"WALK LIKE A GALATIAN: BAPTIZED"

Galatians 3:23-29

Today was supposed to be the SECOND sermon

taken from Paul's letter to the Galatians.

So much for that!

The good news for you

is that I promise not to preach twice as long today

since I was out sick last week!

But let's do talk for a minute

about this letter to the church inGalatia

and what Paul might still have to say

to the church in Bonham.

Galatia was what we would call today

 a new church development.

They had been meeting together less than a year.

It had been started by the apostle Paul

on one of his missionary journeys,

and after he felt like it was on its feet,

he took off to do the same thing elsewhere.

But after Paul left,

some Jewish Christians came along

and told the new church

that Paul was mistaken.

They knew better.

Paul had told the Galatians

that it didn't matter

whether they followed all the old Jewish laws

now that they were Christians.

But these folks knew that it did.

It was NOT okay for Gentiles to sit with Jews.

It was NOT okay to be uncircumcised.

It was NOT okay to eat whatever you wanted

with whoever you wanted to eat it with.

Paul was just, well, wrong,

and so, they said to the church,

here's the right way to do things.

Now, remember that Galatia was a new church development

without a Book of Order

or much of a Presbytery office,

maybe even not much of a Session.

And while they could say "We've never done that before,"

there wasn't one person who could say

"We've always done it this way."  

Paul was off on a boat somewhere,

but these other guys were right here.

And they sounded like they knew what they were talking about.

So, in the words of the old song,

the Galatians decided to "love the one they were with,"

and they began to break up the community

into Jews and Gentiles,

men and women,

washed and unwashed.

Turn with me if you will

to the book of Galatians for a minute.

Imagine what Paul's voice must have sounded like

in chapter one.

The letter starts off very lovingly

and pretty typically,

except for the fact that Paul had to remind them

that he'd been sent on commission from God.

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ,"

and lots of other loving and collegial words.

But only six verses into his letter, he says,

"I am astonished" that you are so quickly deserting me,

and are taking up a different gospel.

That's a pretty serious charge.

Paul is spitting nails in this opening section

because someone has come in behind him

and tried to teach the new church

that God is more interested in rules and regulations

than in making things right with God's children.

So he moves into chapter two of his letter.

And starting at verse 15,

he gets to what became the centerpiece of the Reformation,

the idea that framed everything Martin Luther had to say:

"We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;

yet we know that a person is justified

not by the works of the law,

byt through faith in Jesus Christ."

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In the words of poet Ann Weems,

"it's all about Jesus."

In the words of a colleague back in Utah,

the "salvation equation

is grace plus nothing."

There's nothing that WE have to do,

there's nothing that we HAVE to do,

there's nothing that we have to DO.

God has brought about our justification,

our salvation,

solely in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Everything else becomes peripheral.

Paul tries to describe it

as though he himself has died,

and that the risen Christ now fills that space in his body

where his ego used to be.

He meant it quite literally.

In the Greek,

it's like Paul is saying

that the essence of who he is,

everything that one would call "Paul,"

has been taken out and set aside,

and just isn't in there anymore.

Then when the risen Christ came to live in him,

he took over Paul's being so completely

that it was now Jesus

who was drinking coffee for breakfast,

scratching his head over this conflict,

starting new churches in Asia,

and writing to the church in Galatia.

Paul is saying

that because Jesus has lived and moved among us,

the need for the law has passed.

Before he came,

we didn't know how to act.

We didn't know any better,

so we needed something tangible to guide us.

If we had law, God thought,

maybe we could figure out how to relate to each other

and to live as God's holy people.

But now, whether we live on the Caspian Sea

or on Lake Bonham,

we know.

You and I can see it for ourselves

in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

So the law has done what it was supposed to do.

We know how to act!

The last thing any of us need,

Paul thought,

was someone trying to say

that we still need to avoid pork

or undergo circumcision

or anything else,

as long as we're only doing it to show our holiness.

The good news of the gospel, friends,

is that our holiness has nothing to do with it!

You and I have been made holy

by the cross of Christ.

Everything else is just gravy.

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Now that the law has been fulfilled

in the person of Jesus,

we know how to act.

Our job

is to act like the baptized, beloved children of God that we are.

Paul says that when we were baptized into Christ,

we put on Christ.

There's no room for anything else.

There's no NEED for anything else.

In putting on Christ at our baptism,

you and I have the freedom of being called God's child.

It is that freedom

that allows us to respond to God in a totally different way.

Instead of constantly trying to prove ourselves,

instead of everything we do being motivated out of fear,

we do everything that we do

out of gratitude.

We don't have to go to church

because we think God will get angry if we don't.

We baptized, beloved children of God

choose to come to worship

for no other reason

than gratitude for all that God has given us in Jesus.

Doesn't that feel good!

There are those people

who act as though God is a grouchy grandparent

who will rap our knuckles anytime we do something wrong.

God doesn't care about the things you do

in order to make God think you're a good person.

That's so not necessary anymore.

What would change

if we began to act towards God

not as one who is afraid,

but as one who has inherited the promise:

as one who has put on Christ in baptism,

who has set the old self aside

and is letting Christ drive our thoughts

and our words and our deeds.

That's exactly what our baptism

gives us the opportunity,

and the right,

and the responsibility to do.

What follows from that doing away with the law

is that any kind of distinction other than baptism

is also useless.

It doesn't matter if we're male or female,

young or old,

purebred Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist,

liberal or conservative,

Democrat or Republican -

well, THAT one might matter - just kidding! -

circumcised or not,

from Texas or from Tanzania.

As Paul wrote in another letter to the church in Corinth,

now we are all the body of Christ,

and individually members of it.

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So.

It's lovely that we're all freed from rules and regulations,

because we have been baptized in Christ

and so have put on Christ,

and that God loves each of us equally

because we are all heirs of the promise.

So what?

Paul will get into this a little more later,

but it has to be said today.

"Putting on Christ"

calls us to more than self-congratulations.

If, as Paul suggests,

in our baptism we have taken our old selves out

and set them aside  //

in order that Christ might live

throughout the whole of our lives,

that's a pretty radical change.

And radical change requires that things get done

in a radically different way.

If we have "put on Christ,"

we are taking into ourselves

a Jesus who gave his life for others.

Who ate with undesirables.

Who spoke truth to power.

Who served the least of these.

Who preached,

and prayed,

and studied.

Who demonstrated a new way of life.

THAT is what we "put on" at our baptism,

and that is how we must live.

It's that "grateful response" again.

Owning our baptisms

and following in the way of Jesus

involves more than just making sure

that our personal ticket to heaven remains valid.

We put on the whole of Christ:

his words,

his deeds,

his nature,

his faith,

his self-giving love.

"Walking like a Galatian"

means not listening to anyone

who tries to tell you

that you must comply to only four spiritual laws,

and that you must answer them in the correct order.

It means focusing not on HOW you were baptized,

but THAT you were baptized.

It means that,

in your baptism,

you have been freed from the law,

to the exact same degree

as each of your brothers and sisters in Christ,

and that you have been freed FOR following.

Every action you take

is a reflection, for good or ill,

of the living Christ.

So let's be about it.

Let's live out our baptisms, starting right now.

Amen