"Law, Gospel and Promise"
Promises kept
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Text: Galatians 3:6-29
The wedding season is well underway and there have been some marvellous weddings here at TEMC this year. I always enjoy the bagpipes, so when a couple recessed to the pipes and the sound of Maire's Wedding, there was something special beyond the joining of two lovely people in holy matrimony. At another wedding, I was amused. After the vows and declaration of marriage, the groom leaned forward for the obligatory kiss. It was so short that the bride took matters into her own hands. With a wonderful smile and much passion, she grabbed the groom's face, drew him near and planted a great big “smacker” right on his lips. There was a roar of approval from their guests and I think the unattached men were left wondering, “Does she have a sister?”
Perhaps one of the most humorous moments that I have encountered at a wedding took place a number of years ago. It was the wedding of a middle aged couple. Both were widowed and had found love all over again. They were wonderful people and I was thrilled to be involved in their ceremony. On the day, they were dressed in all their finery. We stepped up into the chancel area for the vows. They exchanged rings, I declared the marriage and then we moved over to a table to sign the register. I pointed to where the bride was to sign. She took a look and whispered something to the groom. The groom took a look and looked at me, then to the best man. The best man and matron of honour took a look and, with that, the four of them got up, walked down into the congregation and left me standing up in the chancel alone. “What's going on?” I thought. “What has happened to propriety, and decorum and order? What am I doing standing up here by myself - it's not me getting married here!” There was rustling in the congregation. The four of them were talking to people. Women were delving into purses and, about a minute later, they all came back up into the chancel, donned their just-located bifocals and reading glasses and we signed the register. “Glasses!” I thought. “Phew!” I had something else to add to my list of things to remind brides and grooms about, at least middle-aged ones. “Don't forget your glasses!”
Weddings are marvellous events. The main part of a wedding service is, of course, the vows. Wedding vows are essentially promises; promises that one person makes to another:
I, so and so, take you, so and so, to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge you my faith.
To make a public promise of this nature to another person is an intimate and very wonderful thing - something not to be undertaken lightly; a promise is to be kept. A promise has been defined as, “a declaration assuring that one will, or will not, do something.” There is assurance in a promise and, in spite of the fact that many of us in our humanity and life's complexities struggle to be true to our word, a promise is supposed to be kept.
One person who has no problem keeping promises is God and it is interesting that St. Paul, in this passage, links the gospel and faith with a promise: A promise of God; a promise that has been kept.
In May, and now in July, we've been working our way through Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. It is a letter sent to address a problem, one that all of us in some sense face: “How does one enter into a right relationship with God?”
Paul had been in Galatia and had shared the good news with people in an unknown town in that region. A number had received his word and the Spirit of God had fallen upon them (3:2). In time, Paul moved along on his mission to another people and another town, but word came to him that other missionaries had followed him into Galatia and were teaching that, if the Galatians were truly to be followers of God and right with him, they had to be circumcised (in the case of the males) and follow God's Torah. The Galatian people followed this teaching and Paul was incensed, for he knew that God had encountered the Galatians just as they were: As Gentiles, as uncircumcised individuals, as people outside of the law. He argued that if God had encountered them and given them his Spirit, they were right with Him already through faith; they had no need to take on Jewish tradition.
Coming to God through faith, he went on, is actually in accordance with God's promises to Abraham. Roughly 2,000 years before Christ, Abram, as he was first named, had been living in the great city of Ur of the Chaldees that lay on the Euphrates, north and west of modern Basrah, Iraq. God called Abram to leave Ur and go to the place that he would show him. On the way, he promised Abram that he would make him into a great nation, that he would bless him and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen.12:1-3). God also promised him the land of Canaan (12:4ff.; 15:17) and that he would have an heir in whom the promises would be carried out (15:1ff.). It is written that Abram “believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness (Gen.15:6).”
Abram lived 430 years before the law came through Moses. Paul's point is that Abram came into a right relationship with God through belief and faith in what God was doing (3:17). Abram set a great precedent for entering into relationship with God; he “believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
But not only that, says Paul, “Think of the promises.” Using complex rabbinical interpretive methods, methods unfamiliar to us today and which make for difficult reading, he expounds on the Genesis tradition. He points out that God foresaw the Gentiles entering into relationship with him through faith when he promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed in him and in his seed (3:16). Abraham's seed, says Paul, is Jesus Christ and now that Jesus has come, those who believe that God is again at work “are blessed with Abraham who believed (3:9).” No matter that the law came after Abraham, the law cannot annul a promise already established by God (3:17). When God makes a promise, it is a promise that is kept and those who believe now, as Abraham believed, are heirs of God's promise (3:29).
Normally, I like to keep going with a theme throughout a sermon. But Paul realizes here that he has almost boxed himself into a corner with respect to the value of God's Torah, so he goes off on a tangent and we are going to follow him for a moment. The problem is that someone could have approached Paul and said, “If one could be right with God through faith back in Abraham's day, and that is true today, then why did God bother with the law at all? Why set up the whole system of sacrificial law, circumcision, moral law and things that people have to do to be right with God?” And that is a question asked by many a Christian in the 21st century. Christians will read the Old Testament, read the Torah, and say, “What is that to me with all its ancient laws and rituals and rather bloody and violent history? I can follow the New Testament and the God of love, but the Old Testament, the law, I don't get it!”
And yet Paul and the Church have always affirmed the sacredness of the Jewish scriptures. When Marcion came along in the middle of the second century with his Gnostic leanings and radical distinction between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament, he wanted to throw out the Jewish scriptures and reduce the sacred texts to Luke's Gospel and Paul's Epistles. The wider Church, however, said, “No, that's not right!” and branded him a heretic. When the canon of scriptures was more or less closed in the fourth century, and during the reformation when so many things were afforded a second look, the Church affirmed the books of God's older and newer Testaments. But why the old law, if belief and faith in Christ bring us into a right relationship with God?
Well, the reason they are necessary is that the Jewish scriptures form the context for the early Christian writings. Without them the New Testament would exist in a vacuum, having no foundation. We cannot truly understand the New Testament unless we look at it in light of God's past dealings with his people. It is difficult to interpret the New Testament unless we can refer to the Old Testament. It is impossible, for instance, to speak about God's grace in Christ unless we see it in light of his law, which is in the Old Testament. Where there is no law, there is no sin, and where there is no sin, there is no problem with a holy God; there is nothing to be delivered from and Christ's actions are meaningless. That is where Paul comes down. He speaks of the law as something that was put in place to show us our deficiencies before God (3:23ff.); to show us our need of Christ, the context from which we respond to God.
So the law was necessary and it served a purpose. But now that Christ has come, now that the age of faith that was promised to Abraham has come, we are no longer under the old “disciplinarian,” the law (3:24). We are under grace and don't need to follow aspects of the law - although we'll come back to Paul's thought here in the next week or two. Paul does affirm what we might call the moral law of the old covenant. But for now, he speaks of casting off the ritual and cultural aspects of the law. He says we are under grace: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise (3:29).” God has been faithful; God has fulfilled a promise of old.
So we have the great question, “How does one enter into a relationship with God? How is one accepted by a holy, powerful God?” It is a way foretold in a promise and we find it through God's grace and our faith.
I read a wonderful and true story the other day about a man who kept his promise and I think it speaks to what Paul was saying to the Galatians and to us today. Dr. Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin had been married for 40 years. They had been missionaries overseas for years before Dr. McQuilkin accepted the presidency of Columbia International University, which he served for 22 of those 40 years. As the couple aged, however, he and others began to notice that Muriel was getting forgetful and anxious. During tests for another health issue, a doctor suggested that she be tested for Alzheimer's. That diagnosis proved to be correct and it was a hard pill for the couple to swallow - they were very active people.
For a while, things were manageable but it wasn't long before Dr. McQuilkin began to realize that Muriel was only content when he was with her. When he was away at work, or at a conference, Muriel would get agitated, anxious and distressed, even when left with someone else she knew well. As the disease continued, he reached a conclusion that he would have to stay with her, that he would have to leave his prestigious career and appointment and help Muriel through her struggle.
With the decision made, he went before the board of the University and told them what was going on at home. Some suggested that he stay on and get help but he told them of how Muriel was only content when he was around. He said to them, “Forty years ago, I made a promise, ”˜in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish.' I am a man of my word. It's not that I have to do this, I get to do it. It is a great honour to care for such a wonderful person as Muriel.”
And so Robertson McQuilkin retired early and for several years lovingly looked after Muriel and took care of her. He was a man of his word.
I think that story is a sort of metaphor for our relationship to God. We are a bit like Muriel, helpless, unable to do anything ourselves that would influence or help someone to be in relationship with us or care for us. God is a little like Dr. McQuilkin. He has made a promise, he loves us, and regardless of whether we are able to do anything for him, he still cares for us, he still wants a relationship with us. The wonderful thing is that we don't have to do anything to be right with God. God does it all by his grace.
The story goes on. Sometimes, while Muriel was still able, Dr. McQuilkin would attend or speak at a conference and he would bring her with him. He took her everywhere. One time, they took a plane and while waiting to board, they sat in the departure lounge. Muriel would ask him this question and that and he would answer her. Then she would ask this question and that again and he would answer her with the same answers he had given a few minutes earlier. And it would happen again, and again and he gave the same answers each time with great patience. A young business woman was sitting across from them busy with her work, typing into her computer. She was within earshot of Muriel and Dr. McQuilkin and as the questions kept coming and coming, he wondered if they were bothering the young woman. Then she mumbled something and thinking she was angry, McQuilkin said, “Sorry, we're probably bothering you?” To which the woman said, “Oh no, I'm not bothered, I'm just wondering if I will ever find anyone to love me like that.”
In keeping with the metaphor, God loves us like that. He comes to us and says,
It doesn't matter who you are, where you have been, or what you have done. It doesn't matter whether you are able or unable, it doesn't matter whether you are Jew or Gentile, upper class or lower, male or female, whether you live within the law or outside the law, I am interested in you. I made a promise. It is a promise that has been kept. Believe in me and I will show you the way of life.
So there you are. How do we get into a relationship with God? How do we become right with God? It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't depend on you being perfect or following some law or laws. It doesn't depend on anything at all, except God's grace … believe, and he will show you the way of life (Jn.3:16).