Galatians
Week 1 – an introduction
You might have noticed two things over the years.
Firstly that the lectionary,
or our cycle of readings sometimes goes completely through a new-testament letter.
The second thing,
is that I almost always concentrate on the gospel, and not the new testament letterz.
Well, for the next few weeks I’m going to concentrate on the letter of Paul to the Galatians.
The style will be just a bit different,
as we concentrate on the history and details of what was being talked about,
so that we can get inside the head of the early church, so to speak.
In some respects the letters aren’t the most useful,
as they were almost exclusively written to settle disputes.
And hearing only about what has gone wrong,
and how this should be fixed, can give us a distorted picture of the church.
But don’t be deterred:
We can still gain useful insights out of them for life, if we try.
The important thing to remember,
is that there is so much more behind them than we see.
We need to read them with gospel eyes, so to speak.
That is we need to read them knowing the story and truth of Jesus,
because these entire communities are based on the life, teachings and way of Jesus.
The assumption of Paul’s letters is Jesus,
and the Gospel message,
and when we move away from the truth of the Gospels,
then we get into difficulty as we are ignoring our foundation,
and Paul says this to the Galatians:
Gal 1:6b – 7: You have believed another message, when there is really only one true message. But some people are causing you trouble and want to make you turn away from the good news about Christ.
Paul doesn’t mention the teachings of Jesus a lot,
as he has already taught this,
so although Jesus isn’t mentioned much,
he is assumed,
he is the base,
the bed-rock,
the foundation of their community.
And just like we might ignore the floor below us now,
and concentrate on the walls, cross or roof,
none of it would exist without that base,
without Jesus.
And this is the heart,
or the crux of the issue that the church in Galatia was facing.
A foundation was laid,
and that foundation has either been ignored,
or broken up,
and the Christian community is struggling.
Two things so far:
1 ) the gospel is assumed
2 ) the issue is with the foundation.
At the heart of the issue in chapter one is apostleship.
Some of you will be aware what an apostle is,
and some will be wondering just who and what an apostle is.
When Jesus was doing his ministry he had disciples,
those whom he called, and who answered and then followed his teaching.
He sent these disciples out on various missions to do his ministry while he was with them.
Then, when he left, they were called apostles.
To sum up,
while Jesus was present, they were disciples,
when he left they were apostles.
Now, if you read the dictionary you will discover this:
a·pos·tle (noun)
- any of the early followers of Jesus who carried the Christian message into the world.
- ( sometimes initial capital letter ) any of the original 12 disciples called by Jesus to preach the gospel: Simon Peter, the brothers James and John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot.
- the first or the best-known Christian missionary in any region or country.
- Eastern Church . one of the 70 disciples of Jesus.
- the title of the highest ecclesiastical official in certain Protestant sects.
So after reading this,
you could be forgiven then for thinking that an apostle is all to do with who is in,
who is in the 12,
or who is in the 70?
And of course,
when you start talking about who is an apostle and who is not,
who is in, and who is not,
it is a discussion about authority.
So being APOSTOLIC has to do with authority.
But is also has to do with a second thing,
which we sometimes forget about.
If you dig down and discover what the root of the word is,
you’ll discover that the root is: being sent,
it is not to do with not authority,
but rather it is about being sent by Jesus into his mission field.
APOSTOLIC then Has to do with two things:
- firstly – authority
- secondly – call to mission
Its link to authority is something that came much later in church history.
In the time of Jesus and Paul,
being an apostle had more to do with what you were doing, than your authority.
A search on the root of the word will reveal to you something like this:
apostle – “messenger,” especially the 12 witnesses sent forth by Jesus to preach his Gospel, from Greek. Apostolos, meaning “messenger, person sent forth,” and from apostellein “send away, send forth,” from apo- “away” (see apo-) + stellein “to send” (cf. epistle).
So an apostle, is someone sent away.
Much like Jesus sent away the 12 disciples in Luke chapter 9,
and then he sent away other 70 un-named disciples in Luke chapter 10.
As a church we often talk about the authority part as it comes up in disputes;
for example,
now Jesus is not with us,
who will make the decision?
It is very often a very human concern, and can have a tendency to ignore the role of the Holy Spirit.
And this was the issue Paul was facing.
The local community in Galatia said Paul did not have the authority.
And Paul was saying: “Look I’m doing the work here!”
so there is this conflict,
the church is starting to grow and we say well who can make the decisions?
The church of course develops in an area with an apostle,
and then it stays,
until it sends out more apostles.
But in the mean time decsions need to be made and there is debate over who is the leader
and who has the authority to lead.
There is a natural progressison of leadership as a group moves forward,
and naturally, this can cause tension.
Apostolic authority and it’s idea,
tends to come up then as a church goes through change.
Apostolic Tradition
The second part is what our mission should look like.
In other words, the apostolic tradition.
And that tradition,
it’s foundation is laid with the life, work and person of Jesus.
So, if you wish to say you are in the apostolic tradition,
then you need to make sure that your ministry looks like Jesus’.
< – branch into SA, aparteid, doors and welcome, Jewish or Gentile … – >
Think back to South Africa for a moment,
and the 1970’s and 80’s.
Imagine that you had been there and laid a foundation for a church.
That’s what Paul had done.
He had laid a foundation.
But then news comes to him,
that someones gone and changed all the plans for the church,
they’ve put in two doors,
two doors, can you believe it,
one for blacks and one for whites!!
And that was essentially what happens in Galatia.
There is this tension between Jews and Gentiles.
Do you need to be circumcised or not?
Surely everyone just needs to keep the Jewish law and all will be ok, right?
So the issue is largely one of discrimination.
Once again,
who is in and who is out.
We have similar arguments in the church today,
and we will continue to have similar arguments for the next however many thousdands of years.
The people though who are deceiving the community,
and trying to exclude the Gentiles,
are also trying to exclude Paul.
The irony of course is that Paul walks well in both camps,
both the gentile and Jewish camps.
Not to be put off,
Paul writes to them to challenge them on their journey.
The apostolic gospel then is about being one,
not exclusive, but one.
Paul was claiming that he was working as Jesus was to bring people together;
we must do likewise.
We see now that our denominations work closer together,
this is apostolic.
When we splinter and separate,
then we are moving away from the apostolic gospel and what Jesus intended.
The Gospel that Paul is preaching is one of grace and forgiveness,
to bring people together.
So Paul writes and challenges them on their journey,
about the way they are excluding the Gentiles.
< – end of 8am cut – >
Through our readings today there is a theme of faithfulness,
faithfulness to each other and to the Gospel themes of Jesus.
It is here that we can start to apply the readings for us.
Faithfulness
Faithfulness for us is something of a journey,
with highs, lows, and in between times.
One of the issues that Paul talks to the Galatian’s about,
is how their church is slipping away from the faith.
That often happens in our lives, where we just slowly slip away from the truth.
Just as it is very rare to have a huge conversion moment,
where one moment we aren’t a Christian,
and the next we are full-on for Jesus.
Falling away is similar.
It is just as rare for us to have a huge moment,
where one moment we are faithful and the next we are not.
It is hard to move from being completely faithful to God,
and the Holy Spirit speaking into our lives,
and following Jesus;
to all of a sudden, turn away.
Rather it happens slowly.
Faithfulness, and un-faithfulness happen gradually.
We must be disciplined,
to regularly look into our journey and ask of ourselves, where am I?
And this is so we are consciously aware of what is happening in our lives.
It is not so we may gain accolades, or berate ourselves;
it is so we are aware.
And in the highs and the lows, we remember we don’t journey alone.
We are gathered as the community of Jesus.
Paul’s role was to write to the Church in Galatia, and challenge them.
They were not alone, they had people like Paul looking out for them.
God was faithful and sent Paul to them.
God often sends people our way,
our job is to be open to the Spirit’s work in our life and think: who is God asking me to talk with?
I’ve had 5 mentors in my life,
and who that has been has depended on where I have been in my journey,
both with God and where I have been physically located.
I’ve learnt to pray about it and seek God’s guidance for who I ask,
and then to be bold and trust that that is the right person to ask.
Asking someone to be your mentor,
or to be your companion, and to challenge you in your Christian walk is difficult,
but it is a challenge we should all do,
because we all need to journey with a friend.
Have you chosen someone to challenge you, and celebrate with you?
If you haven’t yet found someone, ask God to lead you to the right person.
If you do have someone, go and thank them for journeying with you.
Conclusion
Our reading today then is about being apostolic.
That has to do with:
- authority
- sending
- the traditions, teachings and values of Jesus
- faithfulness
Revd Dion J. Blundell 2012 (Distributed under Creative Commons agreement CC [BY-SA])
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nz/
Let us pray: Jesus, thank you for your teachings.
Help us to be faithful to them,
and to seek out the right person to journey with us. Amen.
(cc) by: Revd Dion J. Blundell 2012
Luke 7:1-10
After Jesus had finished teaching the people, he went to Capernaum. In that town an army officer’s servant was sick and about to die. The officer liked this servant very much. And when he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish leaders to ask him to come and heal the servant.
The leaders went to Jesus and begged him to do something. They said, “This man deserves your help! He loves our nation and even built us a meeting place.” So Jesus went with them.
When Jesus wasn’t far from the house, the officer sent some friends to tell him, “Lord, don’t go to any trouble for me! I am not good enough for you to come into my house. And I am certainly not worthy to come to you. Just say the word, and my servant will get well. I have officers who give orders to me, and I have soldiers who take orders from me. I can say to one of them, ‘Go!’ and he goes. I can say to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes. I can say to my servant, ‘Do this!’ and he will do it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was so surprised that he turned and said to the crowd following him, “In all of Israel I’ve never found anyone with this much faith!” The officer’s friends returned and found the servant well.