“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 …” (Galatians 1:6, NRSV)
“You know, probably wants to give thanks to God for our faithfulness or something. Heh heh.”
I am astonished …
I betcha we say and do a lot of stuff that would astonish Paul these days. Take the whole idea of “accepting Christ into your life,” for example.
You know how Paul
usually begins his letters? He usually says something along the lines of “I
thank God every day for you in my prayers” or “I have heard of your
faithfulness in Christ” or some such compliment.
Not this time. He leads
with, “I am astonished!” and it doesn’t get much better from there.
I wonder how it went
over …
“Hey look! We got a
letter from Paul!”
“Oh sweet! The big
kahuna himself! I wonder what he wants?”
“You know, probably wants to give thanks to God for our faithfulness or something. Heh heh.”
“ … ”
“What? What is it?”
“Um … you might want to
sit down for this.”
Yeah, it also makes me
wonder about us. Today’s church. If we got a letter from Paul, would it start
with “I thank God …” or “I am astonished …” ?
I am astonished that
people go hungry and homeless in your town while you build multi-million dollar
buildings and package it as God’s “blessing.”
I am astonished that you
rigidly define who is “in” and who is “out” based on the shallow whims of your
own understanding of the ultimately unknowable love of God.
I am astonished that you
allow trivial matters to cloud the greater divine purpose to which you are
called.
I am astonished that you
feel as though being “nice” is all that it takes to be a follower of Jesus.
I am astonished …
I betcha we say and do a lot of stuff that would astonish Paul these days. Take the whole idea of “accepting Christ into your life,” for example.
When it comes to Jesus,
scripture talks about hearing and following and loving and confessing and
believing. Scripture talks about being given a gift, being liberated from sin,
being adopted as a child. But scripture never says, “Hey, it’s really up to you.
Jesus isn’t gonna just save you without you chipping in your bit. It’s your
life, after all. Feel free to invite Jesus into it, or not.”
I believe that Jesus is
already “in your life” way before you accept him. In fact, Jesus is “in your
life” before you are even aware of it. Such is the character of grace. To be
sure, grace is resistible, but it does not rely on our accepting it in order to
be at work in us.
Actually I rarely use
the word “accept” when it comes to grace; I more often use the word “realize.”
Grace does not require our acceptance in order to work. Upon our realization of
what grace is doing, we then choose either to cooperate with it or to resist
it. Continued cooperation with grace is what Methodist theology calls the
process of “sanctification.”
At a recent Bible Study,
we were asking the “so what” questions - the questions that lead us to
practical application of the passage we had studied. One person there said, “I
guess this passage teaches us that we need to be more accepting of people who
have accepted Jesus into their lives.”
The passage (Galatians
3:23-4:7) hadn’t really said anything about people accepting Jesus into their
lives. But so pervasive is that phrase, it has almost become the filter through
which every scripture is strained.
I replied, “I think this
passage does instruct us to be more accepting. But not of people who have
‘accepted Jesus.’ I think this passage instructs us to be more accepting of
people whom Jesus has accepted. And there’s a pretty big distinction there.”
“Yeah,” commented
another person, “That’s just about ... everybody, isn’t it?”
Yeah, pretty much.
I think Paul would be
“astonished” by a lot of things that the church says and does in the guise of
the gospel. Galatians was written in order to counteract some false teaching
being spread around. That teaching was divisive, legalistic, and contrary to
the gospel. And what’s worse, the false teaching was being offered as
the gospel. It’s one thing to spread a false teaching; it’s another altogether
to claim that false teaching is the gospel.
What do you think? Would
Paul write your church a letter of astonishment, or one of praise and
thanksgiving? Is your church living the gospel? Are you?
