Pentecost 6 6/30/13

Pentecost 6 6/30/13 Text: Galatians 5:1, 13-25 Title: To Love Christ Is To Follow Christ In All Things. Today’s Epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the congregation at Galatia is an interesting one. It is unfortunate that those who decided the readings for today did not include the verses between verse one and where our reading picks up at verse 13, for those verses set the context for verses 13-25. In those missing verses you will see that there were some people in the congregation at Galatia that were insisting that the old covenant, the covenant that was replaced by Christ had to be followed, if you were to be a true Christian. The main part of the Old Testament covenant that they insisted be followed was that all males must be circumcised. When the Christian church had first started it was not a problem because the church was made of Jews and the males would have been circumcised at 8 days of age, but now with pagans coming into the Christian faith as adults things were changing and change, just as it does today is uncomfortable and sometimes fearful, for the old that you cling so desperately to is going away. Paul told those that he was writing to; ex-pagans who are now Christians that if they submitted to the law of circumcision that they then had to live by all the laws of God. Paul is not talking here of the Ten Commandments, but of the laws that God had laid down for the Jewish people to follow concerning civil, ceremonial, and social laws all of which pointed to the coming Messiah who had come in the form of Jesus, Immanuel; God with us. Paul feels so strong about this that he tells them that he wished those who were saying circumcision had to be done that they would go even further than circumcising themselves. I will say it as nicely as I can; they should make Eunuchs of themselves. Paul pulls no punches when he is talking about the grace of God that is extended to all because of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. Paul will not let anything be added to or for that matter be taken away from God’s wonderful gift of forgiveness. He knew either one destroys God’s forgiveness or at the very least add uncertainty to one’s faith in God’s forgiveness. While adding rules and traditions to God’s wonderful grace is something that is still be done today and I am sure will continue to trouble the Christian church until Jesus comes in all his glory there is a problem affecting the Christian faith that is at the very least as bad. It too, is just as wrong as adding rules and traditions to God’s grace are wrong. It is a curse, better yet I will call it what God’s Word calls it, slavery, slavery to sin. It can be seen in many different ways, but is hard to recognize. It is the false belief that Christianity is simply a private affair and that as a Christian you can live out your life as a Christian in isolation from other Christians. In other words you can be a secret Christian. Now when I am saying this I am not saying that your or anyone’s salvation depends on other Christians, for salvation is strictly between each person and God, for only God can tell who has true faith and who does not. What I am saying is that you cannot separate your faith and the community of believers, for they are two sides of the same coin. This problem of not realizing that Christianity is community shows up in statistical data that has been gathered over the last 70 years or so. While 75% of Americans consider themselves to be Christian, only about 40% attend services on a regular basis. This percentage has not changed in decades. There a more recent study by a well-respected statistical company who specializes in studying the Christian religion that found only 20% of those 40% who said they regular attenders were actually in church on any given Sunday. The Christian church has a problem and it is us. We, by our collective actions, or it might be better said, by our collective inactions have told, particularly our young people, that there is a freedom in God of not attending worship services on a weekly basis and thus they are proclaiming by the millions, "I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. And besides God's love for me isn't based on something as petty as where I spend my time on Sunday mornings!" They have taken, by our example, just the opposite course as those who want to add rules and traditions to God’s grace. They say there are no rules in Christianity because God is love. They have made Christianity an easy religion; one in which they can feel comfortable in, no matter if their belief doesn’t match up with God’s Word because after all God is love, thus they have without knowing it have joined forces with those who want to add laws and traditions to God’s grace. Opposite beliefs, but the results are the same. God’s grace is lost and sinners are doomed. How did the Christian church get into such a fix? There are many reasons, but they all have same foundation, the theology of Glory, not God’s glory but human glory, for we have put human reason above God’s Word and when human reason is put above God’s Word there is nothing left but trouble. Thus it is not uncommon for those in a congregation to hold certain values like homosexual marriage, abortion rights, living together before marriage, and such are okay even though God’s Word teaches they are sinful behaviors. Being a Christian is being part of a community and taking a stand against those things the world teaches when they come in conflict with God’s Word. We see that in our gospel reading for today when a man said to Jesus, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Certainly saying goodbye to one's family doesn't fall into the same category as the wannabe Christian who insists on holding a non-Scriptural view regarding life issues, or, marriage, but, the principal is the same. There is a cost to following Jesus. Sometimes the cost is minor. Other times the cost is quite severe. Because of our sinful nature, “in going along to get along” way of life, our tendency is always to underestimate the cost of discipleship and conclude that we, in ourselves, have the power to be faithful in our confession of the faith. Peter thought that, you may recall, when he swore to Jesus that, even though everyone else might leave Him, he never would. Only a short time later his circumstances had changed and the pressure was on. Huddled around a warming fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, a woman blurted out, 'you are a disciple of Jesus, aren't you.' 'No, Peter said, I am not.' Three times Peter denied that he even knew Jesus. Peter was wrong! He counted what he thought the cost would be for him to be a disciple of Jesus and he mistakenly thought he could pay the price. But at the time he couldn’t. With Peter in mind and with Jesus words to the man who wanted to say goodbye to his family, if we are to count the cost and stand up to our cultures continual decline into the deep black hole of humanism and relativism, we will need the conviction, the strength and courage that we simply can’t possess on our own. We simply are not wise enough, or, even committed enough, to see our promise to follow Jesus through. Kurios Christos (Christ is Lord) was the creed of a group of people in the Roman Empire in the late first century a.d. This Christian group was far more politically concerned than its simple faith formula might suggest. They lived in a time and place in which all loyal, patriotic citizens were required to assert once every year, “Kurios Caesar,” which means “Caesar is Lord.” So when these Christians pronounced their creed, “Kurios Christos,” they were not only saying “Christ is Lord,” but they were also saying, “the State is not Lord.” They were affirming what the Lord had told their Israelite forebears on Mount Sinai: “You shall have no other gods before me.” It is time my dear brothers and sisters in Christ in the midst of an America that is fast becoming, some would say already is, non-Christian for us too to proclaim loudly and clearly, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” for he is the only way, the truth, and the life. He is our strength in our weakness, our certainty in our uncertainty, our hope in a life of tumult. Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.