The Spirit of Christ

[9] But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. [10] And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. [11] But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. [12] Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. [13] For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. [14] For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. [15] For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. [16] The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: [17] And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. - Romans 8:9-17

A popular caricature of Christianity is that it is a religion that despises the body and the pleasures of this world for a promised, idyllic world-to-come. It has often being accused of being too other worldly and heavenly minded. A superficial reading of the epistle lesson could suggest that the Bible in fact supports this view of the body and the material world being bad and the spiritual realm and soul being good. Paul writes about the flesh saying that if we live according to the flesh we shall die, but that through the Spirit we shall live. In fact, one might even think that the way to live into what Paul is saying is to become more spiritual: perhaps go to a few seminars or retreats on how to be more spiritual and less corporal. But, my friends, this is not at all what Paul is suggesting--in fact, he is saying just the opposite: we need to become less "spiritual" and less "religious" according to the common use of these words. It is spirituality and religion that make us think that we are making some progress towards God, that we are attaining spiritual summits never before traversed. The reality is in some ways much more stark but much more wonderful and glorious

Let's examine the lesson more closely. Firstly, the word 'flesh' as used by Paul can be highly misleading. He does not mean bodily. Rather, when he speaks of the flesh he means man, both body and soul, in his fallen condition. Hence, he writes in his Epistle to the Galatians that the works of the flesh are "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, [and] revelries" (Galatians 5.19-21 NKJV). Notice, how some of the things listed relate to the body but the ultimate source of all of them is in the will and the mind. Note also how, if we are honest, we are guilty of one or more of these works of the flesh. It should make us shudder then to see what Paul writes next "of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5.21). Like the response of the incredulous disciples to a particularly hard saying of Jesus, our question to Paul will likely be "who then can be saved?"

The answer is found, in part, in our epistle lesson. The opening verse reads "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit", that is, you have left behind the fallen state of man and are being renewed by the Holy Spirit. Now, how is this true? The key is to notice how the Spirit is identified in the second part of that opening verse. He--not it--is called the Spirit of Christ. Not the spirit of spirituality or the human spirit, the Spirit of Christ: the Spirit who leads and points to the living Christ. Spirituality that does not point to Christ is not of the Holy Spirit. Leadings of the Spirit that do not lead to Christ, are not of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, makes us to be like Christ. Our union with him and resulting transformation is how Paul can write that we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.

What does it mean for the Spirit of Christ to make us like Christ? It means first of all that in the flesh—as sinful, fallen humans—we are dead. Christ came in the flesh and by his life of service and obedience, he revealed us to be the sinners that we are, and then, he died for these same sinners. It means that as sinners there is no place for us to stand, either to boast about our good works or even our bad works. I'm sure you've heard 'testimonies' where a person who has had a radical conversion experience gets up only to brag about all the bad things he formerly did. Before that person even had an inkling to sin, Christ died for him. It means that the endless attempts at justifying ourselves, proving ourselves to be right both in relation to others and in relation to God has come to a definitive end. Self-justification is like the punishment of Sisyphus who in Greek mythology is condemned to roll a boulder uphill, only to have it, of course, continually roll downhill. The reality of sin is like that rock, but yet, we go on trying to cloak and justify our sins, figuratively pushing that rock uphill. The one sacrifice for sins that Christ made frees Sisyphus from his endless burden.

What we witness in Jesus Christ is God's unequivocal 'no' to human sin and pride. So, the bad news is that the old Man--the flesh--must and has in fact died. But the Good news is that the New Man--the man renewed by the Spirit--has been firmly established in Christ. In Christ, God has spoken a definitive Yes to man, freely justifying us sinners by his grace, and making a new humanity through the resurrection of Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes us like Christ in his death, yes, but also in his resurrection; verse 10, "if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." This New Man has not done anything to justify himself. He has not cooperated with God or advanced in God's service; but rather Christ has firmly established his foundation, and he is the prototype of this new Man. On account of these things Paul can write these bold words earlier in Romans: "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (5:1). We cannot make our peace with God; it has already been done on our behalf in Christ.

So, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, makes us like Christ in his death--we die in him--and like Christ in his resurrection--we rise with him to new life and are freed from the guilt and burden of sin, but the Spirit also makes us like Christ in his sonship; verse 14: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Sons, not to exclude women or suggest that women be transformed into men, but that we, both men and women, are given the status of the Eternal Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The true Gospel of the Lord Jesus is so powerful and has implications for every area of human life. If we believe that we freely justified by Christ, then nothing--no person, no thing, no event--is grounds for fear or anxiety. This is the point of the later part of this chapter, but Paul hints at this theme in verse 15: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Abba is the familiar form of address for father in Aramaic. Some scholars have suggested it is equivalent to the term of endearment 'daddy'. The point is clear: we who were alienated from God by our sins, are now children of God, adopted brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus, a new humanity God is gathering together in Christ. Imagine if rebels against the state, insurrectionists of the most violent type were declared to be forgiven and adopted by the King as heirs along with the King's son. This is precisely our position according to Paul in the final verses of our passage.

What will a Father not do for his children? This is a question to ponder. If it is true that we are God's children, what enemy could damn or curse us with any gravity? We are fed in body and mind from the table of God's abundance even in the presence of our enemies. If it is true, what adversity or trial could we face where we could legitimately fear the permanent loss of any good thing? Our Father shepherds and guides us through all of life's difficulties. If this is true, that we are God's children, who could declare us to be unlovable with any authority? We are wholly loved by Him who is called Love; and his is a love that does not alter or fade, but is steadfast even in the valley of the shadow of death. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”

Advent Sermon

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
-Romans 13.11-12

I'd like to start off my remarks today with a question: do you think you need to be saved? Do you honestly and sincerely believe that you need help for your life to endure? The long season of Pentecost has drawn to a close, and the start of Advent puts the necessity of salvation before us. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand," as the Epistle poetically describes this reality. Now what is salvation? And what is it from which we need to be saved? The Prayer Book identifies our enemies as 'the world, the flesh, and the devil', as we just heard in the Litany. The world is that part of human society that is in rebellion to God's gracious rule, ranging from the mammoth pornography industry to the abuse of ethnic minorities to the persecution of Christians in Africa and the Middle East. The World would have us capitulate to its standards, its ideas and its way of looking at itself and human beings. The historic doctrine of the devil is that he is a fallen angel. He and his angels are also in opposition to God's rule, and although we may as materialists be prone to question the existence of the devil, the chaos and evil in the world should give one pause: Think of the number of innocents murdered in the 20th century, a century of technological progress and human achievement. When we think about this and other evils, it is not difficult to believe that there are forces of spiritual evil in the world that seek to destroy God's good creation. Finally, the flesh. The prayer book doesn't simply mean the body. It means that part of the human person that wrestles with itself: You know the good you ought to do, but you give in to the opposite instead;That part of us that tempts us to subject our ideals and morals to our selfish desires is what the Bible and the prayer book in turn calls the flesh. It shouldn't surprise us that we our own enemy sometimes. Suicide is the trap door out of which one may exit life, but lots of other decisions one can make may not cause immediate death but do cause eventual death. These latter types of decisions blossom in addictions, divorces, and all kinds of figurative crashes, the inevitable fruit of which is an acute sense of alienation from God and others. The Bible put this stark reality in this way: "The wages of sin is death." Sometimes immediate death, sometimes eventual death.
The world, the flesh, the devil. These are that from which we need saving. Our prayer book emphasizes life as a battle in which we are under attack from these enemies. That is why there are two invariable collects or prayers for peace in both Morning and Evening Prayer. In these collects, one is not simply praying for the security of the state, since peace often merely denotes the absence of war. Rather, the peace we ask God to give us, the peace we want for our lives is security from the world, the forces of spiritual evil and from ourselves.
Now one of the problems of progressive theology is that it does not adequately account for the human need for salvation. The existence of the devil is usually denied and explained as merely a facet of human psychology. A theologically progressive church informed first most by the standards and mores of the World decreasing looks like the Christian church and more like a social action committee or even worse, a dying fraternal organization. Progressive theology tends to minimize the reality and costliness of sin--the flesh--and speaks of sin as denying the image of God in ourselves and others. Reinhold Niebuhr, a 20th century Protestant theologian, was formed in the mold of this type of theology, but through his pastoral work in Detroit he come to the conclusion that progressive theology held a naive view of sin and was overly optimistic about the effectiveness of social action. Concerning progressive theology, Niebuhr wrote, "A God without wrath, brought men without sin, into a kingdom without judgment, through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." If we are honest with ourselves, the human situation without God is far more stark. We are in a battle which we cannot win without God's help and we need deliverance from the world, the flesh and the devil.
The other day I was listening to Mahalia Jackson singing "Didn't it rain," a song about how it rained for forty days and forty nights while Noah and his family were inside the ark. Brothers and sisters, today, it is raining too. As we approach the darkest day of the year, we are reminded in this season of Advent of our need for a salvation and a Savior. Will you be like those in the day of Noah did not see the coming storm, but were "eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark?" In other words will you live your life as if it were not a battle against the world, the flesh and the devil and in so doing surrender to the enemy. Or will you be like Noah who heard God's word to him and obeyed, entering the hull of ship while water swept over the face of the earth? The truth is that everyday it is raining and we need God's help. We need his help not to take that drink this holiday season, we need his help to spare us from that final incident that will severe for good a troubled familial relationship, and maybe we need God's help to be delivered from the distressing memories of past holiday seasons. To borrow another metaphor from Gospel music: the Gospel train is coming, Jesus is the engineer, the conductor is shouting 'All abroad'. Will you get on board?

The Best Present for a 4-year-old: Baptismal Font

In the parish we have a relatively new family of five from a Presbyterian background. Their eldest, Jack, just turned four a few weeks ago. Now Jack is not your typical four-year-old. Simply put Jack loves church. When his family first came to the parish, Jack would cry when the candles on the Holy Table were extinguished at the conclusion of the service. He didn't want the service to end! He and his father often will come to the Wednesday 7:00 AM service of Holy Communion; he is always quiet and devout in a charming and very moving way.

Since the family first joined, he has really taken to 'playing' church at home: conducting processions with his home-made processional cross, 'singing' hymns, making the sign of the cross over various members of the family, even doing what I'm told is a remarkable imitation of Fr. Petley, a fellow-priest on staff. In an older child, this could all of course be done sardonically and with a bit of cynicism, but not for Jack. The ritual of Anglican worship, even all liturgical worship really, in its non-verbal aspects communicates the faith even to the youngest minds. This is part of its power, that it can both appeal to children who sense its reverence and power, and that to the those who have heard the Prayer Book services over a lifetime, its riches are never exhausted.

Jack's birthday party was held at the Oklahoma Train Museum complete with a concluding train ride. As I mulled over what to give him for a present, I thought The Little Prince would be entirely fitting for this special young man who is kind of a little prince in his own right. When I spoke to his father to confirm that he did not already own the book, I learned that Jack had told a mutual friend that what he really wanted for his birthday was a baptismal font. I decided while still on the phone that I needed to make Jack a miniature font. So, I went home that night--the party was the following morning--and turned this baptismal font.


It's a bit modern in style--probably more 1979 Prayer Book that I'd like to admit--but it was the best I could do as far as design with the time constraints. I used the left-over mulberry wood from this project. I finished it off with an IHS on the outside of the bowl. This is an ancient contraction for Jesus' name used often on church fixtures and vestments.

I'm told that various members of the family have now been baptized. On multiple occasions in some cases. And a bonus: he is now using it as a chalice. I don't take all this as conclusive evidence of a priestly vocation, but it certainly does make one ponder what our Lord's intention for his life might be.

Update: we just received an thank-you letter in the mail from Jack telling us that, "the baptismal font is my favorite. I use it almost every day. Claire and Lily like to be baptized." Here is the accompanying photograph:

Sermon - 5th Sunday after Pentecost

"And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." - St. Luke 19.51-62

It is perhaps unfortunate that in the ordering of the books of the New Testament that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, which is also authored by Luke, are separated by the Gospel of John. It is as a result easy to overlook the fact that the two are a unity. The Gospel of Luke tells of the life and work of our Lord Jesus beginning in Galilee in what is today far northern Israel and ending on Calvary outside of Jerusalem. In the Gospel lesson this morning, we get a snippet of this movement from the provincial Galilee to the urban religious center Jerusalem in the enigmatic phrase: "he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." The Acts of the Apostles opens with the ascension of our Lord and his command to his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Spirit comes: He tells them, "you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In the succeeding narratives in the book of Acts his apostles are witness to him beginning in Jerusalem, and then the surrounding region of Judea and then to Samaria, kind of like concentric circles in increasingly large geographic areas. Finally, we learn in the later chapters of Acts of Saul of Tarsus who is miraculously converted and renamed Paul. He becomes an Apostle to the Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire. There is, thus, a movement inward to Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke and a movement outward in the Acts of the Apostles. What is the point of this important facet to these two books? Well, it says that the central event of both of them is contained in the death and resurrection of our Lord. Everything in the Gospel account is leading up this sacrificial death and the miraculous resurrection. Everything in Acts is pointing back to this one event. A passing study of the Apostles sermons in Acts will evidence this point.
The cross truly is the center point of history on which the whole history of the human race, even the creation, hinges. It is through this event that we should, as a lens, see the world and all of our relationships. Through the cross, we see God's purpose for the world, both in judgement for its sin and rebellion against his gracious rule but also God's design to redeem the best of the human spirit and to save us. Through the cross, we see that we should love others even when they are not lovable or when we believe they deserve judgment. The cross constantly before us reminds us that our Lord Jesus shed his precious blood for us knowing that we still would be unfaithful and rebellious against him. We in turn treat others with the same unmerited kindness and love. It is the cross that is the center of all human history. The hopes and fears of all the years are found in our Lord Jesus and in his most important action, his sacrificial death.
Now we are in a position to understand more clearly what the Evangelist is saying in this enigmatic phrase, "he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." We've seen what that phrase means in the context of Luke and Acts, and what it means for us, namely, that we should strive to see all our life and the world around us through the lens of the cross. This is the center of all. Religious people don't like to hear that because the cross is outside of us. Religious people like spirituality and the search for the divine spark within which is ultimately searching for a god like one's self. The cross tells us that none of our religious efforts, none of our attempts at spirituality have any real meaning or significance in light of the one sacrifice of the Master. The heavy price of our sins has already been paid in full, and we are in no position to try and buy ourselves out: we can only make assent to this awesome work.
In his sermon last week, Deacon Easter spoke of the modern tendency to draw sentimental portraits of our Lord Jesus. We want him to bless the children and heal the sick, but we don't want him to talk about carrying a cross and we certainly don't want him to turn over the money changers tables and fashion a whip to drive them out of the temple. Now we need to be careful on this point that, as he made clear, we don't exclude either part of the full portrait of our Lord, and we also need to take care that we do not in the end give Jesus two masks, one as the stern master and the other as the loving shepherd. He is one Christ who brings both a word of judgment and a word of grace for human sin. With all this talk about the cross, what I'm not saying is that Jesus is just the easy shepherd or the docile parent who merely overlooks our sins. The cross doesn't take sin lightly, but rather shows how costly its grace is through our Lord's costly death.
Further in the Gospel lesson today we see this same tension that Deacon Easter pointed out. Our Lord first rebukes the disciples for wanting to cast down judgement on a Samaritan village, saying that he has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. The "gentle" Jesus. Following this, we have a slew of what are typically called the "difficult sayings of Jesus." Preachers love to teach classes and explain away these sayings. "The Son of Man has no where to lay his head"; "Let the dead bury the dead", and "No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God." It might make us doubt his earlier assertion that he has come to save lives not destroy them, when we learn that our Lord expects that, to be his disciple will mean we never feel at home on earth, we will follow him first most even putting him before our family, and we will be his disciples without wavering or relenting. Is he truly come to save lives when he seems to infringe so drastically on the ordinary lives of his followers?
A neglected skill in understanding the Bible is relating parts to parts. We might understand verses on their own, but there is a depth and a profoundity to be found in seeing how verses relate to verses, chapters to chapters and even books to books. Proficiency at this skill evinces the artistry behind the various texts of Scripture. And our reading from Luke is no different. It is no mistake on the part of the author that these two contrasting passages follow one another. In fact, these two contrasting passages help develop the significance of one another. Jesus says "let the dead bury their dead" and "no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." Our Lord suggests that the customary order of this world may not be in line with God's design. In our Sunday morning adult education class, we've talked about the calendar of saints in the Book of Common Prayer, and the virgins of the early church commemorated on various dates. The virgins forsook the conventional design on their lives as young women--having an ordinary, ordered family with a husband and children, sometimes at great cost of alienation from family and society--and committed themselves wholly to following our Lord. Clearly this type of celibacy is a special calling, but it shows the other-worldly dimensions of Christianity, the same ones that our Lord is highlighting in the latter part of our passage.
In the first part of the passage, when the disciples ask if they should command fire to down from heaven upon a village, I don't think our Lord's response is simply saying he wants to preserve biological life for its own sake. Rather, the end of life, closes the door to repentance, and perhaps, he wishes to preserve this opportunity for repentance for those Samaritans. Might I suggest that the lives he has come to save are those that will be directed to his counter cultural world-view, those who when they receive the call to serve him will not look back.
Our lives are more than food, clothing and shelter and they are even more than the complex biological processes in our bodies. Rather, our life, as St. Paul says, is hid with Christ in God. And if we are to save that true life, we must lose our life here. We must be willing to sacrifice conventions, our own standing in society and sometimes even our respectability among our family in following our Lord Jesus and bearing witness to him. This is a great price to pay, but in doing so, we will find this true life, the one our Lord came to save with his precious blood.

Artistic Failure

B and I were recently asked to be godparents to a little boy in the parish named Christian. Christian Augustino. His parents are second generation Italian. We have become fairly close friends with this family since we settled here in Oklahoma.

In my opinion, it is really quite impossible to figure what to give an infant for his baptism. Either one gives something far beyond his ability to use and appreciate--a Bible, Book of Common Prayer, some other classic of Christian literature--gifts more suited to confirmation, or one resorts to decorative gifts that typically range from ghastly to pedestrian at best.

The one gift I know I received at my baptism was actually quite a good one. It was from my godfather, the late dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Albuquerque, John Haverland. It is a framed prayer written in calligraphy and in the shape of a cross. The prayer is the birthday prayer from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (interestingly altered from the 1928 BCP by the removal of the petition, 'keeping him unspotted from the world"). This hung in my room for years as a child, and then for a number of years was in a box. A few years ago I found it and have hung it at our various residences since then. I like the dated 80s gold-flecked frame (which required regluing recently because the joints started to separate) and the mysterious water stain on the left edge. I think there is something profound about how I say this prayer many Sunday mornings as part of a parish tradition to give a blessing for those who have a birthday or anniversary within the week.

After reflecting on the long term quality of this gift, I decided to put my amateur calligraphy skills to the test, attempting to copy the one I'd received. So here are the results. The professional one is shown first followed by my best effort.

It was fun trying to imitate the calligraphy, using an ink pen and the well that B gave for Christmas a few years ago. But the results were far more lacklustre that I was prepared to accept. In our time a difficult problem presents itself to non-professional artists and all efforts at creativity: the advances of recording technology, printing, and assembly-line manufacturing have made perfection and precise uniformity seemingly attainable. Amateurs shy away from playing music because recorded music lacks imperfections, even though this perfection is entirely an illusion of multi-track recording and over dubbing. I don't say this by way of excuse for my own failures artistically, but to point out that the type of craft and art I'm interested in--that is, useful art made by an amateur--is arrested in a number of ways by this illusory perfection that characterizes most music and popular art.

Sermon - 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught [it], but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called [me] by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ: But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me." - Galatians 1:11-24

I would like to talk to you today about the Epistle we've just heard. Scholars today contend that St. Paul's letter to the Galatians is one of his earliest letters. It was probably composed in the 50s, about 20 years after our Lord’s resurrection. In this letter, Paul addresses a foreign teaching that has infiltrated the churches in Galatia. Galatia was a region in what in ancient times was called Asia, present day Turkey. It is in the Northwest region of that country near the Black Sea. Paul had been a missionary to the Christians in this region and had proclaimed that both Jews and Gentiles are saved by God's free, unmerited grace. This central message of the Gospel is truly liberating, knowing that we are loved and forgiven in the free grace of our Lord Jesus. It has drawn countless sinners to their knees. It provoked John Newton to compose 'Amazing Grace.' It caused St. Paul to say that he counted all things before Christ was revealed to him as loss. Another aspect of the Gospel, however, is that we find difficulty in receiving it. We want to help ourselves; we want to pull ourselves up by our boot straps; we want to believe and say with conviction that God helps those who help themselves. Our flesh chafes against the idea that, as one of the traditional collects says, ‘we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves.’ It was the philosopher Immanuel Kant who was thought to have delivered the death blow to the traditional understanding of Christ's atonement. He contended that it is demeaning to humanity to say that they cannot help themselves. And yet, isn't our helplessness self-evident in our lives? when we try to overcome the addiction or save the marriage or resist a besetting temptation on our own strength, we always fail, and despite our best efforts, we end up feeling worse about ourselves: we feel guilty for our failure and guilty for abandoning our resolve so quickly and so easily. But when we throw up our hands and say we have no ability to fix the situation, then the door is opened to God's grace and restoration.
Now the foreign teachers who had come to the Galatian churches in Paul's absence were of Jewish background, as Paul of course also was, but contrary to Paul's message of free grace and unconditional mercy, they said to the Gentile converts, "Jesus was a Jew, if you want to be a follower of Jesus the Christ, a Jew, then you need to be circumcised and live according to the Law of Moses." Perhaps they also indicted Paul for not having been appointed an Apostle in the manner that the other twelve had. "Can he really be an Apostle if he never spent time with Jesus while he was on earth?" It is fascinating to think about human nature in this situation. Even though the Galatian converts had heard the message of free grace and had accepted it joyfully, the idea that they could be accepted by God through circumcision and the works of the law was tremendously attractive to them; it confirmed their false instinct that God only helps those who help themselves. In fact the human heart finds an irresistible temptation in the idea that self-help might work after all.
In the passage read from the Epistle, Paul defends his apostleship and the means by which he received the message of the Gospel. It was not taught him by one the Apostles or by one of the disciples of the Apostles. Jesus Christ was revealed 'in him,' verse sixteen. Now this phrase 'in him' is a bit unusual. We would expect him to say ‘to’ him. As in Jesus was revealed to him. It might make sense to say that Jesus Christ was revealed in Paul by his preaching to others. But I think what he describes here is a life-transforming event, a revelation not only to his eyes--the blinding light on the road to Damascus--or to his ears--the voice of Jesus asking, why do you persecute me?--but Jesus was revealed in his heart; not only was Paul’s physical state altered with temporary blindness by that encounter of our Lord on the road to Damascus but his inward person was radically altered.
In the end, we too must affirm that the Gospel, the message of free grace for all those who put their trust in our Lord Jesus, is not man-given. It is not something devised by man to make us feel better about ourselves. Christianity's object is not about having an improved self-esteem but about knowing and receiving the costly love of God, a love that was poured out on the Cross with our Lord's precious blood. This message of God coming down to help us subverts all our best intentions to help ourselves, and in this way it bears the mark of its divine origin. The pride of man's heart could never have devised such a thing as the Gospel. Just look at all of the religions of the world. They all have some beauty and truth in them, but in the final estimation, they all--including a distorted Christianity like that preached to the Galatians--amount to man's ascent up to God rather than God's descent to man in the man Christ Jesus.
Central to the Christian life is learning how to live as those who are freely forgiven and loved. The churches love to talk about this message of free grace, and then, once that has been received, to pile on all these ordinances of do's and don’t’s. They make the proverb go like this: God helps those who, after they have been helped by him, help themselves. The truth is we are all like the dead man in the Gospel. We are dead in our sins and trespasses, but have risen to new life. A new life that is profoundly different than the old life with its rules and laws. In this new life we are not bound by the works of the law but are given a righteousness through our faith in Christ. Elsewhere St. Paul describes the old life and the grace we are given for the new with these vivid words from the Epistle to Titus: "For we ourselves. . . were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, [and] hating one another. But after the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour" (Titus 3:3-6). May we learn faithfully, live truly and believe steadfastly this truth of God's free grace and love and may this 'abundance' which has been shed on us in Christ be all our sustenance, our very life, this day.

Darning Socks

One of the wonderful things I've discovered about priestly life is that there are very few fashion choices to be made. Beyond a black suit and rabat, the beginning and end of choice is in accessories: which cuff links? handkerchief or not? wrist or pocket watch? Socks also fall into this category of fashion minutia that are left to my volition. Unfortunately, though, I have an irritating proclivity for putting holes in my blacks socks.

Through a bit of thrift and a sense of economy I recently had the thought that perhaps my socks could be darned to give them longer life. After briefly suggesting to B that she might learn how to do this, I decided I would learn to darn myself. After some youtube tutorials, I had a go at it. The first few holes I attempted to darn I effectively sewed the holes, giving an unpleasant pleat to the sock. I also realized that a darning egg--a tool with which I was not previously familiar--might be a welcome addition to my needle and embroidery thread (on one hole my needle caught the opposite side of the sock!). Here are some pictures of the darning egg I turned from local Oklahoma mulberry wood and the log from which it came and finally the fruit of my labours.

Some, I know, will think I've lost my mind when they read that I'm now darning socks. But in our society, material culture moves in a line from natural resources, manufacturer, consumer, finally to the end of the "usefulness" of any given product. Even using the word consumer indicates how we view material objects. Perhaps compelled by my Protestant heritage of thriftiness and manual labor, I try to think of material culture as a circle, finding uses for the so-called unusable and obsolete. In our back yard, we've got a moderately large sycamore tree (at least for Oklahoma). In the spring, when the wind picks up in Oklahoma, the tree normally sheds a number of small twigs. In the morning, we'll find the grass strewn with these little twigs. Instead of raking them up and disposing of them in the trash, for the past two winters I've saved them in a back corner of the backyard and then use them for kindling when winter comes around. The useless has a use. This attitude to me seems in keeping with the economy of God's gracious providence in which nothing is without purpose. It is certainly my hope that our economy today will teach my generation the value of thriftiness, which is not, of course, to be confused with miserliness or stinginess.