On the 8th of July 1741, the Reverend Jonathan Edwards stepped into the pulpit of a church in Enfield Connecticut and delivered his most famous sermons, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  I say famous because this sermon, of all of his countless others, has been studied and dissected, and misunderstood since the first day it had been preached.

Edwards, who happens to be my 6th cousin, was one of the great preachers from a time in our American history known as the Great Awakening, or perhaps I should say the 1st Great Awakening.  It is always difficult to pinpoint the exact start of movements such as this but historians usually use the period of the 1730’s, and 40’s so before the American Revolution.  In fact, many historians credit the Awakening for the Revolution.

The awakening began in the south and moved up the coast by various preachers and came to New England with the preaching of Rev. Edwards in his church in Northampton.  Edwards preached this sermon there first and then was asked by the pastor of the Church in Enfield to come and preach to his congregation.  It seems they had been unmoved by the awakening thus far, and the pastor was determined that his flock would be changed.

If you have never read the sermon I would suggest that you do, however, it is filled with imagery that may sound foreign to us, but the result is the same.  The entire idea behind the awakening, as any revival, is to call people back to piety and a sense of who they are as Christians.  Edwards used the image of Hell and the final judgment of individuals as a way to bring them back.  It has been reported that people shouted “how can I be saved” during the sermon.  So moved were they that a monument has been erected in Enfield on the site of the sermon.

Historians of American religious history disagree on how man awakenings have taken place in America since that time some say three some say four, but they usually follow some period of upheavals in America like a war or some such.  From these times people do become more religious if you will, but they tend not to last long as we go back, slowly but surely, to the way we were.  But we keep going on, and we keep trying.

The great religious writer Phyllis Tickle writes about, what she calls, the 500-year rummage sale of the church.  Like the awakenings, these are historical periods of time, difficult to pinpoint, when the church takes a long hard look at itself and a sense of revision or dare I say reformation, comes to the church.  We are approaching the 500th anniversary of the last one, the Great Reformation of Martin Luther, so the feeling is we are in another period of rummaging around.

These are times of change in the Church and can be refreshing.  Just a Luther brought a much-needed reform the church cannot stay the same, just as we cannot remain the same, as things change around us.  And for many this will be a test of our faith.

In the Scripture lesson today, we hear of a time when other people’s faith was tested and a reminded that we are to hold fast to that faith, and we were told of what faith can and will do.  Faith is what gave the Israelites the strength and will to cross the Red Sea when it seemed that all hope was lost, and it was a lack of faith that made it impossible for the Egyptians to follow them.  It was faith that brought down the walls of Jericho after they had been circled seven times.

In 1992 I made my fist, of what would be many trips, to Romania.  I went there as part of a group of missionaries who had been asked by the Evangelical Church in Romania to come and help them establish seminaries and training facilities for social workers and others who would help to rebuild their country.  Romania is an amazing place and a place that I call my spiritual home for many reasons.

I had the opportunity to meet with many faithful Christians in Romania and saw the devastation that occurred when the Church got too close to the government.  Each person I encountered I asked them the same question, how did you do it?  How did you survive, not only as a Christian but as human beings in what has been described as one of the most brutal dictatorships the world has even seen?

Their answer was always the same, whether they were Evangelical or Orthodox, Christian or Jew the answer was their faith is what saw them through.  Even though the institutional church had sold its soul to the government, faith is what brought them through.  Faith is what brought them through the persecution that we do not even understand in this country.  Oh sure we claim we are persecuted as Christians in this country, but we simply have no idea what that even means.

In preparing this sermon today, I looked up the word faith in the dictionary.  There are two definitions; one is that faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. For a Christian, that means we have full faith and confidence in God and in His Son Jesus Christ. The other definition is a belief in something unseen or something that we cannot prove.  I believe that these go together.

As Christians, we are to have this complete faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  Not in me, not in Rev. Bill, not in the Church and certainly not in the government.  We have our faith in Jesus Christ.  We cannot prove anything about it, but we believe it, that’s faith.  We have talked, in previous sermons, about how God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness with manna, and he continues to give us His manna through his word.  Can I prove any of it?  I studied it, and continue to study as has Rev. Bill, and I cannot point to anything and say there it is, that’s faith.  But I can point to what faith is.

Faith requires some things from us besides this complete trust and confidence.  Faith compels us to love, to serve, to forgive, to care, to welcome, to feed, to clothe, to a house, to visit and all of other things that Jesus left us as an enduring example.  You have heard me say this before it is not enough to profess with our lips that we are followers of Jesus we have to confess it with our actions!  What we do is far more important than what we say, as individuals, as a Church community, and as a nation.  I want you to notice one thing about all of those things that we are commanded to do, they are all verbs, action words.

Our Christian faith requires each of us to look at each other and see nothing more than a child of God created in his image and likeness.  We can no longer look at others as their color or their religion or the supposed sin for as Paul says in his Letter to the Galatians “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Our faith should be conservative because we conserve a faith that for 2,000 plus years has stood for equality, justice and mercy.  But our faith should also be liberal because for 2,000 plus years our faith has stood to liberate spiritual captives from their blindness and lead them to a liberating Christ that will free them from their sins.  A Christ that welcomes all with open arms and desires that we all come to love him and one another.  This is what faith is, and this is what faith does.

In 1741 Jonathan Edwards pointed out to those listening to him that hell was just around the corner.  Now we can debate what that means and trust me when I say theologians of all stripes continue this discussion, but what he is saying is the time is at hand.  We are no longer on the verge of an awakening we are in one, and I see the Church coming alive again and finding her voice and shouting at the top of her lungs for those who have no voice.  I see the Church marching together for those who cannot march.  And I see the Church, at long last advocating for those things that Jesus has commanded us to advocate for, love, mercy, justice, equality, and all the rest.

Dear ones, the time, is now and we, all of us here, are the chosen ones.  We have been called by God and given a mission.  We can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch it is time to get in the game!  This is what faith means and this is what faith requires.  Action!

In the book “The Pine Tree” by Rose Dobbs, there is a story about a pine tree that is lonely and sad because it is the only tree around with long needles instead of green leaves. It wishes to be important and noticed among the other trees in the forest. Thinking it costs nothing to wish, the pine tree wishes for gold leaves. And lo, the next morning his branches are full of shining gold leaves. However, they do not last long. A poor peddler comes along and thinking he has been blessed with the discovery of a treasure; he picks every single one of the leaves. The pine tree is devastated wishing that he had beautiful but less valuable leaves he envisions himself with glittering glass leaves. Which is what he has when he wakes in the morning. And do they shine in the sun! But near evening a storm comes up. The wind blows, and soon the pretty glass leaves are broken on the ground. Shivering in the cold wind the pine tree wishes for plentiful, lush green leaves like his neighbor trees. And in the morning he is full of such leaves….until a goat comes along and eats them all. “Oh, my!” exclaims the tree. “I wish I just had my plain old needles back. I should never have wished to be more important than the other trees in the forest! ” And by next morning his needles have returned. The birds are asking to build nests in his branches because they can be hidden by his needles. And the little pine tree welcomes them vowing to be happy and useful with all that he is. And we could add, all that God created him to be!

“Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Luke 12:15

According to the dictionary, Covetousness means: feeling or showing a very strong desire for something that you do not have and especially for something that belongs to someone else.  It has the additional meaning of being marked by inordinate desire for wealth or possessions or for another’s possessions as well as having a craving for possessions.  The man in the story was suffering for covetousness for sure but what about us?  Have we ever been guilty of this?

It was common for the people of the time of Jesus to bring their disputes to trusted rabbis for a decision.  As we see in this story today, Jesus refused to get involved in people’s disputes about money, but he uses the opportunity to enlighten his Apostles on what their attitude towards material possessions should be.  He has something to say to not only those who have an abundance of possessions but also to those who have few.

To those who were listening that had an abundance of possessions he told them the parable of the rich fool.  We just heard this story.  In the story, the man has been blessed with more crops than he can possibly store in the barns and other builds that he has.  His solution is to pull down those barns and build bigger ones.  He builds the bigger barns and stores all he has and feels pretty good about what he was able to accomplish.  Then an angel comes and tells him that this night he is going to die.  All that work was for nothing.

Two things stand out in this story.  He never saw beyond himself.  This parable, unlike the others that Jesus uses, is full of the words, I, me, my and mine.  These are called aggressive pronouns.  The rich fool in the story was aggressively self-centered.  When this man had an excess of goods, the one thing that never entered his mind was to share them with others.  His whole attitude was the reverse of Christianity.  Rather than denying himself he aggressively affirmed himself; rather than finding his happiness in giving he tried to conserve it by keeping.

John Wesley’s rule of life was to save all he could and give all he could.  When he was at Oxford University, he had an income of thirty pounds a year.  He lived on twenty-eight, and he gave away two.  When his income increased over the years to sixty, then ninety and then finally to one hundred and twenty, he still lived on twenty-eight, and he gave away the rest. The Romans had a saying that money was like sea-water; the more a man drank, the thirstier he became.  As long as our desire is that of the rich fool, our desire will always be to get more – and that is the reverse of Christianity.

The second point is that he never saw beyond this present world. All his plans were based on his life here in this world.  The one who never remembers that there is another world is destined some day for the grimmest of grim shocks.  We spend far too much time storing up things in our existing barns and not worrying at all about what comes next.

But Jesus also has something to say to those who have few possessions.  The one thought that Jesus forbids in this passage is an anxious thought or worry.  Jesus does not want us to live a shiftless, wild life.  There is nothing wrong with being comfortable in our life.  What Jesus said was do your best and leave the rest to God.  This takes great faith.  Just like the prayer discussion we had last week, not worrying about the future takes enormous faith.

Jesus said, “seek first the kingdom of God.” We pray in the Lord’s prayer that God’s kingdom was a place on earth where his will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven.  So what Jesus is saying here is that our lives need to bend, not to our will, but to obeying God’s will and that we need to rest easy and be content with that will for our lives.

So many people work for things and heap up things that by their very nature will not last.  Rust and mold will get to them, and they spoil.  Just like last time when we spoke about the manna that God provided to those in the wilderness.  They were only to gather what they needed if the gathered more it spoiled.

Work for things that will last forever, things that you will not leave behind when you leave this earth, but the things that you can take with you.

If we clothe our souls in the garments of honor and purity and goodness, nothing on earth can take that away from us.  If we seek the treasures of heaven, our hearts will be fixed in heaven; but if we seek the treasures of earth, our hearts will be tied to this earth – and one day we will have to say goodbye to them for as the Spanish proverb says: there are no pockets in a shroud.”

 

What we have just heard from the Scriptures is a very early version of what we no call the Lord’s prayer. When I call us to pray this prayer here at the Church, I usually say; “let us pray in the words our Savior taught us.” or words similar to those. Although the prayer has changed, and other Gospel record this event just a bit different, the meaning behind those words has not changed. This is in some ways the perfect prayer and the only prayer we need.

I have spent a significant portion of my ministry involved in teaching people about prayer. Notice I did not say teaching people to pray that is something you have to do all on your own. But there is a certain way that we should pray, and that is what Jesus is teaching his apostles in this Scripture today.

The prayer starts out with an address; Jesus address this prayer to God the Father. This is a classic Christian start to any prayer, just like a letter you might be writing it is important that the prayer is addressed to the right person. But I want to point out that we are addressing not some tyrannical being on some distant shore or sitting on a cloud, but we use the intimate term of father because God is a parent who delights to supply his children with what they need, not what they want, but what they need.

I always remind people that it is okay to pray for people, we do it here in church during the pastoral prayer, and I hope we do it daily in our prayers. But we pray that God’s will be done in each and every situation and in each and every life that we encounter. God knows what we need before we do and so our prayer should be for us to walk in the will of God and that God’s will, and not ours, be done. We do say, “your will be done.”

But I want to point out another thing here, the prayer beings by addressing God because before we ask for anything we have to give God the glory that God so deserves. Only when we give God the glory and put God in his rightful place in our lives will all the other things in our lives start to come together.

I like to think that I am a person of prayer. Sure I run hot and cold like most people and some days I spend time in prayer and other days it’s nothing more that “O God it’s morning again.” But I can tell when I have spent time with God and when I have not spent time with God. Maybe I am short with other people, perhaps I am aggravated all day, it could be anything. But on the days I take the time to spend with God things seems to be just a little bit better. It puts my mind and my thoughts in the right place and sets my feet on the right path.

Our prayer should cover all of life but should also focus on the present reality and our current needs. We pray “give us this day our daily bread.” This harkens back to the time in the wilderness as recorded in Exodus 16:11-21. God had led the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt, and they spent time wandering in the desert. They asked God to supply their needs, and God sent them manna. Manna was a sort of dough like substance that they would make all kinds of things out of. God warned them to take only what they needed for that day as the rest would spoil. Each morning new manna would appear, and they would gather. This required trust, faith in God that God would supply what they needed. Those who did not trust found out that what was left rotted overnight.

We pray in the present moment for current needs. Only the needs of the day should be gathered in prayer, we are not to worry about the uncertain future, but we are to live in the moment one day at a time. We trust that God will help us each day to live that day the way God wants us to live. When we do not trust God, we are saying that we know better than God, and we can do it ourselves. We pray that “Thy will be done.” And we trust in God and leave it to God.

Prayer covers past sins, and we ask for forgiveness, and we also seek the grace to forgive others and ourselves. You have heard me mention this before, and I am sure you will hear me say this again, but forgiveness is essential to the Christian life. “forgive us our debts, trespasses, sins, as we forgive those who are in debited to us, who sin against us, or who trespass against us.” We forgive because we have been forgiven!

Forgiveness is a struggle but our entire life as Christians is a struggle. Jesus never once said, and I think we tend to forget this, that if we follow the way our life will be easy. It will not be easy nor was it meant to be easy. Following the way of Christ is challenging and forgiveness is part of that journey. Forgiveness is not about the other person, and it does not matter if they accept forgiveness or not or if they apologize to you or not. Forgiveness is about you. The withholding of forgiveness darkens the soul.

Remember years ago there was a TV commercial about lungs and smoking? There would be this beautiful pink lung and then a nasty black one. Our soul can get like that when we withhold forgiveness; it darkens it just a little, and it makes the rest of our life just that much harder to deal with. When we withhold forgiveness, we give power over us to the other person or persons involved.

Shortly after the shooting incident at Virginia Tech, I was asked to travel to the campus to be part of a team of clergy that would be available to students that had been involved that day. We came from all parts of the country to be available on the quad outside of the main administration building and also to hold group sessions in the evening. On the quad was an impromptu memorial to those who had been slain that day. As I walked around the circle, I was struck by the fact that the shooter was also included, and the saying on campus was “32 are gone because one was lost.” They were not letting him off the hook, they did not forget what happened, they were saying that they were not going to allow hate to rule their lives. Holding back forgiveness leads to hate and hate leads to destruction.

Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of this prayer comes with the words, “lead us not into temptation.” Perhaps a better word here would be “trail” rather than “temptation.” Again, we have not been promised that life will be easy. We face trials each and every day and what we are asking here in this prayer is that we will not go through it alone, in fact, we never do. I want to make this point clear; God will never abandon us, EVER! God loves you; God cares for you, and God made a promise that he will never abandon us. Sure we might leave God, but God is always there, standing right beside us all along the journey. Friends will come and go in our lives, but God is the one constant, God is always there, there is nothing we can do to make him leave us or abandon us. EVER!

There is an old saying, “God answers every prayer, sometimes the answer is no.” Prayer is a conversation, a conversation between God and us and yes we have to listen God speaks to us, but we have to hear the voice.

There is a story of man who hears that the flood waters are coming. The TV news tells him to evacuate, but he says that God will protect him. As the flood waters are rising, his neighbor comes and offers to take him to a shelter. He tells the neighbor no, God will protect him. The flood waters continue to rise, and a man in a boat comes and offers to take him to safety, the man replies that he trusts in God, and God will take care of him. He ends up on the roof, and a helicopter comes, and the pilot says he will drop a rope and pull him to safety. The man says no thanks; God will protect me. Well, the man dies and standing at the pearly gates he is mad at God. He yells at God he thought God would protect him. God responds I sent you a TV newsman, a neighbor, a boat, and a helicopter what more do you want?

God speaks to us in all sorts of ways we just need to be listening for his voice. To listen to God is to listen deep within ourselves, to hear to God is to listen with our very souls. Prayer needs to be more than a laundry list of what we want or what we need; prayer is conversation. Take time to have the conversation; it will change your life.

Charles Plumb, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a jet fighter pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in an enemy prison. He survived that ordeal and now lectures about lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”

Plumb assured him, “It sure did – if your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform – a Dixie cup hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom trousers. I wondered how many times I might have passed him on the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him, and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you,’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

The Scripture passage we heard this morning is a continuation of the one we heard last week.  Last week the theme of the Scripture was freedom, the freedom that Christ brings to all of us when we make the decision to follow him.  I mentioned that this freedom comes with lots of responsibility and today we hear about that responsibility from the second verse of the 6th Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Paul knew that even the best of people slip up from time to time.  The word that he uses here for sin or transgression is paratoma.  This does not mean a deliberate sin but rather a slip up like when you come upon and icy road.  The real danger in all of this is not for the person who has slipped up although that can be disastrous, the real danger is to those of us who are trying, as best we can, to live the Christian life.  Paul warns his readers that we are not to judge the transgressions of others too harshly.

The classic theological definition of sin is “missing the mark” or “falling short.”  We try not to dwell so much on what is a sin or a transgression but rather what can we learn and how can we avoid similar behavior in the future.  When someone does slip, and we are all going to slip, Paul says that our job is not to judge the person but to help them back up.

If we are walking down the street and we see a person fall on the sidewalk, do we walk up to that person and tell them that if they were paying attention, they would not have fallen or do we walk up and help them?  I hope we would help them up. This is what Paul is telling us we must do, help people when they slip or fall.

Joni Erickson Tada is the president of JET ministries, a ministry which aims to serve the disabled. She is herself a quadriplegic. A few years ago she was a spectator at the Los Angeles Special Olympics. Her husband Ken was the coordinator for track and field events. Joni was among a large crowd watching the participants prepare for the 50 meters running race.

The starter’s gun fired and off the contestants raced. As they rushed toward the finish line, one boy left the track and started running toward his friends standing in the infield. Ken blew his whistle, trying to get the boy to come back to the track, but all to no avail.

Then one of the other competitors noticed, a down syndrome girl with thick bottle glasses. She stopped just short of the finish line and called out to the boy, “Stop, come back, this is the way.”  Hearing the voice of her friend the boy stopped and looked. “Come back; this is the way” she called. The boy stood there, confused. His friend, realizing he was confused, left the track and ran over to him. She linked arms with him and together they ran back to the track and finished the race. They were the last to cross the line but were greeted by hugs from their fellow competitors and a standing ovation from the crowd.

Our Christian duty is to help those who have gone astray and get them back on their feet again.  The word that Paul uses for correct is for executing a repair, and it is also utilized for a surgeon in removing some growth from a patient.  The whole atmosphere of the word is that the stress is not on punishment but the cure; the correction is thought of not as a penalty but as an amendment.

Too often in our society today we are so quick to look at these types of situations as a time to point out what the person has done.  Perhaps we do not agree with their choices, and so the focus moves away for correction to that of condemnation.  There is not one single incident in Scripture where Jesus condemns a sinner, well except when he speaks to the religious authorities of his day.

One of my favorite stories from Scripture comes from the Gospel of John.   In this story, some men bring a woman caught in adultery, notice they only bring the woman and not the man.  They bring to Jesus and accuse here and mention that by the law she should be stoned, again what happens to the man since adultery takes two!

The story goes on to say that Jesus stoops down and starts to write in the sand and one by one her accusers, all men, walk away and in the end, no one is left.  Some scholars believe that Jesus was making a list of the accusers sins and others think that he was making a list of the names of the men the woman had been with.  But in the end, when all of the men have gone, he asked the woman where those who accused her had gone.  She tells them they left.  He tells he that he does not accuse her, and then he says go and sin no more.

Notice he does not scream at her.  He does not set up a picket pine in front of her house. He does not advocate from the pulpit that people pick up stones and get them all.  He does not even approach the Romans and ask for new legislation outlawing the style of life that she has chosen.  He simply tells her to go and sin no more.

He pointed out to those around him that they were also sinners and that they needed the love of God as much as she did.  Rather than focus on the punishment for the sin he approached it with love and understanding.  We are not sure what happened to the woman, or the men for that matter, but I am sure they all went away changed in some way.

Now I am not sure about you, but I don’t want my sins written in the sand for all to see.  I also don’t want to be the one who writes the sins of others in the sand I would rather reach down and help them up because one day I might need them to reach down and help me up.

All of us, at one point and time in our lives or another, have been where those we wish to judge have been.  We have all missed the mark, and we are all trying to make it right.  This journey is hard enough without people yelling at us from the sidelines.

Charles Plumb needed someone to bear the burden of packing his parachute for him so he could focus his attention on something else.  If it were not for that man doing his job, Plumb would have most certainly died.  The young girl gave up her place in the race to go and help her friend get back on course.  She is a prime example of what Paul is telling the Galatians, and by that us, what we are to do.

Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

In the last days of the Civil War, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia, fell to the Union army. Abraham Lincoln insisted on visiting the city. Even though no one knew he was coming, slaves recognized him immediately and thronged around him. He had liberated them by the Emancipation Proclamation, and now Lincoln’s army had set them free. According to Admiral David Porter, an eyewitness, Lincoln spoke to the throng around him: “My poor friends, you are free—free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it … . Liberty is your birthright.”

But Lincoln also warned them not to abuse their freedom. “Let the world see that you merit [your freedom],” Lincoln said, “Don’t let your joy carry you into excesses. Learn the laws and obey them.”

Freedom is an interesting concept and one that comes with great responsibility. We have been given spiritual freedom in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we are given political freedom but the laws that govern our nation.  As much as there are differences between these two, there are many similarities.

Freedom, whether spiritual or political has to be exercised with great care and concern for others.  There is an old saying that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose beings.  The political freedom that we have has given us individual rights, but the spiritual freedom that we have been given is not personal, in fact, we are required to die to the self to really have this freedom, spiritual freedom is a collective freedom where we have to be concerned about the other.

I am a firm believer that in any study of the Bible we need to look at the entirety of the message.  The books of the Bible, especially the letters, were written to a very specific group of Christians. Today’s passage comes from a letter Paul had written to not one church but to the churches in Galatia a province of Rome.  The letters are usually written because a problem of some sort has arisen and they have appealed to Paul for a solution to the problem.

The Galatians initially accepted Christ and began to follow the teachings that Paul had left them, but now they have turned to the Jewish legalizers who claim that Christians must also follow the laws of the Old Covenant.  Paul has a great love for the churches he established and wrote to them as a father with corrective love. If we had time this morning we would read the entire letter; it is only six chapters, but I would like to suggest that you spend some time this week reading and contemplating the words of Paul.

Paul begins with a short biography.  Paul was not always a Christian, in fact, he was one of the greatest persecutors of Christians in the early days after the resurrection.  The Book of Acts relates the story that Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian Martyr was killed.  But he had a conversion experience, and he was able to see Jesus, literally and figuratively and became not only a believer but one of the greatest evangelists of his day.

Paul does not do this because they do not know him, in fact, many of the people who will hear his words know him as they met him.  Paul does this to show the power of conversion and the love that God has for everyone and how everyone can be used in the building up of the kingdom of God.

Paul then moves on to a discussion of the law of the Old Covenant and how Christ came to fulfill that law, and we come to today’s passage:

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Paul was simply repeating the words of Jesus when he was asked what the greatest commandment was:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40

Last Saturday John Egan and I attended the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ in Amherst.  The theme of the meeting was “Be Bold.”  During the meeting, along with the usual business items like budgets and committee elections, we heard stories of what churches around the Conference are doing.

We heard the story about the Church in West Medford; you may have read about it in the Boston Globe a few weeks ago. Face with declining numbers in attendance; they decided to sell their building and move down the street into a rented storefront.  They continue to struggle, but they have moved from the constant worry about money for the upkeep of the building to concentrating on ministry to those around them and those in need.  The sale of the building as secured their financial freedom and this was a bold step.  We heard other stories as well, but the individual stories that you only hear over coffee are the best.

As Christians, we are called to be bold.  We hear these words from the Book of Revelation:

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16

When we decide, and it is a decision, to put on the Mantle of Christ we decide that we no longer live for ourselves alone but all of those around us.  We have a great responsibility to care for those around us and not just the ones we agree with and like, but all of the humanity and dare I say all of the creation.

“I was naked, and you gave me clothing, I was sick, and you took care of me, I was in prison, and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:36-40

This was a bold statement when Jesus spoke it, and it is a bold statement today.

We are called to be the hands and feet and voice of Christ in this world.  Yesterday a group of church members gathered here to make sandwiches for the folks at Fr. Bill’s.  They then took those sandwiches and brought them to Fr. Bill’s and served them.  In doing so, they witnessed to people the love of Jesus Christ.  They were in essence, Christ to the people they served just as the passage of Scripture we read today exhorts us, “serve one another humbly in love.”

Freedom in Christ has been given to us by grace a grace that came with no strings attached and grace that moves us towards our potential and that potential is to love God and love our neighbor.  For the Galatians that Paul was writing to they forgot what that freedom meant and had fallen back into a strict following of the law of the Old Covenant and forgot about the freedom that comes from a life in Christ.

We need to be bold.  We need to be bold in our spiritual lives by taking those bold steps of radical transformation of our lives through the freedom that Christ gives to each one of us.  But that transformation requires something of us, and that is a great responsibility.  We have to die to our self and rise again in Christ, and we need to: serve one another humbly in love.”