Sermons

June 28, 2010

A Very Angry Pastor

June 27, 2010
Galatians 5:1-15

Lowell Allen, guest pastor (retired)

“AN VERY ANGRY PASTOR”

Say “It is not True!” The pastor is the very model of the modern person “Clothed with Christ!”
Pastor Hadaway pointed out last week that those baptized in Christ were Clothed in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit sent by God at the direction of the risen Christ.
With God’s Spirit directing our lives we are to Love God with all our being and we are to Love our Neighbor as we love ourselves. We exemplify forgiveness, right living, and love for all.
What, then, is this? A very angry pastor? Say it is not so!
Well, I have to admit that I can be angry. Just the other day I drove to a meeting. I parked in a metered area, used my credit card to get the maximum time--two hours for $2.50--and placed the receipt on the dash as instructed. When I came out of the meeting after an hour fifteen minutes there was the Parking Fine envelope on the windshield. I was really ticked and ready to blow my stack. I was certain that “LAZ” --that company that has bought the parking rights on the streets of Chicago--was ripping me off. I was ready to tell the City Revenue Department what was what.!!
I called 311 as soon as I got back home, while there was still time on my meter ticket, and let that operator know in an angry voice that I wanted an explanation. I was promptly referred to the City Department of Revenue. Again very excited and angry I wanted to know why the City was allowing LAZ to get away with ticketing when the meter receipt was clearly displayed. Very sweetly the clerk asked what was the charge on the ticket. I said I only had the envelope. She calmly said, the ticket is inside. What is the charge? I looked inside and pulled the ticket out, and could not immediately see the line that gave the charge. Finally I found it and it said “Expired State License” Even more angry, I said I got that back in February. She quietly said, “go look, it may have been taken off.” She stayed on the line until I went 3 flights down to the parking lot and back. The plate showed expired Feb 2010. I looked in the glove compartment, Sure enough, there was the February 2011 sticker. Like a scolded puppy with its tail between its legs, I ate humble pie, apologized, went on line and paid the $50 fine.
Pastors are human--a fact, not an excuse. Even though we would put the pastor on a pedestal and expect her or him to be a cut above in action and word. We would have them be like Jesus. Was Jesus ever angry? One wonders about his feelings on the occasion of being driven out of his home town, Nazareth. Or, what he thought about the nine lepers of the ten who were healed, and only one returned to give him thanks.
What I do know is the apostle Paul was very angry about the situation in Galatia, the area that we know today as Ankara, Turkey. This area had been on his missionary journeys around the Mediterranean. In each community on his journeys to bring the Good News of The Risen Christ he went first to the synagogues of the Jews. These folk had been scattered throughout the centuries by powers that had overrun the Promised Land. Some believed in Paul’s message about Jesus Christ, but more often he was turned away. That did not stop his preaching faith in Jesus to the Gentile community with great results. So it was that the Christian Community was established and flourished in Galatia. Paul moved on to other cities with similar results from his missionary work. Why the anger in this letter written to the Christian Community in Galatia? There are good reasons.
There are lessons for you and me. When we get hot under the collar and before we blow our stack we need to know the reason or reasons for our frustration and anger. Then, we need to check our reactions and the ways we handle the situation. Look for ways of reconciliation rather than making matters worse by offending God and our neighbor.
I think it was in Thursday’s RedEye that someone noted that today’s bloggers spew so much HATE. They can do so anonymously, using made up IDs, and using technology that is in everyone’s hands these days, spread widely their messages of HATE.
What was St. Paul’s situation? “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?…There is no other Gospel that what you received! [from my preaching.]” He is so disappointed with the Christian Community in Galatia that his usual greeting as we see in his other letters is not in this letter. What is the matter? There were two things which he wishes to confront. The first was a group from the home church in Jerusalem that would have made the early church a sect of Judaism. The second was the nature of persons coming to Faith in Christ from the “Greco/Roman” world where there was a pantheon of gods, each with its practices of worship which they felt were appropriate in the new Christian Church of the first 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
It is hard to say about which St. Paul was most angry.
The first group he identifies as coming from the disciples James and even Peter. St. Paul points out that the question of having to become Jewish Christians had been decided at the 1st Ecumenical Council described in the 15 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. When persons came to faith in Jesus from peoples who had absolutely no knowledge of the Old Testament Law and Prophets, they still were blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This was evident in the gifts they exhibited. The Council gave its blessing to Paul and Barnabas to go preach Jesus Crucified and Risen to the Gentile community. So they did. Why now, were they coming from the Jewish Christian community to claim that the young churches had received only part of the Gospel. They needed to practice all the Law if they were to be truly Christians. The Judaisers like to call themselves “ Children of Abraham.” St.Paul points out that God made covenant with Abraham and Sarah because of Abraham’s faith in the promises of God. This came long before the Law was given to Moses. Paul argues that the new covenant by the Blood of Christ comes by faith alone in Jesus, not by works of the Law. St. Paul expands on the faith of Abraham in his letter to the Romans.
Paul is perplexed by the Galatians embracing the message from Jerusalem when they already had their Freedom in Christ through their faith in Jesus.
St. Paul was a very angry pastor at the Apostles in Jerusalem for sending those persons to Galatia and other young churches seeking the young Christians to embrace the Law. This message was summed up by the practice of circumcision. Paul declares “circumcision and un-circumcision is nothing”--Faith in Jesus is everything.
A side bar of humor. As we read Paul’s words in today’s lesson in the 21st Century. Paul repeatedly speaks of the “offspring” of Abraham. The Greek word that is translated in today’s English is literally “seed “of Abraham. Thus, Paul speaks with what seems great anger, when he says “would that those demanding circumcision would castrate themselves!” Being rendered impotent this would then bring an end to the “seed” they are sowing in Galatia! We can sense a rye sense of Comedy Central humor in his assertion.
Now, what of the second matter, our Freedom in Christ. For Paul, and all Christians, being “free” from the law does not give license to do whatever, and anything, that we please. Many of the practices of the new converts from the gentile community that had many gods were contrary to the Love of God and Love of neighbor. Some practices were licentiousness. These practices are not limited to the First Century. My Comparative Religions professor in Seminary was a Presbyterian missionary on sabbatical from his post in the seminary in Puna, India. He shared the challenge faced by converts to Christianity there in India. He said on one side of the seminary was a Hindu cult which worshiped all things sexual. On the other side was a Catholic cathedral that had its Temple Prostitutes! St. Paul sets forth the new Christian’s disciplinarian. It is the Law of Love. Pastor Hadaway will be expanding on this Freedom in Christ in coming weeks. Stay tuned!

In conclusion we are made a child of God through our faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. We are freed from the practices of the ancient Law because we have our justification and righteousness in Christ. Jesus Christ gives us a new law in the new covenant which God gives by Grace, not by anything we have done , or could do ourselves. That disclipianarian is Love. Let the Spirit lead us.
Amen.

Posted by vickie at 05:29 PM