distractions, expectations and God's judgement

this week's newsletter column:

Our gospel reading for today is Luke 10: 38-42, Jesus is welcomed into the house by Martha, who busies herself with meal preparation. Her sister, Mary, sits with the disciples, listening to Jesus.

Being a good host requires us to listen to our guests and to provide for the needs of our guests. Being a good host finds the balance between these things. Martha fulfils the role assigned to her by her culture, proving for the physical needs of others, but she misses out on time with Jesus.

We read that “Martha was distracted by her many tasks.”

How often are we distracted by a list of things that need doing?

It could be appointments; contacting friends and family; household chores like washing and cooking and cleaning; work; study; etc.

We hear a lot about work life balance and how hard it is for some people to achieve, especially with long commute times. 

But I wonder about our faith balance?

We need to listen, to pray, to read the scriptures; but we also need to put our faith into practice, to serve, to witness. Christianity is about being loved by God and loving others.

What this might look like for our congregation as a whole? How much time and energy do we spend on looking after buildings, balancing the budget and keeping the doors open? Are these tasks a means of enabling us to participate in the life God wants for us and the people round about us and beyond us, or are they a distraction holding us back from that life?

What would life look like if we broke free from the constraints of what we ‘should’ do, and be the person God made us to be? Not as a way of avoiding responsibility and service, but living as the person God made us to be.

I encourage you to reflect this week on who God made you to be, and what distracts you from being that person. 

.....

sermon one: Amos 10: 1-18

This passage from Amos begins with another vision. Last week it was the plumb line, showing how the people of Israel had moved away from the ways of God. This week the vision is of a basket of fruit. The paraphrase we heard this morning picks up the wordplay from the Hebrew. In Hebrew the word for ‘summer fruit’ and ‘end’ sounds similar, just as quince and quits sound similar. [Blake Couey, Working Preacher]

Why is God calling it quits with Israel?

Because of the way Israel is treating people.

Sometimes we don’t see the connection between how we live and the lives of other people, or the health of creation.

While the book of Amos is dated around 750 years before the birth of Christ, the themes are ones that are familiar to us today.

This was a time of relative stability and affluence in Israel, but this was also a time of corruption.

We live in a time when coal mining is killing the Great Barrier Reef.

We live in a time when child labour means we can buy cheap clothing.

We live in a time when shops are open almost every day of the year, and some retail businesses want to be open every day.

We live in a time when truth in advertising is a joke.

We live in a time when the rich can get loans with little interest but the poor pay over 150% interest.

For example, one online lender, will loan between 150 and 2000 dollars for 9 weeks – no credit check.  “The establishment fee is 20% of the amount borrowed. The monthly fee is 4% of the amount borrowed” If you borrow $1000, you pay $1320 over 9 weeks. 184% annualised interest rate. [http://www.sunshineloans.com.au/?gclid=CMHLoNHp980CFUNvvAodw4AIWg]

“Corporate fraud, exploitation of the poor, and ecological disruption are all consequences of the drive to maximize profit at any costs. People who live on the margins often suffer disproportionately from environmental abuse.” [Blake Couey, Working Preacher]

Just as in the days of Amos, almost 3,000 years ago, so it is today.

What can we do?

I have tried and it is very time consuming to check out the manufacturing trail for each item of clothing or food or homeware.

But we can make some changes:

·                     We can support people who are harassed because of their gender or colour or religion

·                     We can buy fair trade items when we see them – it is relatively easy with tea, coffee and chocolate.

·                     We can join with groups working for a fairer society.

·                     We can write to politicians and retailers

·                     We can stop expecting $5 t-shirts

“I, the LORD, swear on the Bible you so proudly wave,

........that I will not forget a single one of your mongrel actions.” [©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net]

God will judge us, not on how often we hold the Bible, or quote from the Bible, but on how we live out the love of God in action. 

followed by this hymn   http://www.newhymn.com/160ChooseLife.htm


sermon two: Luke 10: 38-42

Distractions, this is something I know about. There are often multiple things going on in my mind at the same time that is one reason I ask you to write me a note rather than tell me something at the church door on a Sunday morning.

Or I jump from one thing to another and another, and then back again.

One of the problems with mobile phones is that people walk around looking at the screen instead of where they are walking.

We live in a world where it is easy to be distracted:

Distracted by latest Hollywood romance

Or the crisis in almost any team sport

Or how the floor needs washing

Look at this picture  [Mind Full or Mindful]   https://sites.google.com/site/mbct4yppcdevon/_/rsrc/1378978316924/do-you-want-to-know-about-mindfulness/Mind-Full-or-Mindful-my-web-1.jpg

Are our minds full, full to overflowing; or are we mindful, aware, of that which is going on around us.

This week there was story in the Sydney Morning Herald about a young man from Port Macquarie. At age 16 Riley Bennett was told by a high school adviser he should train as a baker. He is now in third year of Medicine at the University of New South Wales. http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/dont-sell-yourself-short-%E2%80%93-no-limits-indigenous-medical-horizons

This reminded me of the way our society puts expectations on us – to be pretty or brainy or strong or to not get ahead of ourselves.

When many of you were growing up, it was expected that after getting married a woman would not take on paid employment, at least not until the children were at school.

There is an expectation that people moving to Australia only do the jobs that no-one else wants to do. They should be grateful to be here.

We are all subject to expectations. Remember the story I told a few weeks ago, about the Wemmicks and grey dots and gold stars – these were used to label people and judge people.

Martha invited Jesus into her house – that is what Luke writes, it was Martha’s house. Even though Martha is the head of the house, she is still bound by the expectation that a woman will prepare food, and make everyone comfortable. Her sister Mary, who I can only imagine is a younger sister, sits with the disciples – but only men can be disciples,
…  well isn’t that the way it works???  

And why isn’t Mary helping in the kitchen like a good woman??

Expectations can keep us confined, to a place, or a state of mind.

I wonder what part expectations played in the high school advisor’s recommendation to Riley Bennet to be a baker, rather than look to University study. Riley Bennett is aboriginal.

We read of families where two or three generations are unable to find work – is this because people write of the family, or in the case of Mt Druitt a few years ago, a whole school?

Or is it that poverty keeps horizons low? When you are looking for how to pay the next bill, university education for your children just doesn’t seem possible. And it is increasingly difficult for people from lower socio-economic groups to go to university.

Mary broke the expectations society placed on women, she acted like a disciple. But she was also a gracious host. When you go and visit someone, you don’t want them to spend the whole time in the kitchen. Being a host means providing for the needs of your guests, but also to be with them.

Jesus saw Mary as a disciple.

Jesus said Mary has chosen the better part.

One commentator writes:

“Mary and Martha cannot be about the better thing that means who is better, who acts better, who can be better.

The better thing is the invitation to believe that you are who God sees you to be.

And that is precisely our problem. An inherent, systemic, omnipresent, ingrained, intrinsic, dysfunctional, disturbing belief that not all are worthy of God’s regard and love. The conviction, as Paul Farmer says, “That not all are not equal in God’s eyes. That all are not made in the image of God.” [Karoline, Working Preacher]

Do we really believe that everyone is created in the image of God?

Do we think that we are more worthy of God’s love and grace than someone else?

Riley Bennett told the Sydney Morning Herald:

“While students were sometimes underestimated by those around them, others limited their horizons by underestimating themselves"

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/dont-sell-yourself-short-%E2%80%93-no-limits-indigenous-medical-horizons

The better thing is the invitation to believe that you are who God sees you to be.

What are our expectations of women, indigenous people, refugees, Muslims?

What are the expectations that bind us?

What happens when other people move outside of our expectations?

Friday Five - light

from Julie at RGBP

The Fridays come and go, and each week there are things in the news which catch our attention. It seems that in our present time wherever we are in the world – bad stuff is happening.

.......

Friends, the times may be dark, the days uncertain, but this we know – God is light and life and love and together we can overcome.
Today for your Friday Five contributions – share your favourite bible verses, photos, times of day and poetry – in any combination you choose in order to shed light on our darkened world.

Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland

stairway to heaven, Broome [NW Western Australia]

sunset at Quirindi [New South Wales]

Are we pretending to follow Jesus?

Amos 7: 7-17

Hold plumb line

This is a plumb line, have you seen one?

Used one?

Chat a bit about plumb line and use

Amos sees a vision, and in that vision the Lord is holding a plumb line to the nation of Israel.

And the result isn’t good for Israel.

Amos is a prophet, a reluctant prophet.

If you read through the book of Amos, you will hear the nations condemned. In chapter 2, the transgressions of Israel are:

 “They sell honest people for money,

and the needy are sold for the price of sandals.

They smear the poor in the dirt

and push aside those who are helpless.

My holy name is dishonoured,

because fathers and sons sleep with the same young women.

They lie down beside altars on clothes taken as security for loans.

And they drink wine in my temple,

wine bought with the money they received from fines.”

Amos 2:6-8 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Contemporary English Version (CEV) Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society

God will no longer overlook the failures of the people of Israel, described primarily in the book of Amos as economic oppression (Amos 2:6-7; 5:10-12; 8:4-6). [Blake Couey, Working Preacher]

I wonder what it would look like if a plumb line was held up to our nation.

Amaziah, the priest at the national temple, is annoyed at Amos, he is making things uncomfortable. So he tries to send Amos away.

I wonder which voices we try and shut down.

We live in a nation, yet often we see ourselves as individuals, especially in matters of faith. In Amos the plumb line is being held against a nation, not an individual.

As a nation, what might God make of:

• our destruction of the earth
• our treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
• our lack of compassion for those fleeing persecution
• our lack of regard for working conditions for those who produce our clothing and food
• the number of people who are homeless
• children growing up in poverty
•  

Just as Amaziah, who stood for the status quo,

tried to shut down Amos, and

told Amos to leave,

the same happens today.

I know some will say to me:

Why should we worry about people seeking asylum, it isn’t pour problem?

Why should we recognise that aboriginal people lived here, and had their own culture, before white settlement?

Why should we increase the rate of social security payments?

I worked hard for my money, why should it go to someone who isn’t working?

Hold plumb line 

Luke 10: 25-37

We looked at this passage at the Friday evening worship time. Here is some of the work we did together.

Poster of heart

Posters: love God/love your neighbour/as you/love yourself

There are so many possibilities for discussing this passage that I will skim over a few of them.

Most people who hear this story today think of themselves as the Good Samaritan, as the one who helps. But the people who first heard this would have imagined themselves as the man lying by the side of the road.

They would understand why the Priest and Levite didn’t stop to help – touching a dead body would make them unclean and they would not be able to fulfil their duties. Also it may be a trick, the robbers may be hiding nearby and attack them.

But they would expect a good Jew to help the man.

Samaritans were the enemy, to be despised. A bit like the relationship between Israel and Palestine at present.

If you are the person who is hurting, bleeding, in pain, you don’t get any say in who helps.

It may just be that the person who comes to help you is your enemy.

…….

From Bruce Prewer:

The robbers, represent all those whose basic attitude is: Yours is mine if I can get it.

The Priest and Levite: They are self-protectors. The attitude is: Mine is my own if I can keep it. What I have I will hang on to.

The Samaritan, despised by righteous Jews. His attitude is: “Mine is yours if you need it.”

http://bruceprewer.com/DocC/C44sun15.htm

….

I wonder what a modern version of this story would be like.

A man was walking down Ocean Beach Road one night, and he was mugged and bashed and dragged behind the bus shelter near Umina Mall. And a shop keeper arrives for work early in the morning, notices the man and figures he is drunk, anyway they need to get to work so they can open in time.

A person on their way to church goes past, notices the man, and doesn’t want to be late for church – not my problem, and anyway I don’t know first aid.  

An aboriginal teenager comes past, sees the man, calls for help and stays with him until the ambulance arrives.

Who is my neighbour?

The lawyer is trying to trap Jesus, then wanting to justify himself. If a neighbour was only Jewish, or only male, or only someone living next door that would make loving them easier.

The lawyer knows what he must do, but doesn’t want to do it, and really does not want to hear that the worst of worse persons, in his mind, is the good neighbour, the one who showed mercy. [Rev Mindi]

We claim to be people who follow in the way of Jesus, people who are brought to life, loved and forgiven. Yet at times it is hard to follow in the way of Jesus.

It is hard to put the interest of another ahead of our own.

It is hard to see, really see, the pain of another, and act compassionately in response to their pain.

So often following the way of Jesus, goes against the status quo. Speaking for the least and the outcast

Caring for the unloved

Accepting help from the stranger.

We can try and justify:

• our treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
• our lack of compassion for those fleeing persecution
• our lack of regard for working conditions for those who produce our clothing and food
• the number of people who are homeless
• children growing up in poverty

We can try and justify and explain away the inequality, racism, poverty and violence in our heart, our community, the nation and the world.

Or we can admit our failure to live in the way of Jesus.

We can stand with the oppressed

We can feed the hungry

We can see the beauty of each person

We can live out the generous, inclusive love of Jesus. 

A letter from Patty

Greetings from Patty, converted by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

To the people of God on the Peninsula,

Grace to you and peace from the Triune God, who created, redeemed and purified us, and to whom all and honour be now and for ever. Amen.

Our salvation rests in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who by his life and resurrection offers us new life. New life that reflects the love, mercy and grace of God.

Grace is a gift, freely given. We are saved, not by works or keeping rules, we are saved because that is the nature of God.

Salvation is not earned or merited, so watch out for false teachers who try and lead you astray, and no-one is to tell another that they are not good enough for God’s grace.

I know some of you find it hard to believe that you are loved by God. You don’t have to change for God to love you, for God to offer you new life.

“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.” ― Richard Rohr

It is by the life and love of Christ that you are transformed. You are not the agent of your own transformation, you may be able to make some changes in your own lives; but the change that comes from the love of God, the grace of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives within you, is so much more than you can do yourselves. It is a complete makeover of heart and mind and soul.

And when you are changed by your relationship with God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then that will show in your lives. For freedom, Christ has set you free.  

You are free to live as the people of God, free from the burden of guilt and shame. But you are not to use your freedom to hurt, exploit or abuse other people.

The freedom you have is freedom to love,
You are free to be joyful,
You have freedom to be at peace and work for peace.
You have freedom to be patient,
you are free to be kind and generous,
you are free to be faithful and gentle,
you are free to control ourselves.
You are freed from the need to hate those who hate you.
You are freed from the need to respond with anger.
You are freed from the need to allow hate and greed to win.
You are free to love God, love each other and love the world for which Christ died.

If you have been made free by Christ, why do you allow yourselves to be enslaved again? You need no longer be slaves to public opinion, jealousy, anger, and quarrelling.

When you live by the Spirit, it will show by the way you live. You will no longer seek to outdo each other, or to be the most important person. Instead you will seek to serve as Jesus served those he met. You will work together as the body of Christ, always working for the kingdom of love and peace and grace.

Remember that your salvation is not something you earned, you don’t deserve salvation. Just as I don’t deserve salvation. But just as God has worked in my life, God also works in your life.  As many of you already know, I grew up not knowing God, not praying, not reading the Bible, not going to church. But I had a yearning for something that was missing in my life. And when I heard the gospel, a gospel of love and freedom and salvation. A gospel of the forgiveness of sins and new life, I had found what I had been missing. God had been there all along, but I had not recognised God in my life.

You are a new creation, and that is everything! And that will show in your life. You can’t expect to pick raspberries from a pumpkin vine, and you don’t expect to get apples from planting onions, so you get out of life what you put in.

When you live filled with the Holy Spirit, when you let the Spirit direct your life, then people will see that. You will be loving, kind and generous. You will be at peace, full of joy, and patient – with yourself and with others. You will be gentle and faithful and show self-restraint. Live by the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit.

You are all one in Christ. Because your salvation is not earned, but a gift of grace. You are all God’s children, sisters and brothers, all one in the Lord. So do not think of yourself more highly because of where you were born, or because of your gender, or your job. And do not think less of yourself because of where you were born, or because of your gender, or your job. You are all one in Christ.

Do not boast about your achievements, boast only in the cross of Christ. Through the cross the world no longer has power over you. You belong to Christ. And illness and pain and age doesn’t change that.
What in life could be more important than love and forgiveness and grace? What could be more important than salvation?

Remember:

You are loved.
You are a new creation.
You belong to Christ.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen

Difference: Diversity or Distinction

In the Luke passage we just heard, Jesus crosses into gentile country, where he meets a man in a cemetery. This is wrong on so many levels. For Jews, cemeteries were unclean places, gentile land was unclean, and pigs were unclean. Impurity heaped on impurity.

In the story I read earlier, people had stars and dots to put on other people. [You Are Special by Max Lucado] This man would have lots of grey dots – he is a gentile, he lives in a cemetery, he had demons in his life.

When asked his name, the man replies with the name of his demons.

I wonder how often we talk about people by their illness or disability.

The paraplegic, the blind woman, the alcoholic, the divorcee, the druggie, the dole bludger, the Muslim, the homosexual, the black man …..

And I wonder what demons we live with

Demons that keep us chained

Demons like fear, hate, and greed

Demons like racism, sexism, and homophobia

Demons that prevent us from living fully as the people God made us to be.

What demons do we live with?

Luke writes about demons and how Jesus healed the man, incorporated him back into society, and brought him back to full life after living amongst the dead.

And yet the villagers did not rejoice, they were afraid. Who was this man who could cast out demons, who could cause their herd of pigs to drown in the lake? What else might he do?

They urged Jesus to leave.

And the man who was healed?

He wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus told him not to, rather “he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him”

Do we speak about what Jesus has done for us? Not only salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Do we speak about our experience of Jesus, the way in which we have been changed, comforted, challenged by Jesus?

I was Dad’s girl. We had lots in common like colds and flu each winter. And Dad would read to me when I was sick – Henry Lawson short stories mainly. We are both sociable, more so than Mum and my brother. He was quick to tell me when I had done something wrong, and I felt like I never did anything right. Even after my dad died I was hoping to do something that would make him proud. In my head I could still hear him telling me how stupid and useless I was.

But one Easter that all changed. I let go of the striving to do something that would make my father proud, this was about 20 years after he died – so really how was I ever going to make him proud? J And after I let go of that sense of trying, there was a healing, and I don’t hear those words from him anymore.

We all have things from our past, and often our present, that hold us back, that stop us being the people God created us to be.

There is fear and anger and harsh words.

There is shame and guilt.

There are modern demons, demons that accentuate difference, not as diversity to be celebrated, but as distinction to be judged and ridiculed and wiped out.

Paul writes to the church in Galatia about unity in the midst of difference. While people are all different, Paul writes of Jews and Greek, men and women, slaves and free. Paul is reminding the people that those differences do not make us any more or less part of the body of Christ, we are all one in Christ.

Just as today, people are not all the same,
there are Christians, Muslims and Jews
Liberal voters and Labor voters
there are men and women
heterosexual and homosexual
Aboriginal and non-aboriginal
old and young
Korean, Tongan, Pakistani, Australians, …

Not all people are the same. In the news this week we heard about 50 people who died in a shooting in Orlando, and a British MP who was stabbed to death.  The young man who was responsible for the death and injury of so many in Orlando is also dead, so we will never know for sure what his motivation was, but it seems it may be something to do with his hatred of people who identify as LGBTQI or his concern that he may be gay that led to the shooting.

The killing of British MP Jo Cox, has shocked people in Britain. The police are still looking for a motive but in court, when asked for his name, the person replied: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain," suggests a possible political motive.

“The Brexit vote is dividing Britain down the middle and has been whipping up emotions on both sides. But cold-blooded murder? We just don't know.

Instinctively, both campaigns, for and against Brexit, suspended all activities as the full horror of what happened was revealed.

It was as if they feared there may be a connection, and no-one wanted to be seen carrying on with those questions unanswered.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/jo-cox-murder-shocks-britain-as-political-fault-lines-deepen/7519746

It appears at present that both these events were motivated by people who could not embrace diversity, but were threatened by difference.

I wonder how we feel about difference.

Do we fear people who look different to us?

Do we want to only be with people who agree with us?
act like us?
have the same dress and behaviour standards as we do?

Do we love people as we are loved in Christ? Or do we only love those who are like is, and think and act the same as we do?

From Galatians: “It is through faith that all of you are God's children in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

What demons need releasing in your life?

Who do you need help loving as Christ loves you? 

I refuse to reject the grace of God.

Proclamation of the Word

The phrase that stood out to me in the Galatians passage this week is: I refuse to reject the grace of God.

I refuse to reject the grace of God.

That may sound a little strange – why would anyone reject the grace of God?

The grace of God is a gift, and like all gifts, we need to acknowledge, accept and use the gift.

This passage from Paul is focussing on the place of faith in salvation. It is easy for us to think of sin as something with grades. We talk about ‘a little sin’, or an ‘unforgivable sin’, but we know that sin is sin. We may say we are all sinners, but we act as if there is a ranking for sins, from minor to really serious.

“ … for Paul the tragedy of sin is not measured by infringements of the law but by rejecting Christ and by denying the meaning of his death as the saving act of God.” [i]

Paul writes about salvation, justification, being made right with God. The means of our salvation is faith in Christ or the faith of Christ.

While we genrally talk about faith in Christ, some scholars translate the Greek as the faith of Christ that saves us. We are justified through the faith of Jesus. [ii]

“Either we effect justification by believing in Jesus or Jesus effects justification by his own righteous obedience.” [iii]

This might all seem a bit complicated J and it is. The message Paul was trying to get across to the people of Galatia is that salvation is not about following a set of Jewish laws, but about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. A free gift.

In the reading from Luke: Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

He said this to a woman who is named as a ’sinner’, one of those sinners, a ‘big’ sinner. But she is the one who is free. Have you ever met anyone who could be truly comfortable in their own skin, who acted as they wished because they had nothing to lose? This woman is looked down upon by the people in the community – or the people in the community who think they count. [iv]

“You cannot determine your worth to Jesus by a calculation of your sins. That is not how God works.

Because faith, you see, is also the belief that you are worthy of salvation. You are worthy to sit at the table. You are worthy of touching, and being touched by, God. You are worthy of belonging. You are worthy of being called a disciple.” [v]

Remember where I started: I refuse to reject the grace of God.

This woman is an example of someone who accepts the grace of God. She says no to those who would try and prevent her from seeing Jesus, she says no to those who try and make her shamed of her life and her actions. She says to herself and yes to Jesus.[vi]

I wonder in what ways we have rejected the grace of God.

I can remember times when I felt worthless and not good enough – as if I had to make a certain level of bible knowledge or trust or something before God’s grace would be available to me.

I have had people tell me that they are not good enough, or they have done something bad, as if we need some gold stars before God will love us.

I have had people tell me they can’t come to church because they don’t have the right clothes or they live in the wrong part of town. One place we lived a person who attended church each week told me she didn’t stay for morning tea, because if people knew she was divorced she wouldn’t be welcome. I doubt that the church involved would have cast her out, but that was a concern to this person.

Maybe it is because I am a Minister, but I find many people I speak with are ashamed about something in their life, or guilty about something they have done or not done. I understand that. But we are justified/ saved/ put right with God by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ – not by anything we do or don’t do. And with salvation comes peace and freedom.

We are then free to be ourselves, our true selves, the person God created us to be. That doesn’t mean we do whatever we want, it isn’t license to hurt or destroy people or creation.

[a box with ‘grace’ written on it, some tags attached]

See this box, for some people it has tags on it saying –
if you are good enough,
if you are bright enough,
if you pay enough money,
if you follow certain rules,
if you believe certain doctrinal statements…
[Remove tags]

The gospel, the good news, is that grace is gift from God - free of “if’s”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a consequence to this amazing gift, a consequence of accepting that we are fully known by God, fully and completely loved, that God’s love knows no boundaries – not even the boundaries we would like to place on God’s love and grace. This grace includes everyone. I can remember an article I read years ago, and the person writing it talked of the people of God as being like a family, and just as you don’t get to choose your family members, you don’t get to choose who else is in the family with you.

I wonder in what ways we have rejected the grace of God for ourselves or for someone else.

---

[i] Cousar, Charles B., Galatians, Interpretation,1982,  p 51

[ii] Cousar, p53

[iii] Jaime Clark-Soles, working preacher; Alicia Vargas, Working Preacher

[iv] Kathryn , U.C.C. SAMUEL

[v] Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher

[vi] Karoline Lewis

an introduction to Galatians

God called me through his grace. [Audrey West]

The letter from Paul to the churches in Galatia starts with Paul introducing himself. This was standard for letters at that time. You couldn’t send of an email, or a quick postcard. A letter would take time to be delivered. Often letters were written by skilled people, at times helping with phrasing of the letter as well as the physical writing of the letter. Paul would have dictated his letters to such a person, in chapter 6 we will read where Paul puts pen to paper himself.  

A letter would start with who the letter was from, and then who it was written to, Paul would usually include a greeting, such as:

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

In many of Paul’s letters there is a prayer of thanksgiving, such as in Philippians 1:3

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, …..” [NRSV]

But no prayer of thanksgiving for the churches in Galatia, instead we get:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ..” Gal 1:6

Paul is an interesting person in many ways. He was born in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. Tarsus was what we might call a cosmopolitan city – there were philosophers and street preachers, mystery religious cults and it was a centre of Greek culture. [LTJ 261]

But Paul was also a Jew, with impressive credentials. His family followed the custom of circumcision on the 8^th day, and he was from the tribe of Benjamin.  As a young man he studied the Law with a school of Pharisees. [LTJ 261, 2]

And he was a Roman citizen, which means his family were likely to be socially prominent. [LTJ 261] being a Roman citizen had its advantages.

We first meet Paul in the book of Acts, he is the young man who looked after the coats of those who stoned Stephen, and Luke notes that Saul approved of the killing of Stephen. [Acts 7: 58, 8:1]

We read of his transformation on the road to Damascus in chapter 9 of Acts.  Paul would have known quite a bit about Jesus, from his time as a persecutor of the early church. [Loader]

But back to the place of letters and chapter one.

From this letter we see that Paul had met the people he was writing to, and as with other letters Paul wrote, he is responding to a particular situation. In this case it seems that someone has come after Paul has left, teaching a different ‘gospel’, though as Paul points out, there is only one gospel.

Paul is known as a missionary to the gentiles. There were many in Jerusalem who thought that to be a follower of Jesus, you needed to first become a Jew. The focus of the letter to the Galatian churches is that God acts in our lives and that the love and mercy of God are not dependent on our works, or our goodness, or our struggles, or our Jewishness, or culture, or anything else.

This letter shows Paul’s concern and anger that the people are moving away from the gospel of grace and freedom that he taught them, but as sending a letter is not a quick thing, he needs to be clear, and not hot headed, as the letter is written. He also needs to make sure he covers all the arguments that would have been made against him, such as not being one of the apostles and that he never met Jesus in the flesh.  

Paul is clear that it was God who called him, not any person; that Jesus was revealed to him so that Paul would proclaim the message to the Gentiles.

And the message he proclaims is that

“God is compassionate to all, offering a right relationship to all, Jew and Gentile, without discrimination. So Paul argues from the nature of God, from the heart of the gospel.” [Loader]

It can be hard to accept, that we are loved, that is the very nature of God, not our own doing.

“It is why we are so hard on ourselves, and insist we must keep rules: no one deserves to be given a love such as this.” [Andrew Prior]

I wonder how often we are pulled away from the gospel of grace.

It is easy to judge people, to judge ourselves.

I can remember thinking I wasn’t good enough for God, or anyone else, to love me. I thought my friends were just being nice to me because they were such good people – I mean who would want to spend time with me?

An encounter with Jesus changed that – I knew that I was a loved daughter of the living God. A person loved by God, not because I am good enough or bright enough or know enough of the bible. We are all loved by God because that is the nature of God.

Isn’t that awesome!

There are still some people who try to put limits and boundaries on God’s love and grace.  These days it isn’t about becoming a Jew before you can be a Christian, but I have been told that as a woman I shouldn’t be preaching or teaching, that this puts me outside God’s grace. At times I have heard of a whole lot of boxes that must be ticked to ensure our salvation:

• Going to church
• Not taking drugs or drinking alcohol
• Sexual purity
• Keeping the ten commandments
• And I am sure you can think of some more

Being held in God’s love and grace is about the nature of God, it isn’t about how good you are or how well you keep the rules. Paul could show what a wonderful Jew he had been, how diligent he had been at defending God.

There are signs of our freedom in Christ, but they are our response

• to being set free from shame and guilt
• to knowing, deep down, that we are loved by God

Our living is a response to God’s grace, not a pre-requisite.

Do you find it difficult to accept that you are loved by God?

Do you find it difficult to accept that all people are loved by God?

Notes:

LTJ: The Writings of the New Testament by Luke Timothy Johnson

Loader: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/lectionaryindex.html

Audrey West: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2883

Andrew Prior: https://onemansweb.org/theology/the-year-of-luke-2013/how-free-is-your-grace-galatians-1.html