June 27, 2010
 
Scripture:         Galatians 5:1, 13-25
 
Sermon:           “Liberated”
 
            Turning our hearts and minds now to the word of God, let us read together the scripture lesson for the day.  Turn with me to the Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, chapter 5 where we will read together verse 1 and then verses 13 through 25.  You can find that easily on page 255 of the New Testament in the pew Bible.
            We’ve encountered this man Paul a little bit here lately.  Several sermons in the past few months have come from his words and from the story of his life and his dramatic conversion to faith in Jesus Christ.  He’s a complicated figure this Apostle Paul.  Fiery.  Driven.  Passionate.
            The truth is that Paul accomplished more in his lifetime in spreading the gospel than anyone else can possibly claim.  For that we remember his words and call his letters to various churches in the ancient world scripture.  We believe that he was guided and inspired by the Spirit of God to spread the word about Jesus far and wide to people who had absolutely no background for understanding it.
            But, Paul had a problem.  You see, he was introducing people to a Jewish Messiah.  The majority of these people were not themselves Jews.  They did not live according to the laws and customs of the Jewish people beforehand.  And most of it struck them as an odd way of living.  Paul was convinced that it was not necessary for people to become Jews first in order for Christ to save them.
            Part of this legacy, by the way, is how you and I will enjoy a slice of ham, a piece of bacon with breakfast, or a nice lobster tail and feel no guilt whatsoever in breaking the laws outlined in the first books of the Bible.  Right?  We do not concern ourselves with keeping kosher.
            That was one of Paul’s issues.  He rightly believed that these unique traditions would be a stumbling block for people who were not already Jewish.  I think that another of these traditions was even more problematic.  That was the custom of circumcision.  You can talk about that all you like when referring to an eight-day-old infant boy.  He’ll never remember it.  But, adult men are not so quick to sign up for such a thing.  And Paul knew it would prevent the majority of adult men to say, “Thanks, but no thanks!”
            But, what happens when you make the argument like Paul did that the laws of the Jewish people did not apply to them because Christ had made them unnecessary?  What happens when you say that the law no longer applies?  Some folks get confused.  Some folks see it as a license to do whatever they like.  If it feels good, and it isn’t hurting anybody, and there isn’t any law against it, what’s the problem?  And so, we get the words that Paul wrote here.  This is the word of the Lord…
 
            For freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
            For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.  For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  If, however, you bit and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
            Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.  Now the works of the flesh are obvious:  fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.  I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
            By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
 
            “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.”  Did you hear him say that?  “The law doesn’t apply to you.  You are not subject to it.”
            Are we free, then, to do just whatever we like?  Paul?  I’m not subject to the law?  Well, sweet!
            It’s the kind of news that folks can greet with a sense of relief and reckless abandon.  Because what was Paul supposed to do?  He was concerned with peculiar customs like how and what you eat and circumcision.  But, he couldn’t very well say that only those kinds of laws no longer mattered just because folks didn’t like them very much.  Right?  There’s no integrity in that.  We can just skip over the parts we don’t like.  There’s no integrity in that.
            On the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of laws about murder, about theft, about lying, about breaking your marriage vows.  Do you see the difficulty?  Do they no longer matter, either?  And if it all doesn’t apply anymore, what’s the reason for paying attention to it at all?
            It’s obvious that Paul wrote these words because some of the folks in the Galatian church were acting on this very thought.  They had the idea that because they were no longer subject to the law at all that they could just be libertine.  Eat, drink, and be merry.  If it feels good, do it.
            You might say that Paul was dealing with a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  That’s an old German proverb if you didn’t know.  Don’t discard the good in order to get rid of the stuff you don’t like.
            But, you can’t build an argument based on picking and choosing from God’s holy text the things you like and the things you don’t.
            What Paul did, instead, was really quite amazing.  He went much deeper into the human psyche and asked people to consider why it is that they choose to do the things that they do.  Are you following a list of laws and commandments in order to win God’s approval?  Is that what you are doing?  Would you only live in this way because it will in turn get you in the good graces of the Lord?
            OR, do you live in this holy way because you are now holy?  Do you reflect the Spirit of a Loving, Forgiving God dwelling within your heart?
            You see the first is this chase after God’s approval.  It’s a game, almost.  There’s a scorecard with your name on it somewhere.  That’s what you imagine.  Better stay in line, or else.  It doesn’t actually matter what you’d like to do in any given circumstance.  Just don’t act on it and you’ll be fine.  There’s a lot to be said for that, actually.  We call it restraint.
            Paul is making a deep argument that the Christian faith is more concerned with challenging your very thoughts and emotions that even lead a person to consider what is legal and what is forbidden.  The law, you might say, is just defining right and wrong actions.  But, it doesn’t come to terms with why you are asking if you can do something in the first place.
            Do you see the difference?
            Paul is saying that a person that lives according to Christ’s Spirit within them is free from all of the unhealthy and damaging influences that accumulate in life.  You’re free to love as you’ve never loved before.  You’re free to live as you’ve never lived before.
            I tried my first cigarette when I was fifteen years old.  I think it was on my birthday, actually.  If I remember correctly, I snuck into the woods with my friends and we all smoked these things together.  It about knocked me over, too.  It wasn’t too long before I was smoking several a day—always hiding it from my parents.
            Now, my Dad was a smoker in those days.  I wasn’t too worried about him.  But, Mom?  She wouldn’t stand for it.  I was sure of that.  And you better believe that I confirmed it on more than one occasion.
            One morning I was just dumber than a box of hammers and I tried to have a smoke with my friends at the bus stop before school.  The bus stop happened to be in front of my house.  So, we all went around the side where we could have a little privacy.  Do you know that those things stink to high heaven?
            Well, somehow, my mother got the notion that she should come outside and see what was going on.  We were smoking these things right under a window for crying out loud.  Geniuses.  And all I heard were these haunting words:  “David James Brown!  You get up here right this minute.”
            It’s never good when all three names are called out, is it?
            “What are you doing?  What are you doing to yourself?  Why are you smoking?”
            I gave my mom the time-tested, fool-proof answer that children have frustrated parents with since Cain and Abel were teenagers.  I said, “I don’t know.”
            Cold busted.
            But, what was I going to say?  The truth is that at fifteen years old I really didn’t know why I was doing that.  I didn’t really understand that I desperately sought the approval of my peers.  I didn’t understand that I had issues, you know.  I didn’t know that there were serious insecurities lurking inside of me that would lead to this behavior and, by the way, a whole lot more in my life!
            Do you see how that works?  I could have, conceivably, at some point, evaluated that I had this desire to smoke cigarettes because all my friends were doing it, too.  And based upon that I could have consulted some unwritten, but firmly understood expectation of my parents that I not smoke and decided that I wasn’t going to break that law.  But, choosing not to ever smoke cigarettes would have never gotten me to face up to the reality that there was this brokenness inside somewhere controlling my desires.  That law was powerless to change my inner self no matter if I followed it or not.
            Does that help put Paul’s argument in perspective?
            I can just imagine, though, saying with a straight face to my distraught mother that morning, “Well, Mom, I have developed over the years this need to please people.  It’s probably because I’m a second child, you know.  And smoking was an obvious choice for me given all of my insecurities.  You should consider that.”
            But, you can do that with just about any unhealthy desire that plays itself out in your life.  You can trace it back to your brokenness.  It is in no way an excuse, however.  You can, perhaps, understand why you have done what you’ve done.  But, it doesn’t make it right.
            Paul says that in Christ Jesus we are made free from the things that have always controlled us before.  The word he uses is slavery.  We’re like slaves to this stuff going on inside.  But, Christ breaks us from that by making clear in no uncertain terms that you are worthy of the greatest gift that the Creator of the Universe itself can bestow.  Christ died for you.  And you are now God’s blessed creation.
            That’s what it means to live according to the Spirit.  The Spirit speaks to you in the face of all that you’ve experienced, and all that you’ve done to yourself and others.  And the Spirit says, “You are so much more than you’ve ever been allowed to see.”
            So, Paul says that if you cannot see it you will continue to act under the control of this broken flesh that has all kinds of issues accumulated over the years.  You will see things like fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry…oh, it’s quite a list…sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and such.  If you can’t see who you really are, this wonderfully claimed child of the Living God, you will need laws to tell you what is right and what is wrong.  Do you get that?  You’ll be controlled on the inside whether you manage to break the law or not.
            But, that’s not who you really are!  It’s not.  Christ did die for you in order to make you whole and complete.  You are free therefore from those injuries in your soul and spirit.  You are free to the point where your life will naturally be one of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
            So, get it within you.  Do not leave this place without a doubt that you matter to God.  You are beautiful underneath it all.  You are precious.  You are too good to be controlled by anything or anyone.  If you really believe that.  If you really believe that, your life will already have been changed by the power of the cross.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)