Month: December 2021

The apostle Paul is not a very popular guy, and I don’t just mean he wasn’t popular when he was alive, he is not popular among many people today for various reasons, but I like Paul and I like his writing, even when I disagree with it. I like Paul because unlike the authors of the Gospels he gives us a window into a 2000-year-old struggle with faith. His letters were written to specific people to help them understand their faith and figure out what it means to be a follower of Christ Jesus and that is why I want to focus on Paul’s letter today.

            You might think that the second half of the passage from Galatians is the logical part to focus on because it talks about the birth of Jesus and we are amidst Christmas celebrations; but I think the first half is the important part, specifically the very first line, which says “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.”

            The law Paul is referring to is Temple Law, which was extremely strict and primarily a human invention. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, as we all know, were extreme rule followers and they sparred with Jesus on many occasions, attempting to trap him as a rule breaker, but he always dodged it by flipping the attack on its head and pointing out that their rules were not God’s rules, they are human rules, and he was not there to deal with human rules, he was there to establish a direct path to God. Paul knows this very well, and despite his background as a Pharisee, he embraces the idea that salvation can be achieved through faith, and it is no longer necessary to endure the discipline of the law to achieve salvation, though he still likes his rules because he is still a pharisee at heart. Of course the irony is that the church that is ultimately built on the foundation of scripture, which includes Paul’s writings, is one that creates mountains of rules that reduce salvation to something that is only achieved by the people who admit their guilt for not following the rules; but that is a different conversation and you are probably wondering if I am ever going to talk about the baby Jesus, but I’m not going to.

            Paul said that the law was a prison, and I think he is right, because whether we look at Temple Law or Medieval Church Law the focus was not really faith, it was not about cultivating a relationship with God, it was about making sure people followed the rules so that God would not punish them, and it was about ensuring that the power structure of society was maintained. The issue with this system is that the rules replaced God in the equation, instead of the other way around, which is the point of Christ Jesus. Jesus turns the rule book on its head and says “I’m the rule book. Me! If you want to experience God, if you want to achieve salvation, then follow me, the way of love.” Now Jesus is not rejecting “the law”, he is saying the law is not enough and, in some cases, not necessary. Rules are guardrails, they let us know where the boundaries are, but they are not what brings us closer to God; faith, which means complete trust in God does that. We can spend our entire lives staying within the lines of the law, never once straying, and still never experience God. Why? Because following the rules is not faith. Faith is faith! Following the rules is obedience and obedience is not love, which matters because if God is the source of Love, then God requiring obedience doesn’t make any sense; love is rooted in trust and trust is also rooted in faith, it’s in the definition.

            Paul talks about the coming of Jesus as the revealing of faith, which I really like because it implies that faith always existed, it was just hidden. John talks about the Word existing from the beginning and that through the Word, life in the form of a light, burst onto the scene and that light shined so bright that the darkness, as much as it tried, could not overshadow it. The darkness is meant to represent a life without faith, a life more concerned with following the rules than trusting the love of God. The light is Jesus Christ, God incarnate acting as a beacon, like the north star. It can seem distant, but it is steady, and nothing will cause it to go out, not even death. Where we run into issues is when we block our own view of the light. We put on our blinders and say to ourselves, well I know that the light is over there, but I am really curious what’s down this really dark rabbit hole off to my right so I’m just going to take a quick trip over here and see what happens and before we realize it we lose sight of the light and eventually forget about it and that my friends is sin; which is a dirty and loaded word because it implies that we have broken the rules; but we haven’t broken the rules we just took a detour. How, then, do we get back on track?

            We discerningly return to the Word, which according to John, is the source of life that is the light of all people. The word is the embodiment of God, it was, is, and continues to be Christ Jesus. While the body of Jesus, born two thousand years ago is no longer with us, the word is. And the word is both the source of Love and life in the universe. So, to get back on track we turn to God, and we humbly follow where God takes us; knowing that God will lead us into our full potential as their creation; into a full use of our God given gifts and talents. When we divert from our talents and attempt to do things we aren’t suited for, we are in fact centering our lives on ourselves and not on God and that is the very definition of sin. The rules, or the law as Paul called it, is our, meaning humanities, attempt to make sure we don’t get off track but breaking the rules we made is not the sin. Forgetting about God is the sin and that is why I don’t like that word; it has been corrupted and misunderstood for too long.

            If you feel you are off track, that you can’t discern God in your life then perhaps it is time to look for the light in the darkness. If you need to visualize it look at this candle right here, it is called the Christ candle and it represents the light Paul is talking about, it is the light in the darkness, it is the source of life. Life grounded in the Word, which means if you faithfully follow it, you will find life, you will find love, and with God’s grace you will find joy, which is how you will know you are on track. Amen.

The words of Isaiah, as heard through Luke’s gospel, hint at a promise, but are more importantly a call to action. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ This passage is the tag line we use here at St. Philip’s, ‘If you come here you will grow’. If you come here, you will learn how to prepare yourself and recognize that you are the way of the lord.

We are God’s instrument in the world, it is through us that God interacts with humanity; it is through us that God heals the sick; brings food to the poor; comforts the lonely, and God does this work through us whether we acknowledge it or not, but by not acknowledging it we are in fact denying ourselves the richness that a relationship with God has to offer and we are ignoring a fundamental component of our existence, which is that we were created to be both a companion to God and to fulfill a purpose and it is when we discover how to recognize and balance this that we will have made the rough ways smooth.

I want us to envision a quilt, every piece on the quilt has a purpose, but they didn’t always fit together. Before each piece could be included in the quilt it had to be cut down to size, the edges had to be trimmed so that they were straight and not fraying; doing so did not make them the same, as they all continue to have their own uniqueness, but they are all equal in importance to the integrity of the quilt. The thread is what binds them together, without it none of the pieces could fulfill their purpose and the same is true for all of us.

We are the pieces in this metaphor and God is the thread, but for God to bind us together, we must fill the valleys, the rifts that exist between us and at the same time break down the mountains and hills, what we often call the walls we construct around ourselves for protection. Picture it this way, imagine that you have a wall surrounding you. It is a wall that has been built over a long, long time and you built it for your own protection. Perhaps you were hurt by someone and rather than take the chance of being hurt again, you constructed a barrier. We have all done this, but the problem is that these walls don’t protect us, they isolate us and then we think we are protected from harm. The truth, and I know this from personal experience, is that we are in fact strengthening our sense of control and our desire to be in control of everything, instead of preparing the way for God to enter our lives. As we build these walls, our personal relationships become frayed and rifts or valleys begin to develop between ourselves and the people whom we love, we lose the ability to develop new relationships, leaving us with a deeply rooted sense of loneliness and possibly anger and sadness.

Despite the walls and the rifts in our lives, God is there, trying desperately to get us to pay attention to their call to relationship; but we are too angry, too sad, too distracted by our own thoughts and emotions to hear that call. So, what can we do about it and how will we know we are on the right track?

The first thing we need to do is accept the truth that we all have hills and valleys in our lives and that we are the source of most of them. We all have valleys of sadness and anger, and we all have hills of unfettered narcissism. Once we recognize this we will have taken the first step towards humility, which is accepting the truth that we are no worse and no better than any other person in this very moment because we were all created equally and have a distinct purpose. As we take this step our wall will begin to come down and its rubble will fill the rifts that have developed and over time the hills and the valleys in our lives will become smooth, straight paths that God will be able to easily use to pass between us. It is at that point that we will be fulfilling our intended purpose because it is at that point that we will be true vessels of the Holy Spirit.

God has given us all gifts, by which I mean abilities. My gifts are the ability to explain complicated concepts, you might call it teaching; listen with a compassionate and attentive ear; and think through complicated problems. When I utilize these gifts, God can reach other people through me, which is what we mean when we say we are the hands and feet of God. Your gifts are likely different than mine, perhaps you make excellent cookies and love to do so and if that is you, have you ever wondered why? Or have you ever thought about the joy you may bring to a deacon when you give them a fresh batch of your most excellent peanut butter cookies? My point is this, we all have God given gifts and we are good at those things because they are the things that God needs us to be good at, so that we can answer God’s call; but for God to work through us we must both get out of the way and accept the gifts we have been given. Which means we need to level the mountains, fill in the valleys, and prepare the way of the Lord, which means prepare ourselves. Basically, we need to examine ourselves through the lens of scripture and then prayerfully chip away at those walls. When the walls are down, and the valleys are filled; when we are focused on using our gifts to bring love and joy to others it is at that point that we are fulfilling our purpose. You will know when it is happening because you will feel it, you will feel energized, you will feel joy, and you will feel like you have a purpose. That, my friends, is what it means to be in relationship with and experience God. It means to align your mind, your body, and your entire life with God’s plan by utilizing your gifts to help others. For some, those gifts allow them to heal physical and mental illness and for others those gifts allow them to bring joy by baking peanut butter cookies. Our gifts are what they are, it is up to us to use them.