Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Galatians 2:15-21
“Are We There Yet?”
We are on our third week of our summer road trip through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In case you are just joining us, so far, in week one, we looked at the map, talked about what sort of thing we are reading when we read this letter. Last week, we talked about backseat fighting as we looked at the very first major debate in the life of the young Christian church, the Jerusalem Council.
Along the way, I have been sharing some of my experiences of traveling across the United States every year with my family, all six of us, driving from just outside Buffalo, New York all the way down here to Texas to be with my mother’s family. All six of us, in an Oldsmobile, with no air-conditioning, not stopping at hotels, sleeping and eating in the car. Most of you have traveled some distance in a car with kids, but until you go that far under those conditions you really have no idea how many times, “Are we there yet?” can be said.
I actually remember one trip, this must have been after my two oldest sisters were out of the house because we were in our 1977 Volkswagen Rabbit, also without air conditioning, but there were only four of us. We left our house early in the morning, and I feel asleep in the backseat, I woke up and said, “Are we there yet?” We were still in New York.
That is the danger of undertaking a sermon series like this. We can get bogged down in this one letter, and I can leave you all wondering, “are we there yet? Are we ever going to get through this letter?” It is a good question. The course I am leading on Galatians is four weeks and you can ask the class, I keep saying, “we don’t have time to go into that.” We could spend months on this letter, but that would leave most of you asking, “is there a point to all this?” I can give you all the facts and background and language and history but tomorrow morning, you are going to get up and go to work or school or take care of your children and for that you need more than knowledge, you need some life-meaning.
So for fear of hearing, “are we there yet?” we are now jumping right into the meat of this letter. If I had to sum up this letter in just a few verses, they would be found in this section.
15We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;
Before we go any further I have to explain who we is. When I read “we” in worship, most of us assume I mean us, but not necessarily in this case. Now some time has past since the Jerusalem council and Paul is in Antioch. Last week we talked about the Jerusalem Council making a very important decision about what would be required for one to be a Christian. They had to decide if non-Jews would have to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses or not. According to Paul the council decided that Paul was right and that he could keep preaching to the non-Jews that it was their faith in Christ that put them in right relationship with God. But today’s passage is a response to the issue coming up again in another way in the church in Antioch. This is Paul’s response to Peter and some others who again feel that the non-Jews need to follow the Law of Moses. The we is Paul and his Jewish colleagues.
15We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;
“Gentile sinners” is not necessarily a derogatory term. For Jews, all those who were not Jews, the gentiles, we necessarily sinners because they had no means to not be. They didn’t have the gift of the covenant of God, they had no means to even understand their sin, let alone be free from it.
16yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.
If you are taking my Galatians class, some of this will be review. But here is the good part, you get to smile and nod knowingly. We need to take this sentence apart a little bit because it is full of church words. You know, church words, words we use in church and we have been using so long that we have actually forgotten what they mean. Like why is the Narthex not just called the foyer? Pastor John knows the answer but most of the rest of us are pretty foggy.
16yet we know that a person is justified
What does that mean? The Greek word Paul uses here is dikaio,w. It means – to put into a right relationship (with God); acquit, declare and treat as righteous; show or prove to be right; set free. We translate it as justified, but that is not a word we use much anymore to talk about people. You almost need to think about justify like you would use it when talking about margins on a page. We justify the margins, we make them right. Perhaps it is just better translated as “is put in a right relationship with God.”
Yet we know that a person is put in a right relationship with God not by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
So a person is not put in a right relationship with God through works of the law. But what does that mean. What would it mean to say that someone is put in right relationship with God through the works of the law? To oversimplify, it would mean that one was put in a right relationship with God by following the Law of Moses. We know that law mostly as the Ten Commandments although that is only a small part of the Law. A skim through the book of Leviticus will show you how much more there is and that is not the whole story. Being justified by the law would mean our doing these things commanded by God would put us into right relationship with God. But Paul says:
21I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
So let me try to take my paraphrase a little further:
Yet we know that a person is put in a right relationship with God not by doing things commanded by God but through faith in Jesus Christ.
So if those works of the law won’t put us in right relationship with God what will? Faith in Jesus Christ. Everybody knows what that is until I ask them. I ask people “what is faith?” and 90% of the time the word faith is in their definition. People often quote Hebrews 11:
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
What they leave out is how the author feels the need to clarify goes on for another 38 verses citing examples of the faith of Abraham, Moses, the people is Israel, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah and on and on and then goes on the in the next chapter to describe Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
The word for faith here in Greek is pi,stij (pistis) which translates – “a state of believing on the basis of one the one trusted”. I love that, it makes it even less clear.
Let’s go back to my paraphrase:
Yet we know that a person is put in a right relationship with God not by doing things commanded by God but through a state of believing on the basis of the one trusted in this case, Jesus Christ.
I would be really surprised if there aren’t at least a few people in the room who are thinking, “duh.” I mean justification by faith is a core doctrine of our protestant faith. Not many of us when asked, “What puts us right with God?” would answer, “following the law.” So some of you are starting to think, “Are we there yet? We have been talking about grace for three weeks now.”
And you know, I get that. I think a lot of us are pretty clear on this, up to a point. But somehow, over and over in the life of the church both historically and in modern terms, we just don’t act like we get it. And I am convinced that the root of all this goes back to the Garden of Eden, a story that reminds us of who we are. The first man and the first woman had everything they could have ever wanted. They lived in paradise. Then along came a serpent who said:
“Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The serpent basically said, “God is holding out on you. Sure God is taking care of you, but eat that fruit and you can take care of yourself, you can be like God.”
And that’s where it happened. We have been trying to be like God ever since.
Yet we know that a person is put in a right relationship with God not by doing things commanded by God but through a state of believing on the basis of the one trusted in this case, Jesus Christ.
Let’s face it, we live in America. If you grew up in this country, you were raised to know that you make your own way. One of our favorite expressions is “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” We are rooted in the writings of dime-novelist Horatio Alger who taught us that adversity can be overcome if we persevere. Most of us grew up on books like The Little Engine that Could, which is truly a story about optimism and determination but sort of became for many of us a metaphor of the American dream. I think I can, I think I can, I can, I can, I can, I can, I can! If you just try hard enough you can do anything. A little poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks can grow up to be a millionaire.
Once again our faith becomes completely countercultural, against the wisdom of culture. We are raised to believe that we can do anything. It is all up to us. Now wonder we have trouble living into the idea that we have to let go of the most important thing in our life.
We might be able to say, we believe we are made right through faith, but our cultural understanding of the world tells us that we are responsible. We so can’t stand not being in charge that we make faith itself a work, something we can do. I have relatives who aren’t sure that I am actually right with God because I didn’t do the right things to get saved. Some think I didn’t say a prayer right others think I didn’t have enough water in my baptism.
I want to read you a poem by Shel Silverstein. Many of you know him as the author of children’s classics, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up.
The Little Blue Engine by Shel Silverstein (1932-1999)
The little blue engine looked up at the hill.His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,And his face blushed red as he softly said,“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
So he started up with a chug and a strain,And he puffed and pulled with might and main.And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,With an extra hope and an extra try,He would not stop — now he neared the top —And strong and proud he cried out loud,“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”
He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH!He slid down and mashed into engine hashOn the rocks below... which goes to showIf the track is tough and the hill is rough,THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:
9The Lord said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Yet we know that a person is put in a right relationship with God not by doing things commanded by God but through a state of believing on the basis of the one trusted in this case, Jesus Christ.
When it comes to our justification, our salvation, our redemption our “rightness” with God, we might think we can, but we can’t. God can.
Amen.
