Category: Blog

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5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:1-6

On this Labor Day Monday, I am reflecting on the week that we have had and the week that is waiting for me. Usually, my Sundays are spent in worship with all of you, but this Sunday I had the opportunity to love on our littlest ones in the Church Nursery as all of our Nursery Staff were already back at college or off for the long holiday weekend. I did not get to hear Pastor David’s sermon live, but I did get to sing with the little ones on the catwalk in the final song in the Contemporary Service. The song was “Christ is Enough” and it modulated into the well-known hymn, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back” and I couldn’t help but think that this might be Paul’s main point in his entire letter to the Galatians. Once we choose to follow Jesus and to make him the Lord of our life, we can’t go back to how things had been or who we once were.

As Paul expresses over and over again in this letter to the churches of Galatia, the hill that he is willing to die on is the argument regarding circumcision and whether or not it is needed for salvation. He has said it before and he will say it again, this is no longer the Law to obey. There is a new law to obey, and it is the law of freedom through the cross and it is expressed through grace and love. When it came to the rest of the religious rules and regulations that keep people out, Paul was only interested in a faith that is expressed through love. To quote verse 6, from chapter 5 again,

“⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Think about that quantitative phrase for just a minute; “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Could Paul have written it any plainer?

Can you think of a time when you expressed your faith in a less than loving way? Can you remember a time perhaps in this last week or month when you chose impatience, judgment or anger over love? While the law of circumcision is not the litmus test in our faith community today, there are other things that we use to measure one’s faithfulness, even if those internal measurements are unintentional. I don’t know all of your faith stories or the homes you grew up in, but you can all think of the ‘measurements’ we use in the church. Not just our church, but THE CHURCH. What has the church or the people called Christians created over the years as measurements to keep others out?

I can remember, early in my Middle School years, I jumped on the Left Behind book series train and walked through a season of about 3 months of really feeling like the end of the world was eminent and I should both evangelize and save all of my friends from the impending doom. I believe I also started to be afraid of anyone with a Russian name (if you know, then you know.)

Well, my best friend was and is Catholic. I was 13 or 14 and because of this version of someone else’s fictitious understanding of a sacred text, I was worried for her soul. I don’t remember the conversation precisely, but I know I really laid into her one Wednesday night on the way home from youth group (I really wanted to drive the point home). I told her in a less than loving way that her way of understanding and expressing her faith was wrong and that I “loved her enough to not let her end up in hell…” (I promise, I am not making this up). Needless to say, I did not express my faith lovingly, not even respectfully; instead I executed it with judgment and fear. My mother, who was driving us home, had some important words for me that night after we dropped her off about how I could have handled that with more grace. It didn’t take me long to apologize and we are still best friends 20 years later, but as I reflect on this story, I cringe thinking about how I hurt, judged and alienated this beautiful friend of mine.

Maybe you too have had a moment like this when your love of rules surpassed your love of relationship. What was that moment like for you? For the people of Galatia, they bought into the false Gospel that only those circumcised could be truly saved and they were executing that belief with judgment and fear. But we do the same, don’t we? We inadvertently measure one’s faith journey based on how they look, home well-behaved their children are or their marriage appears. How one gives of their time or how they vote and the bumper stickers on their car. And lately, I confess, I have made my own judgments about who is wearing a mask and how you protect the ‘least of these.’ The point is, we all struggle from time to time, especially when we are emersed in an almost constant barrage of fear, distrust and misinformation to forget that the “Only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.” What might the Holy Spirit be whispering into your heart today? How might you understand this text in your own life? And what is it that you might tweak about how you interact with the stranger or friend to lead with love, to offer grace and to be an example of Jesus?

May God add God’s blessing to the hearing, praying and contemplating of God’s Word.

AMEN

Before Emmaline started her first week of kindergarten, my mom gave her a special gift. It was a necklace, very similar to the one she had had as a child. When my mom was younger, she had worn a necklace that she treasured that she held close around her neck, especially when times were tough. It was a mustard seed necklace and my mom shared with Emmaline about having faith as small as a mustard seed was still enough to get her through tough times. She told Emmaline to squeeze it tight and remember that if she was nervous that first week of school, or didn’t know the answer, or didn’t have a friend nearby, she could squeeze that necklace pendant and know that even the smallest bit of faith made a world of difference. And that God would be with her.

This past Sunday, Pastor David preached on faith and how it manifests itself in our walk with Jesus. We watched a clip from the movie, O Brother Where Art Thou, of the scene of a community river baptism. We asked the question together as a church if having faith was all there is. In other words, is it just about belief or does Jesus require more of us.

Galatians 2:15-21 was our Scripture text on Sunday morning where we talked about the Apostle Paul’s words to both his original audience and the way his words speak directly to our hearts today. We reflected on our own sin and contemplated how we had missed the mark. For whatever reason, in our Post-Christian world mindset, we really don’t like to dwell on our sin or speak aloud how we have missed the mark. I will tell you though, I have only been up and functioning for about three hours now and I have already had to apologize and ask forgiveness from two people I love most, because I miss the mark more times than I care to share. While early on in ministry I struggled to admit my failures or show my weaknesses, I have learned over 11 years of being a pastor and almost 8 years of counseling and Spiritual Direction, just how life-giving the naming of sin and the admittance of failures can be. This is part of why I will always encourage using the Confession and Pardon liturgy during our sacrament of Holy Communion. Here are the words again:

Merciful God,
We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have failed to be an obedient church.
We have not done your will,
we have broken your law,
we have rebelled against your love,
we have not loved our neighbors,
and we have not heard the cries of the needy.

FORGIVE US we pray.
FREE US for joyful obedience
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

AMEN.

 

A goal for our Reset sermon series is to read through the entire book of Galatians as a church family. We invite you to participate in the scripture devotional below.

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Galatians 2:1-21 NIV

Paul Accepted by the Apostles

2 Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. ² I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. ³ Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴ This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵ We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶ As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. ⁷ On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,^[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised.^[b] 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹ James, Cephas^[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰ All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Paul Opposes Cephas

¹¹ When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³ The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵ “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in^[d] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷ “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸ If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

¹⁹ “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

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Dive Deep

Click the link below to learn more about our new sermon series.

Galatians 2:1-21 (NRSV and The Message)

Has your present ever been slowed down by your past? Do you find yourself reliving certain situations or scenarios from your past that you wish were handled differently? Do you live in the past, or do you live in the present?

When I read and re-read the second chapter of Galatians, I can’t help but feel for the Apostle Paul. He is struggling to live in the present, but the new believers he is trying to teach and disciple keep him going in circles and having to relive the past. We all know people like that. The game begins at the end of chapter 1, verse 18 when Paul begins recounting his ministry experience from three years ago. Then in this chapter, chapter 2, he dives even further back to 14 years ago when he first began preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. He is doing all of this to defend himself and his character. Paul is clearly frustrated but trying to explain, that he has been at Gospel-Proclaiming a long time and has not wavered; they are the ones going astray.

What were you doing 14 years ago? I was finishing my Junior year of college and arguing with God about what was next. I had heard my call into ministry at age 14 at Warren W. Willis Summer Camp but had run away from it. And so, by this point, I was tired of running and I was ready to strike a deal with the Creator of the Universe (not my wisest moment). I told God that if God wanted me to be a pastor, God would have to not just open doors, but fling open the windows as well. You all know what happened next. I started the Candidacy Process, began meeting with my mentor, and let the dream of being a Music Minister go. I started researching seminaries and planned a Spring Break road trip with my friend Casey to visit United Methodist seminaries in the South East. You know, just the “normal” thing that every College Junior spends her Spring Break doing at age twenty-one! The rest, they say, is history. But that is what I was doing 14 years ago. While I am not in the same place that the Apostle Paul was in, it helps me to remember what God was doing in my life in that season.

For Paul, in Galatians chapter 2, he is reflecting on his past and remembering the struggles and the challenges he had to overcome and he is citing this in his letter to offer validity to everything else he has worked to establish. How very frustrating, but how very human of him too. Sometimes we live in the past because someone else has dragged us there. Sometimes we revisit the past because we have to help others know that we mean business. And other times we creep back to the past of our former lives because we need help remembering what God has been at work doing from the beginning.

I don’t know which past you revisit or how long you stay there, but here is my question. What is God teaching you as you look back on who you used to be and what you used to be about? Was that different 14 years ago and how was it different? Each year we get a chance to reflect on the person we are becoming as the Holy Spirit works within us. I invite you to spend a little time today reflecting on your past; what you learned, what you took for granted, what relationships you built up, and which ones you let go of. And then I invite you to read aloud this Scripture from The Message version of the text and spend time with it in prayer this week.

“ ^19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.” Galatians 2:19-21 The Message

As you reflect on the past you have lived, what you learned and how you grew, can you see where God was in the midst of those moments? Are you able to say, who I am now is not who I once was and “I am not going to go back on that!”

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. The God of our past, our present, and our future.

AMEN