“What if the Apostle Paul Had a Twitter Account?” Galatians 1:1-12 Pentecost 2 May 29, 2016 Good thing the Galatian Christians did not have access to Paul’s other letters. Because if they could read something like what we now call Philippians or Ephesians or almost any of the other dozen letters from Paul we have in the New Testament, surely they would be tempted to sing that song from Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the others . . .” The opening to the Galatians is very definitely not like Paul’s other letters. “Where is OUR thanksgiving section, Pastor Paul?” the Galatians would want to ask were they to compare their letter to the others. After the usual greetings as was customary, including with a doxology to God, Paul launches directly into the letter without anything akin to “I thank God in all my remembrances of you as I have heard of your faithful service and partnership in the Gospel . . .” Oh no, not here. Not in Galatians. Instead, Paul lunges out of the starting gate with a purple-faced tirade that basically amounts to his writing, “You IDIOTS! You fools! How in the world have you come to believe a false gospel so soon after I preached the real gospel to you!!!???” He is angry, and hurt, and offended at the wrongness of their religion. I am not a Twitter user, but I do know a bit about it. It seems like the particular issue doesn’t really matter, be it someone’s favorite sports team, a person’s choice for public office, hot button issues such as abortion or human sexuality, one sees a lot of tirades that looked exactly like Paul’s. More often than not it seems, Twitter feeds are nasty, full of hurt, pain, aggression, threats, character assassination, accusations of heresy, and insults. It has become a space not of meaningful dialogue, understanding, or charity. It is more akin to a circular firing squad. Paul’s letter to the Galatians was very much like a 1st-century version of a Twitter feed. Call it #distortionoftheGospel. Here’s probably what had happened. Paul had gone to Galatia (a Roman province in the northern part of what we now call Turkey) and preached the gospel. He started several churches and went on his way, as was his practice. Later, others came to Galatia, preaching a different gospel. The Galatians listened and maybe even adopted some of this new gospel, Paul got word of it, and this letter is the result. Paul’s reaction was one of fury. Galatians 1 is Paul at his angriest; he is livid at the Galatians and those who had, in his view, led them astray. Why?

It probably boiled down to questions of what it meant to be a Christian. Did one become Jewish first, and then become a Christian? Did Christians need to keep the Jewish law? Paul answered no to both of these questions, and it seemed like his opponents answered yes. At the heart of these questions lay the key issue. In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul addresses one of the most controversial subjects of Christian faith. While most Christians agree that salvation is a divine work of grace extended to those who respond to God's offer of eternal life through faith, numerous fights have plagued the Christian community about how to live once we are saved. Mark Twain used to tell the story of putting a dog and a cat in a cage to see if they could learn to get along. They did fine after a few little adjustments. Then he tried a bird, pig, and a goat. They got along surprisingly well. Then Twain put a Baptist, Methodist, and a Presbyterian in a cage. In less than two days, nothing was left. The sad truth is that you don't have to mix denominations. Sometimes you can put three Presbyterians in a cage, and they would destroy each other in matter of days. We like to sing about Amazing Grace that saves us, but we once we're saved we like to sing Follow the Rules and Act like Me. The specific violation described in Galatians is false teaching requiring Gentiles to observe Jewish laws passed down from Moses about such things as circumcision, diet, food sacrificed to idols, and observing Jewish holy days or festivals. We must be careful not to dismiss this text as something that just applied to the controversy between Judaizers and Gentile believers. The issue of requiring any law as part of Christian faith, whether from the Old Testament or from the 21st century, is contrary to genuine Christian faith. Let's say Roscoe comes to you and says that he is trying to read his Bible and become a better person so that God would forgive his sins. You tell Roscoe the good news that Jesus died to save sinners. You share the incredible truth that we are saved by grace though faith, and Roscoe gets saved. Then, you tell Roscoe the bad news. The good news is that we are saved by grace, but once you are saved it is time to get busy working in the kingdom of God. First, you have to go to church on Sunday and talk to the preacher, so he can baptize you. After you have been baptized and join the church, you must start attending all services; Sunday school, Worship, Discipleship Training, Sunday night worship, Wednesday services, and Monday night outreach. If you can sing you need to join the choir because if you don't use your gift, you will lose your gift. After establishing a habit of attending and working in the church, you must develop a discipline of personal devotion, or what mature believers call a quiet time. Read the Bible every day: three chapters from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. That way so you can read the

entire Bible in a year. In addition to the Bible reading, you should start praying for 30 minutes every day. Early morning is best because you want to start your day with God. And Roscoe, now that you are saved, you must be a soul-winner because that is the great commission. You should average at least one soul saved per month. And I almost forgot the most important thing: Here are your tithing envelopes because you must give 10 percent of your income to the church. Roscoe is now experiencing a grace aneurism, but you don't even notice the bleeding because that is what you been attempting to do all your Christian life. You have never been able to live up to that standard, but you would never admit it to a new believer. You secretly hope Roscoe will lose his enthusiasm and settle into a mediocre faith that doesn't make anyone nervous. And Roscoe, we are not done yet, not by a long shot. After sharing the personal growth disciplines, you move to the next item of business of acceptable behavior for a good Christian church member. This is mostly a litany of Nos. I am going to bypass many of the traditional ones such as no alcohol, or smoking or swearing, no going to R-rated movies, because for many Presbyterians, though not all certainly, those things are not deal-breakers when it comes to our relationship with God. But here are few examples which might gore the First Presbyterian Church, Marysville ox: In worship: No drums, No electric guitars. No rhythmic clapping. No coffee in the sanctuary. It may make us feel better to say, "Well, that is just how I feel" or "That is how I was raised." But the truth is that our lists are nothing but unadulterated legalism. Erma Bombeck used to tell a story that illustrates our "grace starved" culture. One Sunday while attending church, she saw a young child struggling to keep the proper etiquette. He was squirming, humming, turning around in the pew, and smiling at other parishioners. Finally his mother jerked him by the arm and said in a course whisper that was loud enough to be heard by most of the congregation, "Stop that grinning." Then she gave the child a firm spank on his rear end as tears rolled down his cheeks. Bombeck is clear that she does not advocate misbehavior, but she wanted to hug that tear-stained child and tell him about a God who is happy and smiling. Bombeck has been quoted as saying, "My God has a sense of humor big enough to have created someone like me." She wanted to say to the mother, "You fool. You are sitting next to hope, light, and joy without even noticing. If you can't smile at church, where else can you go?" If you can't find grace find grace in the church, where else will you find it?

Unfortunately, too many Christians are so concerned about avoiding hell that we forget that Jesus promised abundant life as we journey toward our heavenly home. The major point that Paul is making in these first two chapters of Galatians is that it is not only difficult to live the Christian life by following a bunch of rules, it is impossible. We can only honor God and follow Christ by allowing his power to work though us by grace through faith. Our goal is not to live for Jesus, but to live in Jesus and allow Him to live through us. Instead of asking God to bless all that we do for Him, we should pray for God to work in and through us today. Paul declared, I am not living, but Christ is living in me. I am not doing things for God, but Christ is doing incredible things in me and through me. To understand the paradox of grace, we need to consider three important questions. In his letter not just to the Galatians, but to most of the churches to which Paul wrote, he employed a question and answer format. He would ask a question of his readers and then immediately answer it. First question: Are there Christian disciplines and commands that define our faith? Answer: YES! A casual reading of the New Testament reveals numerous commands and disciplines that define our journey of faith as a Christ-follower. Second question: Does one have to keep the commands to remain in good standing with God? Answer: NO! We are saved by grace, and we maintain our relationship with God by grace. Third question: Should we keep the commands? Answer: WRONG QUESTION! Asking if we should keep the commands in our attempt to follow Christ is a bit like asking, "Do I have to kiss my spouse or hug my kids?" Here is what Steve McVey shared in his book Grace Land: “Suppose I were to ask you for some marital advice. The imaginary conversation might go like this. ‘I travel a lot with speaking engagements, so I was wandering about something. When I come home, do I have to kiss my wife?’ You say, ‘You should probably kiss your wife.’ My response is, ‘Should it be a little kiss on the cheek or on the mouth?’ You say, ‘Probably on the mouth.’ Then I say, ‘Can it be a short little peck on the lips, or does have to be one of those long, wet, romantic, movie kisses?’ At this point you're thinking, there must be something wrong with my marriage.” (Steve Mc Vey, Grace Land: Harvest House Publishers, p.141)

Think about your relationship with your spouse or children. Do you know all the laws about marriage or parenting? Did you study, or do you keep up with the laws against child abuse? Do you know what are the legal requirements for proper nutrition, or the punishment for failing to care for your child in an appropriate manner? How can you possibly raise a child without knowing all the laws? Because of love! The right questions to ask when considering any Christian discipline is: “Do I Love Christ?” “Am I obeying this command as an expression of love?” In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of friend and a slave. Friends do the right things for each other out of love, but slaves do right things out of obligation. Jesus said we are His friends, therefore we keep His commands. Way too many Christians have perverted this principle by saying and living by a legalistic motto: If you keep the commands then you can become a friend of Christ. As we look at our current political climate, as we have lived through and continue to live through disagreements in the Presbyterian Church USA, we would do well to remember that this is not the first time we have argued over what it means to be Christian, or what the limits are of Christian practice, or whether we can tolerate difference. It is not the first time we have accused our sisters and brothers of being enemies, or declared them accursed, or written them off as heretics. Even the apostle Paul did all of this, and his opponents did it to him, more than once. And yet the church survived it, and it will survive us too. In my opinion, Christians often overestimate the fragility of Christianity. Or, perhaps, we overestimate our own importance in maintaining the existence of the church. We have this sense that the whole enterprise hangs on orthodoxy as we understand it, the myriad multiple other understandings be damned. We have a sense that the only way to strengthen the church is to purify it; that only by casting out or separating from those with whom we disagree can we help the church be the church. Paul certainly thought that way; he was an absolutist when faced with what he saw as wrong belief and wrong practice. But, and this is a subtle and controversial point, the church survived and flourished not because of Paul’s absolutist position, but in spite of it. The church exists today because countless variations of Christianity, innumerable understandings of God’s calling and God’s truth, flourished alongside each other, sprung up within and outside of each other, and merged and divided over the years. Paul’s vision of orthodox purity did not win the day. Paul’s vision was an ecclesiastical dead end; we are here today in part because of our diversity. Monocultures are vulnerable; ecosystems are robust, and Christianity is and has always has been an ecosystem, with intertwining, interdependent parts.

Inclusion, not exclusion, is the path to strength and survival. Understanding, or at least living-alongside, is the way to a robust and effective church. Ecosystems teach us that, but so does the history of the church, which has thrived not in spite of difference but because of it. Diversity strengthens unity, and it always has, and it always will. It’s only natural to react like Paul, and curse everything that’s different from us. It’s natural, but it’s not helpful, and if we do it, the church will survive in spite of us, and not because of us. That’s my take on Galatians 1 in the contentious, divided context of 21st century Christianity. Amen. Preached by Rev. Rich Hinkle First Presbyterian Church, Marysville, California May 29, 2016