Who are you people? A secular world, jaded and weary wonders why you are gathered here today.” To which the congregation responded, “We are the church and we gather in the name of God to worship God with everything we are, and to offer God everything we have, that we may be sent to serve the world God created, loved and redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his only Son.”
I don’t know anything about that church except that it was identified in the article as being Lutheran. I don’t know where it is or the name of the pastor. I don’t know whether they have ten or ten thousand in worship each Sunday. But this much I do know, if they really mean what they say in that response, there is a church which understands what it means to be those who claim bragging rights only by virtue of the cross and the love of Christ which was poured out there, for us and for the whole world.
A church which can honestly respond as that one did is a church which understands what it means to brag, not on their accomplishments, not on the complexity of their program or the extent of their campus, not on their goodness but only of the cross of Jesus and the amazing truth it represents, the truth that God loves me and God loves you enough to allow God’s only son to come down to earth to live among us, to show us how to live Godly lives, then to suffer and die so that we might know eternal salvation. Such a church will come to so live and serve that what they sow and what they reap are of the Spirit rather than of the flesh. Such a church will be the church which is filled not with those who think they are something but rather are nothing but with those who know that without Christ they are nothing and who seek to live only for him and for the God who sent him to us.
On this relatively rare occasion when Independence Day falls on a Sunday it is appropriate for us to celebrate who we are and what we have to cherish as a nation. It is fitting that we should honor and remember those who have sacrificed over the past 234 years and who are sacrificing even as we gather here today so that we might reap the fruits of life in a free nation. It is good and right that we should celebrate all that is good about these United States. But we must never become so jaded, so bigoted, that we come to think of ourselves as better than all the rest. I ran across a lighthearted list which serves as a gentle reminder that we are not a perfect people. It was entitled simply, Only in America.
Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get
their prescriptions, while healthy people can buy cigarettes and chocolate at the front door.
Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.
Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway so we can put
our junk in the garage.
Only in America do we have on the same phones both caller ID so we can screen our calls and
call waiting so we won’t miss calls from people we don’t want to talk to in the first place.
Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
In the words of John Mellencamp, from back in the day when he was John Cougar Mellencamp, “Ain't that America for you and me; Ain't that America something to see, Ain't that America home of the free.” Indeed America is something to see, it is beautiful and there is nowhere else I would rather live. It is a privilege to live in this nation where we are free to move about as we would like, where we are free to pursue those things the Declaration of Independence declared to be our unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We are truly a privileged people, and with privilege comes responsibility. On a visit to these United States Pope John Paul II once said, “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Powerful words, words which speak both to the political freedom we honor today and of the freedom in Christ we celebrate as we gather at his table. The world would be a better place, this nation would be a better nation, and the church would be what the church is called to be if we all would seek to celebrate freedom not by doing what we like, but as we seek daily to do what we ought. For your sake, for the sake of this great nation, and for the sake of the kingdom of God, let it be so in your life beginning here, starting right now. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
