Being Church

Sermon by Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.

Scripture: Galatians 6:1-16

The Covid pandemic sucker-punched congregations all over the world. We felt like we had to figure out how to keep being church with new information and restrictions coming every week. It was like re-inventing the wheel, over and over, with the lights out. And St. Andrew Church did a great job, for two years, don’t you think?

But we still have residual Covid concerns. The world has permanently changed. So, we will be taking the month of July to talk about living the faith in the church today. Next week, we’ll begin several weeks in the New Testament book of Colossians. But today, we’ll take a quick dip into Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

Looking back 2000 years ago to the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ, the missionary work of Paul stands out as crucial. He traveled and preached about Jesus into all sorts of areas. Talk about inventing the wheel. Many of our Bibles have maps of Paul’s journeys, where he formed little groups of converts into churches. Then after he moved on, he continued to pray for them. He received reports of how they were doing and important for us, he sent them letters, written even before the Gospels, giving us the earliest glimpse of congregational life. Apparently other people were interpreting some of Jesus’ ideas differently from Paul, like how to balance both living in grace and following God’s law. Did they need to follow all laws, including circumcision and dietary rules, or did Jesus set them free from following the law?

When Paul heard that churches in the area of Galatia had been convinced they needed to follow the entire law of God given through Moses, he fired off the very firm letter we call the book of Galatians. Paul warned them that disregarding all rules enslaves us to the desires of the flesh. However, Christ has set us free from exact following of all the law. The balance between law and freedom is learned as we live by God’s Spirit, in a community of faith. Stop now and read Galatians 6:1-16.

Paul was eager for us to see that the Church is a gift of God, which means St. Andrew is given to us from God. Every individual congregation and the universal Church itself have their source in our Heavenly Creator, in the Word, and in the Holy Spirit, so the very existence of the Church rests in God. Actually it shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that it must be God’s work. Think of the Church. As diverse as St. Andrew is, we’ve got nothing on the universal Church. Through the centuries and even today around the world, Christians are wildly diverse. Yet we each and all claim we are the Church. Of course, humans do their part, too. We gather for worship; give our gifts of service and money; pray for St. Andrew and the universal church. But the church is a divine creation, which cannot exist by our efforts alone. Remember Jesus said, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit…”(1)

Although fierce disagreements have always plagued the church, God is among us, working to unite us. Theologian Michael Kinnamon says, “If the church is God’s, then we don’t set the boundaries or determine its entrance requirements. If the church is God’s, then its purpose is not simply to meet our spiritual needs but to gather us for costly discipleship on behalf of God’s agenda.”(2) As a gift to us and to the world, the church transcends human limitations. And at its best, St. Andrew transcends our selfishness and disagreements, so we can to spread God’s rich love here and beyond in word and deed. The very being of the whole church rests in the being of God.

So, our job is living out Christian community together. God expects us to share life as St. Andrew Church. When Paul writes to the Galatians and to us, he suggests that when new ideas are offered or new circumstances arise, we should use what we know for sure, as tests for moving forward. This doesn’t mean we never accept anything new, but we use our communal wisdom as we investigate how to move into the future.

Apparently, confusion was breaking out among the churches of Galatia. These were churches created from non-Jewish converts – Gentiles. But nearby Jewish Christians said they needed to be circumcised, as Moses had taught. So, the Galatians were all ‘afuddled. How much of the Law given to Moses did they need to follow?

Paul’s letter firmly clarified. Being Christian is not about following every smidgen of the law. Be circumcised or don’t be circumcised. It doesn’t matter. Our primary responsibility is to take care of each other, with special concern for the weakest among us. Take note of who is faltering in their life of faith and extend care to them. Each of us must give up focusing primarily on what we need from the church; give up micromanaging every one else’s choices. Instead, we need to support the best in each other. Restore the ones who are drifting away; those who don’t feel connected. Each must do our best for the good of all, because in Christ we are responsible for each other. In short, we might abbreviate Paul’s guidance as “Support one another and MYOB (mind your own business).” The well-being of the community of faith is strongest when we work for the good of all.

In her book, Real Good Church, UCC pastor Mollie Phinney Baskette explains that established members of her congregation know she will probably not be chatting with them in the gathering area after worship or during coffee hour. She seeks out the visitors, trying to help new people connect to the church, to her, and to each other. People have actually told her when she stopped spending time with them during coffee hour, they felt like they had arrived. Now they were fully members. Rev. Baskette would spend time with someone else at coffee hour because they no longer needed her attention. In the church, we do our best for each other. Each of us is responsible for the welfare of all the others in the community of faith. Our job is to live out our faith in the church.

The archaic language Paul uses is: “We are crucified to the world.” He means that we sacrifice our desire for things of the world. He says, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”(3) The Good News Bible instead says, “for by means of his cross the world is dead to me and I am dead to the world.” Just as Christ allowed himself to be arrested and executed to show his love for us, so are we to allow our desire for a flashy, worldly life to be extinguished. Instead, we move toward becoming more focused on the needs of the world, and in so doing, we spread God’s love while we also experience the new life God offers us in Jesus. When such a commitment is manifest in the community of believers, then generous service, gratitude, and humility abound; while arrogance and pride in one’s spiritual gifts fade away. In other words, as people who are connected together as a community, we shut down our energy for whatever selfish desires are stirring. Nail them to the cross Paul might say. We embrace the new creation promised by God in Jesus.

But what does it mean to die to our old life and live as a new creation in Christ?  In abstract terms, the idea is about giving up only thinking about ourselves, worrying about making others admire us, pouting when we aren’t the one accumulating the most accolades. When we join the community of Christ, we share the power of God’s transforming love. We experience joy in serving others, and discover our hearts open in generosity to those we might previously have considered foreign or strange. We find ourselves living a fuller, more joyous life.

If such language still sounds too abstract, here is something concrete. A true story. A couple in Georgia decided to buy a breath-taking new grand piano, the kind every pianist dreams about. They already had a very good piano, but they decided to get a great piano. Instead of selling their very good piano, they chose to donate it to their church, even though it would have sold for a significant amount. But then, on the day their magnificent new piano arrived, they changed their minds. They sent their new grand piano to the church and kept their old one. They put their own wishes to death in favor of self-giving sharing with others. And now some years later, they are still gloriously happy about it.

So that’s what it means. W too are called to sacrifice our desires, to allow God’s transforming love to work in us; to make our lives richer, more abundant, and fuller. We can become crucified to the world.

1 John 15:16.

2 Michael Kinnamon, Can a Renewal Movement Be Renewed: Questions for the Future of Ecumenism (Eerdmans: 2014), 42.

3 Galatians 6:14 Today’s English Version.