for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
Galatians 3:26-4:7
According to some studies, up to 70% of people who receive an inheritance squander it within two years. Other studies show that up to 90% of people who inherit money no longer have that wealth by the third generation. More often than not, it seems, it is because those who made the money did not adequately prepare those who inherited it on how to spend it wisely.
Paul often talks about being joint heirs with Christ, and tries to remind his readers that by believing in the work of Jesus in this world, we are not just children of God, but that we also inherit God’s kingdom. Children in the ancient world really didn’t have much more rights than the slaves that they were being raised by, because until they came to be of age, they would not have the rights to the inheritance granted to them. Paul is likening being under the law, or being required to uphold the law, as the same as being a child. Then, coming to understand the freedom that Christ’s death and resurrection granted to people is likened to becoming an heir to the kingdom of God. Those that were slaves in a wealthy household in the ancient world could never attain the inheritance that the child they were raising could. But under Christ, they would become an heir, just like that child. This is a reference to the Jews – God’s chosen people – and the gentiles; now that Christ had come, Gentiles have the same inheritance in the kingdom of God as those born into the Jewish faith. This was good news to those outside of Israel – or should have been.
It seems to me that we often forget that we are joint heirs of Christ, and therefore have access to the inheritance of the Kingdom of God. Too often, belief in Christ is equated with eternal life, as if that is the only inheritance that we receive. But as expressed in the book of Acts, and in various other areas of Paul’s letters, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God is one of the things that we inherit as children of God. And this gift, the gift of the Spirit, is not something that we get only at the end of our lives.
Instead, as Paul gets further into his letter to the Galatians, he gets around to expressing what the fruits of the Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the gifts that we inherit even now, and which we can access through our acceptance of the gift of Christ. Trouble is, it seems, we have not always been taught how to use our inheritance, and so we squander that inheritance, rather than using it wisely. Instead of love, we often push hatred in the name of Jesus, saying that God would not love those who live in sin. Paul called himself chief among sinners, because he understood the gift he had received, while too often we call others sinners, and name ourselves as the righteous. We often peddle anger, and self-righteous indignation, rather than joy, kindness, and gentleness. Instead of faithfulness to the good news that Christ’s death made us heirs in God’s kingdom, we often find ourselves faithful to political ideologies.
Why do we squander our inheritance? Probably because it is easier to live within the construct of our cultures than to be countercultural like Jesus. Jesus up-ended the way of life for many people who thought that they were righteous, by showing them that they were motivated by fear, by power, or by greed, rather than love for God. If we are children of God, we inherit the Spirit of God, and if we inherit the Spirit of God, we begin to display in our lives those things that are of God, and not of this world.
κληρονόμος – Kleronomos, out, o – heir;1
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1 volume (TDNT), pp. 445-446
I meet with a group of people to do morning prayer over Zoom and the other day, the officiant decided that we would be reading Canticle 10. Though we’ve read this canticle together quite often, this particular day the words jumped out at me a bit more.
The author of the passage has just told people that they should seek God while God wills to be found, and for the wicked to turn from their ways. God, the author says, will have compassion on them, and God will richly pardon them of their transgressions.
Why?
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,* nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,* so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God’s ways are higher than our ways, it says. And God’s thoughts are higher than our own.
This doesn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone. More often than not, our thoughts are not aligned with one who would richly pardon the wicked. Our hearts and minds can take a dark turn, at times, when we see the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer beyond what seems fair and just.
We seem to be wired to want leniency for those we deem worthy, and the harshest of penalties for those we consider evil. The idea of watching the evil go unpunished, and the wicked pardoned goes against every fiber of our natural beings.
We would rather see the wicked punished and the righteous flourish.
And, of course, we always count ourselves among the righteous.
We count ourselves among the righteous because it is far too easy to rationalize our own shortcomings and explain away all the reasons why we might have behaved a certain way. And at the same time we assign malicious intent to someone who does the exact same thing we have done – or continue to do – simply because we do not have the luxury of understanding their story like we understand our own story. Nor do the recipients of our blame and judgment have the benefit of writing their own story in the same way that we create the narrative of our own lives.
There is a center to the narrative we tell ourselves, a bright shining point of light, and that point of light we like to believe, is us. What happens, happens for a reason – either because we deserve it, or because others are to blame.
But God doesn’t see us at the center of the story. God sees the interconnection of all the stories, and God sees each of us as a story within a greater narrative. It is a grand story of love and acceptance, of joy and of pain, of beauty and suffering, of transgression and rich pardon.
And still, that is not my way. At least not the way I would want to see God working in the world. Not on those days where I feel that I’ve seen too much evil and suffering in the world, and would rather see the God of smiting, rather than the God of pardon.
But that is part of our story too. To align our ways to the ways of God, so that God’s ways might ever become more of our ways.
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one. Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law. But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian
Galatians 3:19-25
After having read Paul’s arguments for the law, I started singing the lyrics to the old Temptations song, “War.” Only I modified the lyrics, “Law! What is it good for, absolutely nothing!” Of course, that just means that I was following along with Paul’s train of thought, and going right where he wanted his readers/listeners to go. After all of this arguments, we are left wondering exactly the same question that Paul starts this passage with: “Why then the law?” If the promise God made to Abraham supersedes the law, then why was there ever a compendium of rules and regulations? Why were they necessary, if the way to God could be found through faith alone?
Well, it seems that not everyone had the pleasure of interacting with God in the manner than Abraham did, and so for those, the law was given as a means of moving people toward the mindset exemplified by a living faith by giving people the guidance they need to move forward. Kind of like training wheels on a child’s bike. They are pedaling, keeping themselves mostly upright and balanced, until something throws them slightly off kilter and they fall a bit to the left or right. But then the training wheels catch them, bringing them back to a level of equilibrium.
Another example, perhaps more in line with Paul’s thinking, is this word “adulting.” A lot of memes these days talk about “adulting,” and how taking on the responsibilities of being an adult are difficult. Everyone wishes they could still be a child, have their parents or guardians – or anyone else, really – doing the difficult, heavy lifting of life for them, while they are allowed to focus on the fun and enjoyable bits of life. This calls back the idea found in earlier chapters, in which we understand the irony of living a life according to rules and regulations set down by others. It is easier to live according to a set of rules than to move forward completely free to live as we choose – and still choosing to live that life for God. Paul’s thoughts here tell us that the Law was that guide, that tutor, that chaperone that helped to teach us and prepare us to take on the challenges of life in that day when the training wheels are removed, or when those that have raised us are no longer around.
The law was intended to guide people until the messiah came, until the path of faith provided the means to God. But, now that Paul declares the age of the messiah, he is by no means saying that the law should be completely thrown out either. Just because faith in the messiah now provides access to God to all people, including the gentiles, does not mean that Paul intends to throw out the Law altogether. In fact, in Romans 3, Paul talks about the law, and asks whether the whole codex should be nullified, and answers his own question with “It should never be so.” Paul does seem to think that the Law is still beneficial to believers, even though believers have been set free from the condemnation of the Law when failing to live up to it. The Law still provides guidance toward living in freedom, once one has started along the path of faith.
Important Words and Phrases
παράβασις – parabasis, eos, on – “Striding to and fro,” overstepping, transgression, violation. In the NT it denotes sin in relation to the Law. Between Adam and Moses there is sin, but no parabasis because the law is not yet given. In Galatians 3:19 the law is given to show that evil deeds are transgressions of God’s will. 1 Those that know God’s will might have a chance of avoiding transgressions, while those who seek only to follow the rules and regulations of the law will be destined to fail to achieve to uphold it.
ἐπαγγελία – Promise.2 Paul links the word promise to the gospel, and looks at “promise” from the standpoint of επανγέλεσθαι (middle voice for “I announce myself”) with the implication being that one announces oneself with the intention of providing one’s services to others. It seems that the idea of a promise to Paul includes the idea of service. The gospel includes the service of Christ to the people of the world, through his death. How does viewing a promise as service to others affect the definition of the word?
προστίθημι – Prostithemi – To add to, increase, or do again. In the context of Galatians 3:19, it suggests that the law was simply an interlude [on the way to the final fulfillment of the promise of Christ].3
παιδαγωγος – Paidagogos – attendant, custodian, guide (possibly a tutor). For Paul, the law has only limited validity (Gal. 3:24). Its time end with Christ. It is a paedagogos while we are minors. During our minority, we are under it and virtually in the position of slaves. With faith, however, we achieve adult sonship and a new immediacy to the Father which is far better than dependence on even the best “pedagogue.” Although Paul here associates the law with the “elemental spirits,” he is not against the law. It is a taskmaster with an educational role. He thus continues to appeal to it when decisions must be made in congregational life, interpreting the OT in the light of Christ. 4 Consider also the concept of the Greek idea of home education, which had the intention of training children – and heirs – to be cultured and upright so that they could assume the responsibilities of the household after the death of a parent.
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1 volume (TDNT), pp. 772-773
In several cultures, trees play a large role. In particular, trees with large canopies, that provide large amounts of shade often become the focal point for communities to gather, to meet, to discuss the events happening to the community and to make decisions. They are places of comfort, a place to get out of the heat of the day, to rest, to play. In other words, these trees are the place where life happens.
In today’s old testament reading today, we see references made to trees. “They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” Similarly, the Psalm also brings up a reference to trees, “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”
In each of these cases, we see that the reference to trees is to us, to those who believe, to those who follow God. This means that we are the metaphor. We are the trees. But in each of these cases, the reference is also made to those who trust in God, and then compared to the wicked, or those who do not trust in God. In the Jeremiah passage, the wicked and the cursed are defined as those “who trust in mere mortals, and make mere flesh their strength.”
So what does it mean to trust in the things of the flesh, to trust in something other than God? It means that rather than trusting in God, we trust in our own wealth, our own knowledge, our position in life, any authority we may have, it means to trust in our strength, or even our health.
All of these things are fleeting, and can disappear in a matter of moments. One small accident, one bad medical diagnosis, war, famine, or new leadership, and suddenly those things we have trusted in can simply evaporate.
And when that happens, rather than being like trees firmly planted by the water, we suddenly become like tumbleweeds, dried up and withered in the heat of the day, living in the parched places of the wilderness, because those areas of our lives that we used to rely on are no longer there to provide us comfort.
We see this same dichotomy of thought in the New Testament reading, where Paul tells us that if we have hoped in Christ only in this life, then we are to be pitied the most among all people. He is simply saying that if we do not trust in the truth of God’s resurrection, then we are essentially trusting in the things of the flesh, and we have not taken on and accepted the blessings of God.
Then Luke makes the contrast even more clear for us. In Luke, Christ tells us that those who are poor are to be blessed, those who weep, those who are hated because of their faith in Christ are blessed, because their reward is great in heaven. It certainly doesn’t seem like that to those who are facing those situations, but they will see a reward in heaven. In other words, trust in those things that you cannot see.
And then there are those to whom Christ says “woe to you.” These are the people who have trusted in their own riches, their own wealth, their own standing in life, and those who have received the accolades of all those around them. These people, he says, have already received their consolation.
All of these passages point to this tendency all people have: to take our wealth, to take our positions in this life, to take our knowledge, authority, to take all the trappings of this life and to consider that we have it all because of who we are, and what we have done. We begin to think that the tree of our own life is rooted in our own deeds. We can easily fall into the tendency to think that we are the arbiter of good and evil and that we alone possess the truth, and that those who disagree with us ought to be cursed, and that we and those who think like us ought to be blessed. We begin to think that I am blessed, because of who I am. And from there it is a short step to go from seeing God as the master of our lives, to seeing ourselves as the master of our own domain.
Rather than looking outward at the world around us as a place where we can provide a blessing, we look inward, and begin to ask questions like, “Who is infringing upon my rights?” rather than “What can I do to love my neighbor?”
Instead of providing shade, we throw it. We don’t provide comfort and rest from the tumult and injustices of the world from our own blessing, but instead we disparage those who desperately need to see the light of God in a world filled with anger, sadness, injustice and chaos. Rather than seeing our blessed state in life as a means of providing blessing to those around us, we see our blessed state in life as a means of protecting ourselves and our own interests.
If we take this road, and we see our blessed state in this life as a means of our own protection, and our own advancement, then Jesus was right: woe to us indeed. Because then we have indeed reached the pinnacle of our blessing in this life, by trusting in those things that we have received from those blessings, rather than the source of those blessings.
Hopefully, none of us here today have taken that path. Hopefully all of us here today have pushed against this tendency, and have instead squarely turned our hearts to the source of our blessings.
When we recognize that every fleeting thing in this world – power, authority, wealth, food, and even our health – comes from God, then we begin to see our blessings as things that are meant to be shared with others. We become like trees “planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.” And through that blessing, we provide shade and shelter to those around us, giving them respite from the injustices of this world, by sharing our blessing with them.
Hopefully, we do not fear when struggles and hardship come, we do not fear when all of those things of this world are torn from us in an instant, through no fault of our own. Instead, we stand firm, knowing that those around us, still blessed with the trappings of this world, might come and provide shade and comfort to those of us who have lost what we used to have because they too have seen the source of their blessings, and seek to move that blessing outward into the world.
And if we are all trees, firmly rooted near the source of our life, then together we become a mighty forest that provides shelter and refuge to those who need it.
“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots by the stream.’
Just this morning I ran across an old Facebook post on someone’s timeline. By old, I mean about three months old. It was of a letter from a political candidate who was predicting food shortages, lack of police officers; basically, general chaos moving into the fall and winter of 2021. The predictions were the typical fear-mongering, laced with a smattering of Biblical references to make the whole thing sound like the coming Apocalypse, and that this was prophecy. Cue the air raid claxons and the faint voices of monks chanting in the background.
The post, the letter itself was not what irritated me. Although, irritated is probably not the best word. Disappointment, perhaps. I was disappointed that the person posting this has a Ph.D. in psychology (a profession meant to help people through lies and anxiety) and was a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian. And I was disappointed that the people responding to this were not just acknowledging the nonsense in the letter, but were adding to it, with nonsensical ideas and accusations that were clearly based in fiction and unprovable alternative facts. Not a single person in the post comments seemed to suggest that this was nonsense, and that perhaps the facts showed a reality contrary to this prediction. It was like I had stepped into a virtual room full of conspiracists, all claiming that what they were believing was somehow God’s warning to stay strong in the faith and avoid the all consuming fires of the antiChrist.
Everyone in the comments was clearly choosing to accept the fear, and willing to live in a state of panic and heightened anxiety. And, as normally happens when people give in to fear, they then became angry, and their comments began to target those that they felt deserved their rage. In this case, the present administration, the nebulous “left wing liberals,” and all the godless. It was a collection of angry people, smoldering with self-righteous indignation, living in fear.
I believe that there is a reason that the Bible tells people not to be afraid – in some form or another – multiple times. The most obvious verses that come to mind are Isaiah 41:10 and Philippians 4:6-7. Some Christians focus on the dangers and the horrors of “how the world ends,” and this then leads them into anger, and possibly even violence and illegal activities.1 If the danger of living in fear is that it leads to hate,2 then there is every reason that we should seek to find ways to live outside of our fear, to live in God’s peace, even if that peace only manifests itself within our selves, despite the raging chaos of the world around us.
In my life, I’ve run across a few people who seem to be unmoved by the events of life around them, completely unflappable when it comes to life’s cruelties and exacerbations. Despite what happens to them, they will turn to you and say, “Praise God.” Now, this isn’t to say that they fail to do anything about the evil they see in the world, but only that they do not let that evil cause them to wallow in despair, or live in fear and anger. Instead, they draw upon a deep well of peace and look at you and say, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures forever,” and also, “The Lord is at my side, therefore I will not fear; what can anyone do to me?” And finally, despite what is happening in their lives or in the world around them, they still manage to say, “This is the day that the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118). And it is in that peace that they work to make the world a better place, a world full of peace and one in which Love is made manifest.
Now, not all of us have found that well of peace, but we would do well to search for it, and to draw on it when we can. Especially when confronted with misinformation and lies that seek to put us into a state of panic, fear, and anger. We may not find that deep well in every situation, but if we search for the ways in which God has made the day, and ways in which we can rejoice in it, despite the cares of this world, then maybe we too will be able to find ways to push forward God’s agenda in this world, rather than the agendas of those seeking to manipulate our fears and our “righteous” indignation.
1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 3 Let the house of Aaron say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 4 Let those who fear the LORD say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” 5 Out of my distress I called on the LORD; the LORD answered me and set me in a broad place. 6 With the LORD on my side I do not fear. What can mortals do to me? 7 The LORD is on my side to help me; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. 8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in mortals. 9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in princes. 10 All nations surrounded me; in the name of the LORD I cut them off! 11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the LORD I cut them off! 12 They surrounded me like bees; they blazed like a fire of thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off! 13 I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me. 14 The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. 15 There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the LORD does valiantly; 16 the right hand of the LORD is exalted; the right hand of the LORD does valiantly.” 17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD. 18 The LORD has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death. 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. 20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. 23 This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success! 26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD. 27 The LORD is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. 28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. 29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 118, NRSV
There are some very well researched articles that cover the reach of fear-based misinformation and the Christian mind, here, and here.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Master Yoda
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do My God is so big, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do He made the trees He made the seas He made the elephants too
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do My God is so great, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do My God is so great, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do
The mountains are his The rivers are his The skies are his handy works too My God is so great, so strong and so mighty There’s nothing my God cannot do There’s nothing my God cannot do There’s nothing my God cannot do For you
Traditional
I remember singing the children’s song “My God is So Big” in Sunday School as a child. It was always a fun song to sing, because there were body movements that went along with the song. We would make an elephant trunk, flex our biceps, and describe the greatness of God as little tiny kiddos.
Like with many children’s songs, this one broke down the theological concept of God’s omnipotence into a few short verses that I’m sure anyone who sang it will find hard to forget.
The words. Not the concept.
It seems the concept is something that we tend to forget as we get older: as we begin to learn more about the physical world around us, the science of all things. Or, as we come to understand that not everything in life gets an answer from God that we are looking for, and as we experience more of life’s disappointments and tragedies, we begin to consider the possibility that God might not be as capable as we learned in Sunday School. We begin to accept the idea that the physical world has limitations, and that the power of God must therefore, somehow, fit into the realm of reality.
In short, we begin to doubt that there’s nothing our God cannot do.
As I pray through the Morning Prayers, I most often choose to end the prayer with the verses from Ephesians, which read, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen..” Ephesians 3:20-21
Since we stop and offer our prayers for those in our church family – and authorized intercessions – this conclusion is a perfect reminder that we don’t just pray into a vacuum, but that we expect things from God. We expect big things from God. Because God can and does provide them.
Even if God sometimes doesn’t answer our prayers.
Or even if God doesn’t answer the prayers in the way we had hoped.
If we experience too many of our prayers going unanswered, we may come to a point where we believe that God is incapable of answering prayers, and that God is incapable of moving beyond the physical world to effect God’s change in this world.
Whatever the reason, it seems that we forget the concept of an omnipotent God who is able to do more than we can think or imagine.
And then we forget to ask. We refuse to pray. We begin to look for our own solutions, because our minds hold an image of a puny little god who is somehow subject to the great, fantastic world that God created.
Talk about a contradiction.
It is very true that God will not always answer our prayers. Or that God will not always answer our prayers in the way that we had hoped. It is very true that God might simply seem to ignore us, and our prayers fall upon deaf ears.
But that still doesn’t mean that God is incapable. Our prayers just become so narrow that we will not accept anything beyond the scope that we have defined.
These are not God’s limitations. They are limitations that we have placed upon God. Or, better said, they are limitations we have placed on what we will accept from God.
We do not realize how much more we could have. In James, we see that sometimes we do not get our prayers answered because we ask with motives guided by our own desires (James, 4:2b-3).
Several years ago, the entire development team at my work was told that we would all be losing our jobs. We were given two choices on when to end our service to the company; if we chose the later date, our severance package would be bigger. Naturally, I chose the later date, and began looking for new work in the meantime. For months, I turned in resumes and job applications, all to no avail. The last day of work came and went, and I still did not have work. My prayers revolved around asking God for the very specific type of job I wanted, but my prayers went unanswered.
Finally, a month after my last day of work, a Friday, I remembered the words from Matthew, just a few verses before the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:5-15). And my prayer became, “Lord, I’ve had no luck finding work for three months. You know the type of work I need and what would be good for me. Provide the job you know I need.”
Three days later, on Monday, I received an email from someone saying they had received my resume from another company I had applied for a few weeks earlier. Did I want to hear about a job opportunity? Two days after that, on Wednesday, I had a job interview. A week later, on Thursday, I was offered the job.
The job did not match the work I had been praying for, nor did it fit the type of work I had been doing for years. But the work fit my skill set well, the pay was better, and the fringe benefits were much better than at my previous position.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
More than I could ask or imagine.
And so I sing again the children’s song: My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there is nothing my God cannot do.
God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. As long as we are ready to accept it when it comes.
Today is the First Sunday of Advent. And Advent is the time of the church year that tries to help us rekindle feelings of hope and anticipation, just like those that lived before Christ came. They lived with the hope of a messiah, and awaited his coming. This season is intended to instill in us a similar hope, a similar type of anticipation. To remind us of the hope of an abundant life.
Those that were waiting for the prophesied messiah lived in a culture that was occupied by outside forces, strangers who did not care for their ways or live according to their values. These occupiers took advantage of them, treated them harshly at times, and viewed them more as a means to increasing their own wealth, than a people with whom they could partner.
It’s no wonder the Israelites were hoping for a messiah.
They were looking for an end to the occupation, an end to their own suffering, and an end to days when they would be ruled by people who cared nothing for their religion and morality. A day when they could live in their own country, under their own rule.
Their situation almost demanded a mighty king, one who would pull them out of the occupation by his mighty deeds and great leadership. One who would put the occupiers in their place, and show them that their God was mighty indeed.
And then Jesus came. And he was different than they expected.
In fact, Jesus was so terribly different than they expected, that he did not, in fact, reduce the occupying forces to dust, nor did he take over the rule of their earthly kingdom, and he certainly did not set up an Israel that governed itself.
He was clearly not the messiah that they expected.
And as he continued to preach, and as he continued to teach, and as people realized that he would not be a king who would save them from the suffering they were enduring, they began to grumble and leave. They discovered that Jesus’ teachings were more involved, that they required some sacrifice on their own part, and that they could not simply sit back and watch as their troubles melted away. Jesus offered a new path to freedom, but one that they did not expect.
And, for some, their hope vanished, because Jesus did not fit the very specific niche they had created for him. They had put their hope of a messiah into a box of their own making, and found that Jesus did not fit.
And so some of them left.
You see, those who had hoped for a messiah that would fit into what they thought they needed were focused on an end to their suffering, and end to what was going on around them.
And hope that focuses on an end to things is hope that is focused inward. Hope that focuses on an end to things is hope that expects a brighter future, but does not see that future around it in the present reality. Hope that focuses on an end to things is not a hope that lives in the reality of a future that is promised but not yet manifested.
They saw only the failure of Christ to live up to their own hopes, rather than seeing the greater hope of abundant life that Christ came to share.
And they missed out.
So where does that leave us? Those of us who now live in an age when the messiah has already come? What anticipation and hope can we create for ourselves as we come near to the remembrance of Christ’s birth?
Part of the reason that our scriptures point to Christ’s second coming, and our eventual life with him in heaven is because we do know that Christ has come, and this is the hope that we look forward to – heaven.
Part of our passage from the Gospel today tells us that we ought to “be on guard, so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”
“The worries of this life.”
If we want to be weighed down by the worries of this life, we could easily allow ourselves to find all the suffering and injustice in this world by watching the news. We could watch the documentaries and exposes that show where the rich and the powerful are taking advantage of the poor and needy. We could find ways in which governments obstruct their citizens from voting, and examples of judges letting murderers walk away from punishment.
If we wanted to be weighed down by the worries of this life we could certainly find the ways and the examples.
We might focus on how these evils and these worries of this life are never-ending.
And then we might hope for Christ’s return.
We might focus on the future promise of life in heaven.
And then we might find ourselves hoping that everything would just stop and that we could see the face of God, to bring us home and put an end to the evils of this world. We may be hoping for a messiah, and putting God into a box of our own design, and marking it “Hope.”
But hope that focuses on an end to things is hope that is focused inward. Hope that focuses on an end to things is hope that expects a brighter future, but does not see that future around it in the present reality. Hope that focuses on an end to things is not a hope that lives in the reality of a future that is promised but not yet manifested.
We may, in fact, have hope. And live with that hope. But what we need is to live with anticipation.
What’s the difference, you might ask?
Hope is the expectation of a desired future.
Anticipation is living in the reality of that future as though it has already come to pass.
It is not merely hoping for a future end to things, but living with that hope as though they can and will change. It is not merely hoping for a future, but living as though that future is already here and now. It is living in the reality of the future Glory of heaven, while still being a part of a broken, unjust world.
It is seeing the face of God despite the worries and cares of this world.
Anticipation is an active hope. A hope that lives in the reality of what will be, rather than in the mindset of what should not be.
You may have heard it said, when you come to this table and receive the Eucharist, that “You are the body of Christ, and this is the bread of heaven.”
The eucharist is at once a reminder of our present commandment, as well as a promise of our future reality.
Youare the body of Christ.I am the body of Christ. We all are the body of Christ.
And if we are the body of Christ then we are also the hands of God, we are the feet of God, and we are the hope of new life to a world that lives without the same promise of a future reality that we actively anticipate.
And if we are the hope of Christ, then we also may come to realize that the only face of God that some people might ever see is the face of Christ that is reflected in us. Reflected in you. Reflected in me.
We are the body of Christ.
We are the image of God’s hope, reflected outward to a world that needs to understand why we live in the anticipation of a reality that has not yet fully come, but which is also a reality that exists even now.
We do have hope. We know what God has prepared for us.
But let us not only hope for an end to the worries of this life. Let us also live in the anticipation of that future reality, and allow that anticipation to break into our present day.
Break into our present reality, by being the body of Christ, the hands, the feet, and the hope of Christ to all those around us.
And as we live in that anticipation, we may come to realize that the future promise of heaven seems just a bit more real here and now.
“Too many of you are competing to sit at a table that Jesus would have flipped over.”
Some random meme
Recently, that meme popped up on my Facebook feed, and I had to pause for a minute to reflect on it. It wasn’t funny enough to chuckle at and maybe share; it wasn’t stupid enough to shake my head at and just scroll on by; and it certainly wasn’t obscure enough to scratch my head at and simply move on.
Instead, it actually made me stop and think about this imagined table at which some of us supposedly want to sit.
The references we have to Jesus turning over tables is in Matthew 21:12-13, in Mark 11:15-18, in Luke 19:45-46, and in John 2:13-17. Both those event speak to Jesus’ attempt to quit making religion a money making endeavor; making money at the expense of those who sought God, by placing ridiculous requirements upon the visiting people and the sacrifices they brought to the temple. Sacrifices the people were making, I might add, to place themselves into a right relationship with God. And if those sacrifices were deemed unacceptable, then they were turned away and told to buy something else, so they could bring a better sacrifice.
It was a ploy of ever expanding requirements. Requirements that made money, by way of a circular pattern of greed and self-interest between the priests and the merchants and money lenders.
And Jesus wanted to make sure that everyone understood that this scheme of self-interest and greed was not what God intended. God intended for all people to come to him freely, without requirements; and certainly not behind a paywall. But this act, some scholars believe, is what upset the leadership the most, and what ultimately led to his arrest and crucifixion. More so because it simultaneously attacked both the religious and economic power structures.
Unless we run some form of televised mega church, most of us don’t want to be at a table that sells religious baubles under the guise of donations and pseudo-righteousness. Nor do we want to retain our power by forcing people to jump through more and more hoops
But tables that feed into the political and economic power structure of any institution clearly do exist. And those sitting at it – and more importantly, those desiring to get a seat at the table – are not so ready to give up what those seats represent. These seats hold the power to shape the institution, to define the future power structures, and to ensure a continuity of one’s own way of thinking.
It’s no wonder that people like to hold on to those seats. And like to make it difficult for others to get a seat at the table, in a ploy of ever expanding requirements.
But for both the holder and the seeker of those seats, it comes down to a simple question. Is the motivation to sit at the table one driven by the desire for control, for power? Or is the motivation driven by an understanding of one’s own gifts and talents, and putting those to use? If it is the latter, it should be simple to determine that the time for new talents and new gifts might be needed, and to step away from the table, opening up a seat.
After all, real power comes in giving it away.
A fearful thought – giving away power – if our motivation is not as pure as we would like.
And if our motivation is not so pure, then it is quite true that the table we are competing to sit at is, in fact, one that Jesus would flip over.
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” — these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.
1 Corinthians 2:1-13
After every morning prayer, the leader of our group usually asks if anyone had any insights to share on any of the readings for the day. the first thing that jumped out to me was this phrase, “…no eye has seen … what God has prepared for those who love him.” I mentioned the hope that is contained in those words, as this phrase is often used by itself, outside of this context within Paul’s letter, often on calendars or postcards intended to lift our spirits. The hope comes from this idea that God has prepared things for us that are beyond our understanding, and beyond our imagination.
But within this context, Paul is defining for us those things that we cannot have come to understand in any way except that God revealed them to us through the Spirit. And that Spirit is given to us by God for the sole purpose of understanding the gifts bestowed upon us. It almost sounds Gnostic, this idea that we understand things because we have received the Spirit of God, because by implication, there are those that have not received the Spirit of God (the rulers of this age), and therefore, they wouldn’t understand. Of course, the difference is that Paul believes that everyone has access to the Spirit of God, and that it is not some mystery that is available only to the initiated.
What Paul is teaching, however basic it might appear to some, was wisdom that can only be understood in spiritual terms. The academics and the scholars of the age could not preach and teach what Paul was teaching, unless they also had the Spirit of God. So Paul, timid and fearful, proclaimed the Good News of a God who died, a concept that he had just called “foolishness to the Greeks,” in chapter 1. Since the Greeks were known for their wisdom and learning, the idea of a murdered God seemed asinine.
But for those who accept the Spirit of God, “Christ crucified,” is the beginning of understanding the depths of God. It is the first step in coming to learn “what God has prepared for those who love him.”
It’s Paul’s approach that I find interesting here as well. He basically tells his listeners that he didn’t come with big, fancy words, but with the basic concept of a crucified Lord. It was the story of a God who humbled himself, and was humiliated by the powers of this world. It was the story of a God who died for those he loved. It was the story of a Christ who presented his weaknesses to the world to show them the strength of his desire to redeem them. And Paul did all of this while he, himself, was afraid, trembling in the fear of his own weaknesses. But that’s what Paul wanted. His approach was to let others see the power of God in his actions, and not in his fancy and persuasive words.
Just recently, someone told me they questioned my commitment to a particular institution, and this got me to thinking about this very phrase, “I claim to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Paul turned the world upside down with a simple message of God’s grace, and from that, somehow, we have turned ourselves into institutions of varying size and creed, yet all still professing the same basic truth – even if we disagree on so much more beyond that simple truth. Our understanding of God changes and morphs over time as God reveals more and more to us. So should we declare our commitment to a particular institution? Or should we only ever declare ourselves to “know nothing, except Christ, and him crucified?”
If asked about the Army’s recruiting slogan, most of us here today would probably remember “Be all that you can be.” You may even be able to sing the jingle. This campaign lasted for twenty one years, from 1980 until 2001, when the Army changed the slogan to “Army of One.” This new slogan lasted only a few years, because the slogan inspired more people who wanted to be like Rambo, than those who wanted to be a part of a team of soldiers working together for a common cause.
In many ways, this passage from Paul has often been used in a similar capacity. Often this idea of putting on the armor of God is presented with the idea that you, yourself, are a lone soldier in the Army of God, and you alone are responsible for the battle over your mind, your body and your soul. It is true, the elements of the Roman Soldier’s armor that Paul mentions is indeed intended to keep our minds and hearts pointed toward the work of God in this world, but it doesn’t stop with us. The people Paul was speaking to understood that the Roman soldiers were part of something larger. Battles are fought together, with people working in unity toward a shared goal. Battles are not won with a single soldier, nor wars fought with an army of one.
When we make the armor of God about protecting ourselves, and our own minds, we begin to see the world in black and white, we begin to see the world in right and wrong, and we look for justifications to make sure that we are always “in the right.” And when we do that, we surround ourselves with people and with information that feeds upon those self-justifications. This then turns into an Us vs. Them mentality, and when we claim Christ as our mascot, our whole worldview turns into the idea of the Christ who agrees with us as Christ against Culture instead of Christ with Us, or Christ among us.
And if we begin to think in this mindset of Christ against culture and see the world as full of those with Christ, and those against Christ, we run the risk of believing that the Christ we have framed as agreeing with us means that Christ is with us alone.
And then the belt of truth becomes the belt of my own bias – the truth I already believe.
And the breastplate of righteousness becomes the breastplate of my own self-righteous indignation.
And the helmet of salvation becomes the helmet of self-justification.
And suddenly the good news of Christ has morphed from being good news for the world, and simply turned into good news for those that believe exactly as I do.
To be fair, we all fall into this category at times. We all take on the mindset of wrong vs right, and believe that we are in the right. But in that mindset we also quickly forget that the way that Christ is made visible in this world is throughus. That Christ among us or with us means that weare the image of Christ to the world.
Paul says that “our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:11). It is against these nebulous forces that we fight. We do not, as Paul says, fight against flesh and blood; we ought not to fight among ourselves for whose Christ is the truer representation. We fight against systems rigged toward evil and discrimination; we fight against powers that seek to divide and separate; we fight against systems that deny the truth of history; and we fight against ideologies that seek to deny the Love of God to those deemed unworthy or outside the acceptable.
To show just how easily and quickly we can jump into fighting flesh and blood – those that disagree with our view of Christ – we need only look at history. We see the Crusades, which sought to reclaim the Holy Land from those that were deemed unholy; we see the Inquisition, which attempted to convert people to Christ under the threat of death; we see the wars of the Reformation where both sides claimed Christ as their leader, and in which both sides framed the others as “tools of the devil,” and “followers of evil.”
Think, even, for a moment, on the divisions that have recently faced our country – between those who who wear masks and those who don’t, between those who got their covid vaccines, and those who won’t, or even those who think the Jan. 6th riots were treasonous, and those who think they were patriotic.
We no longer speak about having “differences of opinion,” but instead speak of having “differences of morality” and frame the other side as followers and purveyors of evil. And we go on the offensive, to fight, physically at times, for the sake of that which we deem right, forgetting for a moment, those commandments that Christ himself called the greatest:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself.
It is because this passage of Paul has been used in many ways to justify the ideologies of division that this persistent desire to move toward physical violence continues to exist. On the one hand we have the two greatest commandments that Jesus himself proclaimed, and then we have these ideas of our own making that we use to justify our anger and violence toward others.
But Paul is not telling us to prepare for a physical war, violence, or even anger. Paul is telling us to “Stand Firm” (v. 13). He tells us to stand firm in the spiritual shoes that “will make us ready to proclaim the gospel of Peace” (v. 15)
The Gospel of Peace.
The former congressman John Lewis spent most of his life fighting for equal rights, and more than once he would tell people to get into what he called “Good Trouble.” In a way, he was telling people to fight a good fight, to put your energy into fights that will lift up as many people as possible. A good fight is one that is fought for the betterment of many, and is not one that benefits those in power, or the wealthy, or those with connections.
Many people like to represent freedom as an ideal, something to be attained, but the congressman understood that no matter how far you’ve come, there will always be those who seek to push and prod and test the limits of good conscience, those that will justify physical violence, hatred, and separation through the ideologies proclaimed by the Christ they claim as their own. And so he defined freedom as this:
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”
John Lewis faced opposition, he faced violence, he faced all manner of evil while trying to bring about this just society. In many ways, this was a battle. And he, along with others like Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, or Mahatma Gandhi have all pursued this goal of freedom relentlessly, despite opposition, despite ridicule, and despite danger.
This is standing firm.
Standing firm provides protections for those who are beleaguered and oppressed, and gives them the space to truly be themselves, so that once they have healed from any hurt they may have, they can join the children of God. Standing firm means opening our arms and welcoming all who seek God, despite our judgements.
Several months ago, the American Council of Bishops in the Roman Catholic Church voted to deny the Eucharist to the 46th President of the United States because they decided that they did not like his political stance on the matter of abortion. Disregarding the president’s personal stance on the same subject, they chose to deny him the opportunity of standing in God’s presence, and receiving the grace of Christ’s sacrifice.
They chose to deny someone the opportunity to partake of the grace of God.
Pope Francis rightly told this council of bishops “not to use access to the Eucharist as a political weapon,” because it would create discord, rather than unity. And later Pope Francis preached that the Eucharist is “not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.”
In different words, Pope Francis was saying what our very own presiding bishop has often said: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” Because it is by abiding in the Love of God that we welcome all to become a part of the Family of God, a part of God’s beloved.
Those that would tell you that people are to be excluded from the table of God’s grace, are the same people who claim that the Christ that agrees with them is the only Christ, and that the good news that they proclaim is the only real Gospel of Christ. But any self-proclaimed truth that does not welcome all people into the open arms of God is not the truth at all. Any self- proclaimed truth that seeks to convince, cajole, and persuade, is a gospel that does not abide in the grace and love of God because it does not proclaim the Gospel of Peace.
There will always be people who wish to persuade, cajole and convince us that the Gospel is only for those that behave and believe a certain way. It is for this reason we put on the armor of God – to protect each other from convincing words that seek to exclude people from God’s grace until they’ve proven to live up to some arbitrary requirements.
It can at times be tedious.
Yet we find the strength to stand firm because of this table of Love, this table of Grace.
Christ tells us that if we eat of his flesh, and drink of his blood, that we will abide in him, and that he will abide in us.
If we truly understand the grace of this table. The depth of our sin, and the heights to which we have been raised through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, then we can see that the only proper course of action is to engage in those good fights that lift up all people, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation or identity, or any other dividing ideologies that have yet to show their face in this world.
When we stand here at this table, we recognize that we are eating the “bread of sinners.” Sinners, beloved by God. And if we are God’s beloved, then everyone who comes and seeks God is also God’s beloved.
And when we welcome these people into the family of God, the family grows and multiplies to all parts of the world, not because we have convinced them through persuasive arguments or self-justified violence, but through the gift of abiding in the Love and Grace of God. The family of God grows because we have put on the armor of God and fought for inclusion rather than exclusion, because we have fought the good fight not just for one another, but with one another.
This is abiding in Christ, and living out the Gospel of Peace.