Posts Tagged ‘Galatians’

God’s insistent call

January 25, 2014

Epiphany 3

Paul’s Conversion – Galatians 1:11-24

Marian Free

In the name of God whose insistent call draws us out of ourselves and into God’s service. Amen.

Throughout history there have been numerous accounts of people coming to faith, or coming to what they believe is a deeper and truer understanding of their faith. Many such accounts are dramatic and powerful of the sort that turn a person’s life around and lead them to serve God in ways that are risky and demanding, or that have a profound effect on the world around them and on the church in particular.

One such person was Augustine of Hippo whose spiritual quest had so far failed to satisfy him when his heart was touched by God. His own account goes like this: “As I was weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting and repeating over and over again. “Pick it up and read, pick it up and read.” I began to think intently whether there might be some sort of children’s game in which such a chant is used. But I could not remember having heard of one. I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely as a divine command to open the book and read the first chapter I might find. So I hurried back to the place where I had put down the book of the apostle when I got up. I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit. “Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts.” (Rom 13:13-14) I neither wished nor needed to read further. At once, with the last words of the sentence, it was as if a light relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All shadows of doubt were dispelled” (Chadwick, St Augustine’s Confessions, 152).

Much later in Germany, Martin Luther, a monk of the Augustinian Order had been going through “hell” obsessed with his own sinfulness and the impossibility of remembering all his sins in order to confess them. He tried all kinds of self-abasement to atone for his perceived sinfulness – sleeping in the snow, lying almost naked in the belfry tower at night – nothing seemed to work.

Part of his struggle was: “ to understand Paul’s expression, ‘the justice of God’ because I took it to mean that God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk I had no confidence that my merit would assuage God. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Night and day I pondered this until I grasped that the justice of God is that the righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise. The whole of scripture took on a new meaning and whereas before the phrase ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in great love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven ….” (Bainton, R. Here I Stand – The Classic Biography of Martin Luther. Sutherland, NSW: Albatross Books, 1978, 65.)

An encounter with God not only gives relief from anxiety or opens a gate to heaven, it gives new insights, a different perspective of God and the world. An encounter with God can draw people out of their comfort zone and compel them to respond to a call on their lives that they would not have thought possible and of which they would not have believed themselves capable. The Bible is full of such figures. Abraham and Sarah who responded to a God whom they did not know and set off to a place they had never heard of. Moses who protested that he could not speak, liberated God’s people from slavery and led them to the promised land. Isaiah and Jeremiah who likewise did not believe that they were capable of the task God was asking them to fulfill challenged Kings to change their ways. Jonah who ran away, before he did what God required. Mary and Joseph who said “yes” and enabled Jesus to enter the world. Then there was the rag-tag bunch of unlikely people who left all they had to follow Jesus. People from all walks of life drawn out of their comfort zone to serve a God or a Christ whom they did or did not know who might take them who know where.

Among this great crowd of people we find Paul – that passionate, self-assured servant of God whose life radically changed direction after a “revelation of Jesus Christ”. Unlike Augustine and Luther Paul was not troubled by a search for faith or a fear that he could not please God. By all accounts Paul was a proud and confident Jew, absolutely convinced of his righteousness, his place in the world and before God. He was so sure of himself and his beliefs that he set out to persecute the misguided Jews who believed that Jesus was the Christ. He says of himself: “I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:4-6). Nothing, so far as Paul could tell, was lacking in his life or faith – his credentials were impeccable, his behaviour exemplary and his actions a clear demonstration of his commitment to the faith of his fathers.

Then all this changed: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ” (Phil 3:7). Those things of which he was so proud now count for nothing, the beliefs that led him to persecute Jesus-followers have been overturned. Now he proclaims the faith that “he once tried to destroy.” What happened? The truth is that we do not really know. Paul provides no more details than those in today’s reading from Galatians. He says only that he received a “revelation of Jesus Christ”, that “God called him through his grace and was pleased  to reveal his Son to him, so that he might proclaim him among the Gentiles,.”

We may not know what form the revelation took but we can see that the results are astounding – the one who persecuted believers is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. More than that, he is so convinced that there is no other way to understand God’s action in Christ that he will brook no other interpretation or accept any other view. “As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” (Gal 1:9). Paul preaches as though his life depends on it, and in fact, he does believe that his eternal salvation is intimately bound to that of the communities who have come to faith through him.

Paul’s encounter with God sharpens and refines the faith that he has held from birth. His new, God-revealed perspective allows him to see that God always intended that Gentiles can be included in the Abrahamic faith, that believers be led by the Spirit (not determined by the law) and that God’s grace is not something to be earned, but something that is freely given. Empowered by his experience of God, driven by the conviction that he was called to share what he hd received and enabled by his passion and his great intellect, Paul became a potent force for change in the world. Some twenty years before the Gospels were written, Paul was making sense of Jesus’ life death and resurrection and finding ways in which emerging communities, made of of people who had come from different faiths and different social groupings could worship together.

Paul’s impact on the church is demonstrated by his place in the New Testament – one-fourth of which consists of letters written by or attributed to Paul. Half of the Book of Acts deals with the life and ministry of Paul which means that he accounts for one-third of the New Testament. Paul’s letters are the earliest written documents of the church and provide us with valuable information about the struggles to build community and to come to some consensus as to what faith in Jesus meant for Jew and Gentile alike.

God has ways of getting ours attention, often when we least expect it.  Whether it is a thunder-clap or a whisper, a blinding light or a moment of insight, a call to change the world or a call to change ourselves, a demand to protest against injustice or an insistence to maintain our integrity, empowerment to do something heroic for others or strength to face a personal battle. God’s insistent call will not be denied. We can run, but we cannot hide. God will find us and take us where we do not want or did to expect to go. But whatever it is, whatever God asks of us, we can be sure that God will equip us, support and sustain us and that God will never abandon us until our task is done.

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Paul and Galatia

June 8, 2013

Pentecost 3 – 2013

Galatians (Paul)

Marian Free 

In the name of God who speaks to us in many and various ways. Amen.

Reading the letters of Paul is rather like going on an archeological dig. Apart from the book of Acts, our only information about Paul and about his message is in the letters. What we now accept as holy scripture were the writings of a travelling missionary to the communities that he had founded. Very often Paul writes in reaction to something that has happened in his absence or to a question that the community would like answered.  If we look below the surface of the text it is possible to a limited extent to reconstruct what is going on, to learn something about the community itself and something about the gospel which Paul preached.

Paul tells us very little about himself in the letters. There is no need – the recipients already know who he is. That said, we know that he was passionate about the gospel, that there was some event in his life which turned him from a persecutor to a believer and that he cared deeply for the communities he founded.

For the next few weeks the lectionary is going to take us through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It is in this letter that most appears to be at stake, and in which Paul reveals the most about himself. By his own admission Paul was a zealous Jew who persecuted those who believed in Jesus. This came to an end when God revealed himself to him. The letters also tell us that Paul had too some sort of physical ailment and that this was the reason that he stopped in Galatia. He is not explicit as to the nature of the complaint, but the fact that he claims that the Galatians would have plucked out their eyes for him, leads us to believe that the problem was with his vision.

While Galatians provides a fair amount of information about Paul (in comparison to the other letters), there is much less detail about the recipients of the letter and where they actually were. There are a number of problems when it comes to identifying to whom Paul is writing. First of all, Galatia is a region not a city. Secondly, Galatia could be one of two places – one in the north and one in the south. Southern Galatia makes most sense as the letter’s destination as Paul may well have passed through the area on one of his journeys. However, references to mountains in the letter point to a northern hypothesis as the local religion of the north related to a mountain. Whether north or south, the letter does not provide many clues as to the nature of the community. Were they a largely Gentile community or were they a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles?

The introduction to the letter tells us that other teachers have come to the community. They are confusing the new believers and, in Paul’s terms: “perverting the gospel of Christ”. Who these people might be creates another puzzle for the reader. Are they travelling preachers like Paul who have a different view of the gospel? Are they Jewish members of the community who want the Gentiles to become like them? or Are they members of the local cult who are trying to persuade the community to return to the faith of their ancestors?

These might seem to be minor details, but trying to resolve these sorts of questions helps us to better understand Paul’s arguments in the letter and to appreciate that Paul is not sitting down writing reasoned theology, but responding to a crisis and defending his position with regard to the issue at hand.

So in order to understand the letter to the Galatians we have to peel back the layers to see if we can work out what is going on. In the letter we have what could be described as Act three of a three-part drama.[1]. In Act one Paul, forced to stop in Galatia for health reasons, takes advantage of the situation to preach the gospel to the people there. Some come to faith and form a worshipping community. Act two sees the arrival of other teachers who, the letter tells us, teach things contrary to Paul’s teaching and unsettle the Galatians to the point that they appear to be considering the radical step of circumcision – something Paul strenuously objects to. Finally, in Act three Paul, hearing that the Galatians are being convinced to abandon the gospel he preached, puts pen to paper and writes what turns out to be his most caustic letter

In order to understand Paul’s argument, we have to work backwards from the letter. Paul’s response to those whom he labels “false prophets” tells us something of what they were teaching. In turn, if these other teachers were teaching something different from Paul, it is possible, though somewhat speculative, to work out what it was that Paul had first taught.

Our best guess as to what was going on is this: after Paul left Galatia, other teachers arrived and persuaded the Galatians that in order to be truly members of the faith, to be really children of Abraham, they needed to adopt the Jewish law and to be circumcised. The Galatians, whose faith was only new, were easily persuaded by these new arguments and are either considering circumcision, or are planning to abandon their new-found faith because circumcision was too hard. Paul feels betrayed by their prevarication, but his greater concern is that by accepting the teaching of his opponents, the Galatians have jeopardized their hope of salvation.

Paul uses a number of tactics to try to bring the Galatians back to what he calls “his gospel”. Firstly, as we heard this morning, he makes it clear that his gospel (which does not compel Gentiles to be circumcised or to keep the law) came directly from God and not from any human source. Secondly, he reports that the so-called leaders of the church in Jerusalem gave this circumcision-free gospel their stamp of approval. Thirdly, Paul recounts how he stood up to Peter to defend his position. Having established his credentials Paul moves on to question the Galatians and to counter the arguments of the “false apostles”. He wants to know if they received the Spirit as a result of keeping the law or through faith, knowing before he asks that the answer is the latter.

The central argument of the opponents seems to be that Abraham and his descendants were circumcised therefore if the new believers want to truly belong, they too must be circumcised. Paul however, is able to demonstrate that circumcision was only the seal of a prior promise – that Abraham would be the father of all nations. Further, Paul argues that it was Abraham’s faith which saved him (not circumcision). The logical conclusion is that justification/salvation is based on faith not law. As the Galatians have demonstrated that they have faith they have no need now to adopt the law. This is a great equalizer as we shall see in chapter three in which Paul proclaims: “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.” (3:25)

Paul then uses two arguments to defend his point that the law enslaves rather than liberates – it acts in a custodial role for those who do not have the Spirit and it binds one to an earthly rather than a heavenly existence. After his great battle cry: “For freedom, Christ has set us free” (5:1), Paul concludes the letter by exhorting the Galatians to allow their lives to be directed by the Spirit and by teaching them how to live in community.

Of course, I have only skimmed the surface of a complex, yet profound argument.  At the heart of the letter to Galatia is Paul’s argument that faith is the primary criterion for membership in the community that followed Christ and the fact that this opened the way for Gentiles to join the new faith without first becoming Jews. Along the way Paul provides some profound insights into the gospel as he understood it.

Paul writes not theology, but occasional letters aimed at particular communities with particular issues. For centuries Paul has been misrepresented, misused and misunderstood. Many people have written him off as too difficult to understand. Yet the communities to whom he wrote these letters were convinced that their contents would benefit a much wider audience. The letters were shared, collected and considered so important that they were finally included in what we call the New Testament.

Isn’t it time we took the trouble to get to know him and to discover the treasures for ourselves?

[1] I am indebted to Winger for this concept. Winger, Michael. “Act 1, Paul arrives in Galatia.” New Testament Studies 48 (2002):548-567.

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