Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and
our Lord Jesus Christ,
The
epistle readings for the past two Sundays have come from Paul’s letter to the
Galatians, which is very short but full of meaning because it touches on
questions that are important for every Christian. What does it mean to be grown
up in Christ? What does it mean for a community of Christians to be mature in
the Lord? When a Christian or a congregation are mature in faith, they become
the blessings to others God wants them to be.
First,
some background. Galatia was one of the many provinces of the old Roman Empire.
Paul founded several congregations there during his travels. The gospel he
preached brought many new Christians to the Lord and at first the people
focused on Jesus whole-heartedly. But it wasn’t long before outsiders tried to
convince them that in order to be Christians they first needed to adopt Old
Testament laws and customs about food and holidays and such like. Paul went
into a fury. He urged the people not to go backwards and make themselves slaves
to the ceremonial law, which is really like a tutor to children. Paul had
something specific in mind when he used the word “tutor”. A wealthy father in
the Roman empire assigned his son a guardian who would walk back and forth to
school with him, teach him manners, and make sure he behaved himself and didn’t
fall in with bad company. The son might have been the future heir of lands and
property but as a boy he lived under the supervision of his tutor, who was
training him to be a gentleman. The boy’s situation – with a guardian at his
side all the time – was a condition to grow out of. It’s a good thing to grow
to the scope and freedom of adult living.
Paul
compares the ceremonial law – and in fact all laws – with a tutor or guardian. The
law comes from God, it is good and necessary, but it hems us in because we
aren’t perfect. The law, moreover, terrifies us and accuses. It restrains
sinners, and we all need restraint. But the law doesn’t rescue us from sin; it
doesn’t save souls; it doesn’t give life or free us from bondage; it is not the
final stage of our development to maturity. The law drives us to seek the mercy
of God. We don’t look for rigid perfection but for faith in Christ, who is, in
fact, looking for us. He claims us in our baptisms as his brothers and sisters.
We’re adopted children of the Heavenly Father. He gives us the confidence to
act in freedom and take hold of the satisfactions of mature faith – that life
will work out, that our actions please the Lord, and that we’re blessings to
others.
Paul
is an example. He began his public life as a persecutor of Christians, eager to
uphold the letter of the law. But the Risen Lord came to him in a dramatic way
while he was traveling to Damascus and turned his life around. After years of
study of God’s Word, he worked as vigorously as a missionary for the Lord as he
had once worked against him. The point
is that he acted in faith and freedom. No one forced him to give up the
comforts of a settled life and take on hardships and frustrations. Paul was a
free man in Christ; he even had the freedom to drop out and follow a more
easy-going life. He chose to live as a child of God, however, and spread the
message of faith and freedom and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, so he
became a blessing to others. Our families, friends and neighbors benefit when
they see our confidence in Christ, our trust that we’re God’s children, our
joy, our happiness, our freedom in the Lord. To be grown up in the faith means
that we rejoice in God’s grace.
Now,
the world is always legalistic. It loves to spread guilt and shame – the news,
the comments of our neighbors, sometimes, and the spirit of competition – all
work to take us away from the gospel. The world tries to push us back under the
dominance of the spirit of the law. Souls can shrivel, consciences ache. This
is not where God wants us to be. It is slavery, not maturity in Christ. Jesus
offers us his friendship; he washes our sins away in his blood. If our memories
rise up to taunt us, we have only to say, “Oh, yes, another sin that Christ has
forgiven.” The Savior empowers us in his name to defeat Satan’s tricks and cut
off the spiral of excessive self-reproach that some brains are susceptible to. The
most important part of repentance is to take hold by faith of Jesus’ pardon and
his boundless love for us. Jesus is in us. He shares his joy with us.
Paul,
as we said, is an example. He zealously followed the old legal tradition in his
early days. He must have said and done things that were cruel and mean-spirited.
Memories of his early life didn’t incapacitate him, however, when he took up
his new life in Christ. He trusted with heart, soul, and mind that God pardoned
him and that the Savior knew him and loved him. He was mature in the faith – a
blessing to others.
God’s
love for his people makes us mature, loving, joyful, patient, kind. We don’t
reproach ourselves to excess nor do we find fault with others. Instead, we are
blessings to our neighbors. We encourage. We build them up. Correction is sometimes
appropriate, of course, as we offer it in a spirit of love, as the Lord did,
hopeful that our admonitions bear fruit. We bring good to everyone we come to.
So
we are grown-up, then, when we live by faith in Christ, who makes us strong and
free and blessings to others. The same principle applies to Christian
communities. The congregation that clings to Christ in faith receives God’s
rich blessings. It is strong and grown up and full of vitality.
Paul,
as we said, urged the Galatian Christians not to go backwards and make
themselves slaves to laws, because they do not save or bring life. The people
should remember that Christ redeemed them from captivity to the ceremonial law
and cling to him. The Heavenly Father had adopted him as their children; the Holy
Spirit lived in their hearts. Once they had come to know God and be known by
him, how could they ever turn back to weak and beggarly spirits, whose slaves
they wanted to be? Paul said that Christ set them for free for freedom. He
urged them not to submit again to the yoke of slavery. They were not to cling
to the law the way children cling to a tutor. They were to be free and
responsible and grown up. They should live by faith working through love.
Although
he was confident that they would adopt his point of view, Paul foresaw what
would happen if they followed the old legalistic ways – they would begin to
quarrel. “If you bite and devour one another,” Paul wrote, “take heed that you
are not consumed by one another.” The whole law is fulfilled in one phrase, he
reminded them: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ They serve God best
by using their freedom for love, acting as servants one to the other.”
We
don’t know what happened in Galatia, but we do know that many Christian
communities, including the Lutheran Church-Canada, have taken Paul’s guidelines
as their own. They live by the faith that creates love. Instead of trying to
win God’s favor with good works, we open our hearts to receive his pardon and
strengthening. By God’s grace, we make a stand against legalism, we don’t
create an atmosphere of blame and reproach, but of forgiveness and
encouragement to live according to God’s will. We don’t find stony faces in the
church, but God’s love and the friendship of other Christians. Christian maturity
of faith honors God, strengthens us, and spreads a good influence in the world
around us.
We
stand up for Jesus in a legalistic environment, where there are always many
spiritual casualties. The church offers a refuge. The Savior reaches out
through his Christian people. Paul wrote in another letter that the Lord Jesus
Christ comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort
those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are
comforted by God.”
It’s
easy to scold and reproach and carry in our hearts a scrapbook of wrongs done
to us, but we Christians offer a better message to our neighbors – words of
mercy and consolation from God that raise crushed spirits and heal bruised
souls. We live in the radiance of God’s free grace. We may be tempted to fall
back into legalistic customs and ways, but we confess our sins, which God
washes away. He brings us back to our standing as grown-up Christians. We are
forgiven, we forgive others. We have received comfort; we offer comfort to our
neighbors. Anyone can cling to customs and traditions and man-made laws. We
cling to Jesus, who brings us maturity and freedom. In His Name we give thanks.
AMEN
The
peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the
knowledge of..
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