The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

8 July 2007

Proper 9

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Isaiah 66:10-16

Psalm 66

Galatians 6:1-18

Luke 10:1-20

Can you imagine someone going through the last five letters you wrote to your friends or relatives, saving them, and then reading them aloud to strangers centuries later? That is what St. Paul, from his position in the theologians' gallery in heaven, must endure. When he wrote the letters that form a good chunk of the New Testament, I think he had no idea, no idea at all, that they were going to become part of the Bible. When he lived, the Bible was the Old Testament; there were some stories of Jesus, which were circulating around the countryside, but his material, his letters, biblical material ? I think he would have gasped in shock.

What we have today is the tag end of the letter to the Galatians. And it reads like what it is: a letter. Just as you might conclude one of your letters with a few odds and ends about the weather, and people you have met, and movies you saw, and brunches you ate—so Paul throws in a bunch of odd sayings some of them unrelated to the others, some connected to other ideas, but many just appended to the end of the letter as any person might.

It is from that ending to the Galatian letter that I want to draw a few general points about the Christian life. Because I am absolutely convinced that even at his most casual, Paul had some really important insights about how one goes about living the faith—especially if you get in the later writings of Paul, which were written after he got over that fixation that the world was going to end. Faced with the reality that life and the church would go on, he gave us some good clues about how to make it go on well, and make it consistent with the life of Christ.

First, he tells us to bear each other's burdens in order to fulfill the law. Now religious law was a fairly complex matter. Many precepts and standards, many rules and stipulations. Jesus—and Paul who followed him—were big on the idea of making categories and summaries of the law. Do all these things by thinking in this way. Put all of these ideas in this category. Fulfill these rules by doing this, living in this way. So, Paul is saying that you can fulfill the law of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus by bearing each other's burdens.

True enough. After all when you help another with her burdens, you are building community and that is what Jesus came to teach us. Bearing the burdens of another helps keep you from becoming too judgmental, because if you get close enough to help another person in difficulties, you can come to realize what she is up against and why you might just want to cut her some slack. You really get to know another by knowing the hard things against which she struggles every day.

Bearing burdens builds community.

Then, he goes on to say, test your own work. Folks in AA have a good motto about that point: They say, Take your own inventory, not someone else's. If you want to spend some time offering a blistering critique, begin by offering the critique of yourself, you will probably find that you don't have as much time left over to critique others. And when you get around to observing others, you may well find that you are more compassionate about their failings, because you have noted that you share them in common with others.

I once knew a rather difficult lady who had lived in Zimbabwe, what was called Rhodesia when she was a young woman. She was an early supporter of white supremacy in that troubled land. At that point, the Church was coming to realize that apartheid, like all forms of racial discrimination, was wrong. Some strict judgments were coming down upon white Africans, and she felt the sting. Her answer was to take one of Jesus' sayings out of context and remark, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Missing the whole of Jesus' point, of course, but reminding us of the difficulty and problematic nature of judgment.

Of course, one has to judge. Judging right and wrong is an important part of living an ethical life. If we were not to judge, we could make no moral decisions, challenge no moral failings, and make no ethical progress.

Judging, for Christians is an essential function of life, but it has to be undertaken seriously and carefully. And what Paul seems to be saying here is that before you make judgments of others, examine yourself. Perhaps the next time you have to make some major judgment of another—in your professional or personal life—you might begin with self-examination and confession of your own sins. Start right at home—that seems to be Paul's wisdom here.

Finally, Paul talks about boasting in the cross of Christ. I have always struggled with the meaning of that phrase. Boasting of the cross. Boasting is something we do to call attention to ourselves. Boasting of the cross then—what?—does it call attention not to self, but to God. Not to me, but to Jesus. Not to what I can do or have done, but to what God has done. Perhaps that is it.

If you boast of the cross, you are referring in word and deed to that moment when God poured out his lifeblood and his passionate love for the world by dying for what he really thought important. What God showed at the cross was, among other things, the depth of his love for suffering humanity. After all, what you see on the cross is a good cross section of all human suffering: Rejection, disappointment, betrayal, neglect, indifference, corruption—all of it is there. And God, in Jesus is lining himself up with all who suffer in those ways.

Boasting in the cross of Christ means pointing to God's achievements in suffering love. It means seeing the cross as God's way of calling attention to all who suffer. Boast in the cross of Christ—how shall you do it? By helping us to continue our ministry at the Hospital, by helping us to continue our work with gay and lesbian teens, by helping us to keep the Open Door program “open.” Oddly, and surprisingly enough, you boast in the cross of Christ by your giving and your support of all we try to do in this place to serve a world in need. Sure, there are other ways, too, but the next time you ask yourself about stewardship, why you give, what you are supporting, remember that what you are doing is boasting in the cross of Christ.

Paul concludes his letter with a theme he loves. He says that what counts in our relationship with God is not circumcision or uncircumcision—not the rituals which mark the human body as it is now. What counts rather is new creation. What really counts is not what we might do or not do in fulfillment of the law. What really counts is our participation in what God has already done. And what he has done, through his death and resurrection is nothing less than offer us new life.

New life we share in community with others, new life that draws us together to share each other's burdens, new life which knows the limits and the failures of all of us, new life which will endure all that this life can throw in its path. It is that new life in all its glory and complexity that we now affirm as we reflect a moment and then say (sing) the Church's historic creed.