A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
September 8, 2024 at Holy Communion
Galatians 6:11–18, Matthew 6:24–34
“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.
In college, I had a friend who earned my respect by saying no when he was asked to do something for the church.
The college chaplaincy was a dynamic place. It always felt like the pace was fast and the stakes were high. Energetic, opinionated, chaotic young people were getting involved in chapel activities, getting excited, having their perspectives changed and challenged, getting angry, forming friendships. And in the middle of all that was a charismatic older priest and a passionate but frazzled group of student leaders who had to give the whole mess shape and direction. The chapel needed a new student warden. Some other leaders had left their positions early, and things were falling apart.
Now, this priest could ask his students to do anything and they would have because they loved him so much, but when he cornered my friend Alan and asked him to take on the position, he apologetically but straightforwardly said no. No, he would not serve. And for that he earned my respect.
Why? Because he knew that wardenship was not something that he could take on in a spirit of freedom. Even though I was already doing too much, I probably would have said yes, and let that role be a ball and chain around my neck.
Our readings are about freedom. St Paul’s concern in our Epistle is that there was a party within the church which did not understand that the church is meant to be a place of freedom.
There was a party of Jewish Christians who thought that the new non-Jewish converts should be obliged to keep the Old Testament law, starting with circumcision and going right through to dietary laws and the rest. They saw themselves as being in a contractual relationship with God, a legal covenant, in which observing the practices of the law was the human side of the bargain. God imposes laws and rewards men for fulfilling them. When they insisted that the non-Jewish Christians keep the law, they probably thought that they were being generous: they were letting foreigners into the bargain God had made with the chosen people.
But Paul points out that their motives were not simply altruistic. Not only were they self-protectively following an interpretation of the Christian faith that would avoid causing scandal to their Jewish friends (Galatians 6:12), but it also made them look both zealous and magnanimous that they were spreading the observance of the law even among the Gentiles (v 13). What fabulous evangelists they were! Paul calls this “glorying in the flesh”: collecting accolades for the ways you have been able to manipulate the behaviour of the people around you.
But St Paul follows the way of the cross. “God forbid that I should glory,” he says, ”save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (v 14). For St Paul, all that boasting about keeping the law, about convincing others to keep the law, all of that is “the world” and all of that is “the flesh.” That is what Jesus puts to death when he mounts his cross. So when St Paul mounts the cross with Jesus—because Christian faith is mounting the cross with Jesus—none of that matters to him anymore.
Dying to the world and living to God, Paul became a new creation (v 15). In that new creation, the obligations of the old world don’t count for anything, nor does the praise you get for fulfilling those obligations. And he is far happier for it. “As for all who walk by this rule,” he says, “peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (v 16). Death to the world and its obligations is the way of peace. Forgiveness of debts and untying burdens is the way of mercy. The true Israel who walks with God is the one who observes a Sabbath of rest from the labours of the spirit.
But St Paul didn’t invent this teaching; he received it from the Lord. In our Gospel reading Jesus says that you can either serve money or God (Matthew 2:24). Money will be a cruel master, putting a new yoke in your inbox every Monday for you to pick up and shoulder. Money will pay you wages of anxiety. Or you can serve God, and God will treat you like he treats the flowers and the birds: he gives them what they need at the right time (v 26–30). God is the master who is not a master. He lays no obligation on his servants except that they trust in his provision. His yoke is light (Matthew 11:30).
But in fact even the Lord received this teaching from the Old Testament. We heard this morning how Jesus’ namesake, the Prophet Joshua, reminded the people that their God was a God of freedom and provision, who “brought us out of the house of slavery” and “preserved us in all the way that we went” (Joshua 24:17). For them, keeping the law would mean remaining steadfast in a position of dependence upon God and mercy toward their brothers.
Pay close attention. The law seems to re-emerge, doesn’t it? The Israelites are freed from bondage and given legal boundaries for remaining in faithfulness. Jesus preaches no obligation to worldly striving, but still an obligation to trust in Providence. St Paul preaches no law, but he promises peace for those who follow the “rule” of the cross. In our Epistle last week, Paul spoke about the “law of Christ” which is to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).
The difference is what these obligations feel like. The obligations of anxious striving constrict you, cut you off from others, make you angry, make you depressed. The obligation to trust, though difficult to learn, is about releasing the anxiety that would otherwise bind you. Bearing your own burden of self-justification makes you hard, makes you proud, makes you unreceptive. But the Christian law is that you lay down your burden and let someone else carry it for you, while you carry theirs. This feels like tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy.
The friend from college that I mentioned. He did, in fact, ultimately agree to be a warden, but it wasn’t for another year or two until circumstances had changed. When he was first asked he saw that the person asking was desperate, that he was trying to compel him to shoulder a heavy burden. He was not ready to embrace that burden with an open-hearted and trusting spirit, so he wisely said no. But later, out of joy rather than obligation, he took on the role and did his part in bearing the burdens of others.
We live to serve one another. But God forbid that we ever do it from a sense of obligation: obligation to others, our even to our own consciences which we have so distorted with legal thinking. For freedom Christ has set you free.
Comentarios