St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Second Sunday After Pentecost (June 10, 2007)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Doctor Lyle McKee
"The Word of Christ"
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
What a blessing it has been to see the beginning of our building project over the last week. It is great also to see so many of you joining in the work—demolishing walls, moving the offices, and participating in the many tasks that are required as we organize ourselves into temporary space and begin the sweat-equity work we agreed to do in order to cut costs. It has been a really fun week, and the progress in just one week is pretty amazing. Thanks to all of you for your part in this work, whether it be prayer, money, or muscle.
With that brief word of thanks, let's turn to the reading from Paul's letter to the Galatians—the residents of ancient Asia Minor, also known as Anatolia—and now called Turkey. In this letter Paul begins with a form of his usual greeting—like the one I borrow from him in beginning sermons. Then he speaks to the importance of maintaining adherence to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
He goes on to curse anyone—even an angel—that would proclaim a different word of God.
Paul wants to keep the gospel free from human taint or addition. He also affirms that this gospel has always, at its best, been free of human contamination. This Word given to and preached by Paul was directly from Christ. Paul had and we have this gospel on an authority higher than our own.
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Given who Paul was, prior to his conversion, he would probably have had considerable difficulty trusting any revelation less dramatic than from the person of Jesus Christ. As he acknowledges:
You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.
This passage is a portion of the longest bit of autobiographical data we have on Paul.
Here's another biography, called "Five Myths of the Perfect Pastor."
His sermons were over their heads. His opinionated views alienated his colleagues. Coworkers found him boastful, even arrogant. A physical disability drove him to over-function in ministry. The first two congregations he (served) rejected his leadership, and, unable to still their internal strife and bickering, he went on to a third. By some measures of success, his ministry was a failure. This was no mythical pastor. This was the Apostle Paul. [Claire Schenot Burkat, Dialog 32 (Winter 1993): 28]
This is a less complimentary view than we are used to hearing, but it is true. The sparse details provided by Paul himself in this passage from Galatians are also surprising. It's rather curious that while Paul gives this personal information, he fails to mention the Damascus road experience that plays such a prominent role in Luke's version of the story of Paul's conversion as told in the book of Acts. We have no first-hand confirmation of Luke's tale.
That fact tends to cast some doubt on the full validity of Luke's account, but it may just be that Paul's conversion is not the subject Paul addresses here in Galatians. He is, rather, concerned about defending the gospel against those who would add to it and himself against those who would doubt his sincerity and authenticity as an apostle.
If it was indeed, as Luke says, while traveling to Damascus, where he intended to continue his persecutions of Christians that the Lord spoke to him and brought about his conversion, then Paul's return to Damascus is remarkable. It is courageous for Paul to bring his witness to those who knew well his former sins.
Too many of us let anxiety prevent our taking risks for the sake of the gospel. We are like Charlie Brown in the "Peanuts" comic strip in which he is pictured saying: "I've developed a new philosophy. I only dread one day at a time."
Paul was a glutton for punishment.
Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother. In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy." And they glorified God because of me.
First he goes to Damascus, then to Jerusalem! Again, a dangerous thing for one no longer belonging to the Pharisees and still doubted by Christians. Paul faced both his past and his future.
What we have in this portion of Paul's letter is a revelation of the gospel, not only in the words of Paul who witnesses a faith directly born of Christ, not only in the word of Christ who is the source of Paul's faith, but also a revelation in the person of Paul himself. Here is an admitted persecutor of Christians turned Christian missionary.
Any one of us would have been tempted to judge Paul harshly. Anyone observing his activities prior to his conversion may well have remarked at his stubborn commitment to the cause of persecution and at his apparent destiny to the day of his death. One might well have thought, from the standpoint of Christianity, that there was little if any hope for Paul. Yet, this is the one to whom, next to Christ, the church perhaps owes the most. He was called from death to life in Christ-perhaps why we have the readings from the Old Testament and the Gospel that are selected for today. God intervened in life and conscience to alter radically the seemingly inevitable course of events, reversing the order of things. Paul becomes the first and greatest of the missionaries to all nations.
We have moved into the season of Pentecost liturgically, but the theme is still that of resurrection. Paul here portrays a resurrection not for the dead, but for the living. He not only preaches the power of God, his life is a witness to it. He is a prime example of a resurrected life, a persecutor of Christians become convert and missionary.
Paul is able to turn around by the power of Jesus Christ. And his conversion embraces all that he is. He faces his past, present, and future. He is not afraid to return to Damascus. He is not fearful in facing the apostles at Jerusalem. He does not fret at the mission to which he has been called. His way to new life, to resurrection, is not through a denial of what he has been but an embracing of all that God intended in the past, honors in the present, and hopes for in the future.
The Word of Christ present in this passage takes several forms, but in each, the Word brings a resurrection, a new life. For Paul, life and faith were never again the same.
I have enjoyed reading the works of Steven Hawking over the years. In his "A Brief History of Time" he speaks to the relationship between science and theology. In "The Physics of Immortality" he writes of his view of God at the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity. But I find Hawking himself even more interesting.
He has been called the most intelligent human being alive and the smartest human since Einstein. As you probably know, he is an astro-physicist at Cambridge University, and has advanced Einstein's work on relativity as well as providing mathematical proof of the existence of black holes in space. But he is also afflicted with a rare degenerative neuromuscular disorder (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). He has been confined to a wheelchair for years, communicating by a computer that responds to the tiniest movement of his fingertips.
Yet his personality shines through the messy details of his existence. Before he became ill, life held little interest for him. It was an exercise in sheer boredom. He drank too much and did little work. When he learned he had ALS and was only given a few years to live, his life underwent a radical change.
Claiming to be happier after he was afflicted than before, Hawking said, "When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one has. Suddenly each day became precious and meaningful." (Omni, Feb. 1979, 46) He said that way back in 1979; and he's still at it.
Even through affliction, we can find new life.
This is a word that we all need. Christ has the power to reshape our lives. The word of Christ invites us to ask ourselves: Where is there death in my life? Where does there seem to be no hope? What do I see, in a resigned way, as inevitable, unavoidable? What do I talk about as being only a matter of fate? What do I want to be different about who I am and feel powerless to change?
Paul offers hope for productive answers to these questions. If the kind of transformation that took place in him is possible through Christ, that power is sufficient for us. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. — Amen
