Sunday, July 3, 2022

Proper 9

2 Kings 5: 1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6: 1-16; Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: AMEN.

We hear today an excerpt from a letter written by the Apostle Paul to churches in Galatia.  At the time, Galatia was a region located right in the middle of the modern-day country of Turkey.  Years before Paul wrote this letter, he had travelled throughout this region of Galatia, and during his travels there, he started several churches. 

That all sounds good, but the problem with Paul starting churches was that he would leave them after some time, and he would travel somewhere else and start a church in some other city.  While Paul started a number of churches all around the Mediterranean, it is difficult to assess how healthy any of those churches really were. 

If you read his letters to these churches he established - and you can read them, they are called the Epistles, and they are found in the New Testament – you will see, to probably no one’s surprise, that there was a lot of conflict in Paul’s churches.  It might be argued that this conflict was also exacerbated in these churches due to Paul’s absence because he was traveling and starting new churches elsewhere.

Nevertheless, when you read (or hear) Galatians, as we have today, we are hearing the Apostle Paul at his angriest.  Paul is angry because people in the churches he helped establish are now rejecting what he had taught them about God and about Jesus.  In his letter to the churches in Galatia, Paul is upset because people in these churches have begun to follow other teachings, teachings which Paul considers to be false, and this is related to an important, yet difficult for us to appreciate debate at the time.

The debate centered around the relationship between people who grew up following Judaism, and who came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah – God’s anointed king.  On one side of this debate you have faithful Jews who believed Christ was the Messiah.  On the other side of the debate, you have people who believe Jesus is the Messiah, but these are people who are not Jewish, they are Gentile – non Jews – who also have come to believe that Jesus was God’s Messiah.  The question which both groups had to wrestle with, and this is the question that fuels Paul’s anger in Galatians is this:  If you are not Jewish, but you come to believe that Jesus, who was Jewish, is God’s Messiah – does that mean that you need to begin practicing Judaism and following the Torah?

It was a big question at the time, and a controversial one.  Here is what Paul (who was Jewish) thought: his answer was a resounding “no.”  If you were not Jewish and you followed Christ, you were not obligated to become Jewish yourself.  In the Galatian churches, after Paul left, people began to teach that yes, if you followed Christ, you must become Jewish, if you were not already.  This was the debate that fed the conflict in Galatia, and subsequently (and sadly) agitated the Galatian churches Paul invested so much hard work in. 

Paul lamented that this debate was infecting the Galatian congregations as he was away, and that is the reason he writes this strongly-worded letter to the Galatians.

Was Paul’s letter successful?  Did the Galatian community stray further away from Paul’s teaching, or did they embrace it more?  Unfortunately, we don’t really know.  That is one reason why the Epistles are challenging (at least for me) to preach on – we don’t often know how communities received these letters. 

Nonetheless, the letters are important, not only for historical value, but because they are the foundation Christian understanding and theology –  most of the Epistles were written years before the Gospels were written. 

Like the Apostle Paul, I am going away – for vacation, not to start another church.  I do not share Paul’s concern that problematic teaching or preaching will occur during my absence.  If anything the preaching will probably improve while I am away!  I look forward to leaving, for time away, but I also am looking forward to coming back. 

That’s one thing I’m not sure Paul did much of – returning to the churches he left. 

But I get to, and for that, I am grateful.  AMEN.