Unconditional Acceptance: Breaking Down the Wall (Ephesians 2:8-22)

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Highland Park)

7.22.12

Ephesians 2:8-22

“Unconditional AcceptanceàHostility UndoneàPurpose”

It’s an absolute pleasure to be here with you in your beautiful building this morning.  And while it is noble and very Christian of you to welcome a complete strange into your midst, it probably wasn’t very wise giving him the pulpit.  With that said, have no fear, your valiant rector will return next week to undo any of the damage that Tim, Philip, and I most certainly have done or—in this case—will do.

But in all seriousness, I am very excited to be here this morning, not only because I have the chance to meet new people, but also because I get to talk about my favorite thing in the world—the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  What one theologian refers to as the one-way love of God for suffering sinners like you and me.  What NT scholar F.F. Bruce summarized using in these words, “Christ died [not for the healthy but] for the ungodly.”

It’s been offending self-righteous people like myself for two thousand years now.  For just like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, some of us find it downright upsetting that the wayward son is just as acceptable to the Father as us—the diligent, hard-working, rule-keeping—older brother (or sister) types.  We’ve been trying to earn his love for some time, how dare he accept these reprobates who turn to him at the last minute? 

Yet when we internalize the truth of the Gospel even we begin to realize that this unfair reality—this message that is too good to be true—is, in fact, what we’ve wanted all along.  A love from the praiseworthy that is truly unconditional—a love, that as the great hymn says, will never let us go. 

This Gospel, while found throughout both Old and New Testaments, is most explicitly stated in what has come to be known as the Pauline Corpus—and that just means the collection of letters traditionally attributed to St. Paul.  Unfortunately, for many of us Episcopalians, we have picked up the notion somewhere that Paul somehow complicated what Jesus made simple. 

This truly is an unfortunate reality, and we would do well to learn from our Lutheran brothers and sisters that, rather than complicating Jesus’ teaching, Paul makes explicit what is left implicit in the Gospel narratives.  And I’m going to say that again because that was profound for me the first time I heard it.  What Jesus left implicit, Paul makes explicit. 

And hopefully this will become evident as we take a look at the actual passage read just a moment ago.

A Summary of Week 5 Trinity Cathedral Young Adult Galatians Series

Summary of Week 5: Galatians 3:1-9

Gian Lorenzo Bernini “Dove of the Holy Spirit”         

(I provided a rather lengthy introduction to set the stage for our passage this week: Galatians 3:1-9.  For those who have followed along feel free to either read it or ignore it and skip to "Current Passage" below.  One final note, we do not usually go this in depth at the Thursday night gatherings. This summary is more for me than anyone else, though hopefully it has been helpful for others.)  

Introduction:

At the very beginning of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he rebukes them (Gal. 1:6).  Unlike all of his other letters to churches, he is not thankful for their faith and does not acknowledge their blessedness.  Instead he is astonished about how they could be lead away from the true Gospel—the forgiveness of past, present and future sins, the breaking down of ethnic barriers, and the cosmic (all-encompassing) victory and reconciliation which Christ accomplished through his death and resurrection—to another one that is no Gospel at all.  He then proceeds to pronounce a curse—twice—on those who would proclaim a Gospel contrary to the one who delivered, whether they be apostles (including himself) or even an angels from heaven.

From here Paul defends his apostolicity because the false teachers who have infiltrated Galatia have belittled it.  He clearly notes that his apostleship comes from Jesus Christ and God the Father and not from or through any person—whether apostolic or otherwise.  He does this by presenting his own (sequential) narrative.

A Summary of Week 4 Trinity Cathedral Young Adult Galatians Study

Summary of Week 4: Galatians 2:11-24

Peter and Paul
El Greco

Last week we looked at Gal. 2:1-10.  In that passage Paul, Barnabas, and Titus went to the church at Jerusalem and met with the “pillars” there—James, Cephas, and John.  Members of the Jerusalem church wanted to force Titus to become circumcised.  Paul says that he did not “yield for even an hour” to those “who came in to spy on our freedom.”  The James, Cephas, and John offered the “right hand of fellowship” to Paul, thus acknowledging that Paul was an apostle (what he had claimed came from the Lord himself and not from people) and that his ministry would be particularly focused to the Gentiles.  This resulted in a victory, not primarily for Paul, but for the advance of the Gospel. 

Verse 11 breaks the flow of Paul’s chronological narrative somewhat.  For the past 24 verses (since 1:11) Paul’s argument has been sequential following his own journey, then in 2:11 that flow is suddenly interrupted with “But when Cephas came to Antioch” (the linear continuity of the “then’s” have given way to a discontinuous “but”).  Not only has the narrative shifted chief characters—Paul to Peter, but the location has also changed—Jerusalem to Antioch.  The first 10 verses of chapter 2 dealt with the symbol of the Law that is circumcision, the next 11 deal with another symbol of the Law—table fellowship.  The characters involved in the present unit are Cephas (Peter), messengers from James, Jewish Christians of Antioch, and Barnabas. It is also worth noting that the church at Antioch—the first place followers of Jesus were called Christians—was a very unique place.  Unlike Jerusalem that was made up exclusively of Jewish Christians and the daughter churches of Antioch that were overwhelmingly Gentile, Antioch was a truly multicultural church (large numbers of Jews and Gentiles).

The passage opens with Paul coming right out and saying that Cephas stood condemned.  It is significant that Paul summarizes the incident (condemns Peter) before providing any details (telling the story). Following the line of thought from our last two weeks of study, Paul is once again noting that the Gospel is over the apostles (the Gospel is the foundation of the Church and not vice versa).

In this passage Cephas was eating with the Gentiles before “certain men had come from James” (from Jerusalem to Antioch).  At this, Cephas “drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party” (a party that must not have been on board with the resolution made between the “pillars” and Paul that we witnessed last week).  Now this might have gone unnoticed if it were only Cephas who stepped out, but because Peter was a “pillar” of the Church the rest of the Jewish Christians at Antioch “play-acted” (acted hypocritically) with him.  The crowning blow for Paul, though, is the defection of Barnabas his otherwise faithful coworker (the one who was there for him from the very beginning; the one who earlier stood beside him in the battle against the false brothers in Jerusalem as we witnessed last week; in sum: the one who always had his back).  These Jewish Christians had abandoned their Gentile brothers and sisters and not just for daily meals, but for the ultimate meal that was ate at the same table—the Eucharistic meal (ht# J. Louis Martyn).    

Paul saw that their conduct was not only hypocritical, but more importantly, “not in step with the truth of the Gospel.”  Therefore, Paul opposed Cephas publically saying, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”  Paul’s language betrays the fact that this was not the first time Cephas enjoyed table fellowship with Gentiles.  In fact, it had become a regular thing (it may have even begun with his great vision of Acts 10:9-33).   

Through his actions, Peter has unwittingly said, “Unless you conform to the Jewish way of life we cannot have social relations with you.”  The Gentile Christians at Antioch were made to feel like second class citizens, and not just by Cephas but also by their fellow Jewish Christians who had been eating with them all along and even one of their own leaders—Barnabas. 

Interestingly enough, in response Paul seems to go against what he later writes in Galatians 6:1 (“if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him or her in a spirit of gentleness.”)  In this episode, Paul displays anything except gentleness.  Why is this?  For Paul, Peter’s withdraw is no mere transgression.  Peter’s action is the effective preaching of an anti-Gospel in the midst of the Antioch church (which, as we learned from chapter 1, is no Gospel at all—recall: “let that person be accursed”).  For Paul, once again the foundation is at stake.  Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

The presentation of Paul’s public speech to Peter is very interesting but oftentimes missed.  Most English translations end the quote at the end of verse 14 (…“how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews”).  J. Louis Martyn notes that while this is probably inevitable, it is misleading.  Paul’s speech is intentionally broadened to include not only Cephas and the past audience at Antioch, but also the False Teachers and the present audience of Galatia!  After openly rebuking Peter, Paul goes on to rhetorically put his arm around him and the False Teachers shoulders in writing, “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not “Gentile sinners.”  He then goes on to write, “yet [even] we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ [or ‘the faith of Jesus Christ’].”  Thus he undercuts the distinction between Jew and Gentile (Martyn, 249).  The faith of Christ (or faith in Christ) does not serve as a supplement to the keeping of the Law, either for Christians of Jewish or Gentile lineage.  On the contrary, concerning salvation, observance of the Law and the faith of Christ constitute a genuine antimony (Martyn, ibid.).  Together with the Gentile, the Jew stands before God with empty hands.  Both are to put their trust in the work of Christ with the source of their (and our) acceptance--that being the faith of Christ.

To conclude, I must note that the general tenor of this passage is that Paul did indeed undergo a political loss here.  He was very quick to point out the success of his trip to meet with the "pillars" in Jerusalem, if he was successful at Antioch it would have helped his case with the Galatians to note that as well.  Nevertheless, Paul proceeds to "fight" for the true Gospel despite setbacks.  He fought for it's advance in Jerusalem and Antioch, he will continue to do so in Galatia and everywhere else whether church leaders, apostles, or even angels oppose it.  

*As for the last few verses of the section, I do not have time to write a summary.  Here are some of my notes about these verses.

--3 times in verse 16, Paul makes it clear that no one is “justified”/“rectified” (declared righteous or made righteous) by obeying the Law but by grace through Christ’s faith (or human faith).

-- Paul has torn down the Law as a way of being good with God; he will not rebuild what he has already shown to be powerless as far as salvation is concerned. 

-- The life Paul and the believer now lives is in the faith of the Son of God, “who loved me (us) and gave himself for me (us).”

--He refuses to put up with Jesus + the Law, because he will not “nullify the grace of God.”  For the kicker to end Paul’s extended quotation, “if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

Final Note: *Some proponents of the classical perspective on Paul are adamant at opposing “faith of Christ Jesus” language (vs. “faith in Christ” Jesus language).  As Martyn and others show, classical perspective believers need not hold that traditional understandings of justification (or "rectification") fall or stand based on the former interpretation/translation.  For those interested in this discussion I would refer you to the stellar, though not always perfect, work of J. Louis Martyn in his commentary on Galatians and his Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul.  To whet your appetite:

“God’s rectifying act, that is to say, is no more God’s response to human faith in Christ than it is God’s response to human observance of the Law.  God’s rectification is not God’s response at all.  It is the first move; it is God’s initiative, carried out by him in Christ’s faithful death… The point is that the Christ in whom we faithfully place our trust is the Christ who has already faithfully died in our behalf (cf. Rom. 5:8) and whose prevenient death for us is the powerful rectifying event that has elicited our faith.” Martyn, 271

A Summary of Week 3 Trinity Cathedral Young Adult Galatians Study

Summary of Week 3: Galatians 2:1-10

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles

Nicholas Tournier

Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX

-Paul continues his sequential narrative noting his second appearance in Jerusalem fourteen years after his conversion experience (or since he had last been at Jerusalem).  In this passage, Paul takes Barnabas, his faithful advocate and companion, and Titus, a Gentile, to the Jerusalem church to meet with the James, Cephas, and John.  He presented before these “pillars” of that church the Gospel that he proclaimed among the Gentiles.  At the same time, Paul notes that “false brothers… slipped in to spy out our freedom… so that they might bring us into slavery.”  Paul’s language is not neutral or politically correct, in fact, it's fairly straightforward.  First, the imposters who wished to have Titus circumcised are referred to as false brothers.  These Jewish Christians thought that Paul was distorting the Gospel, compromising the religion in order to make it more palatable to those who would not become Jews (become circumcised).  Paul flips their argument on its head writing that it is not he, but they, who are distorting the religion of Christ and they are doing this in no small way.  These “false brothers” are undoing the Gospel of freedom and instead offering a false Gospel that amounts to slavery.  With the Gospel at stake, Paul refuses to yield, not even for a moment. 

I used to post music reviews for an interesting blog called MockingbirdNYC.  It's now a full-fledged website with over 40,000 unique viewers every month (mbird.com). In honor Arcade Fire's new remix EP (and with hopes that a new album is just around the corner!), I present to you a review I posted almost two years ago of their most recent full-length--The Suburbs... 

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

Win Butler, lead singer of Arcade Fire, does not claim to be Christian. Having been raised Mormon, he would later take theology classes at McGill University in Montreal. Today, he is not a churchgoer but still claims to be a very “spiritual” person. In fact, while discussing the band’s previous album, Win said, “Neon Bible is addressing religion in a way that only someone who actually cares about it can. It’s really harsh at times, but from the perspective of someone who thinks it has value.” I think he’s closer and more sympathetic to it than he realizes.

While Arcade Fire’s latest concept album, The Suburbs, is quite a departure from their last two, both musically and thematically, religion is still scattered throughout. Two lines of interest occur in the same song, the climax of the record, entitled “City with No Children.” The first is an indication of the band’s maturity since the release of their somewhat smug (although quite good) Neon Bible.

You never trust a millionaire quoting the Sermon on the Mount

I used to think I was not like them but I’m beginning to have my doubts

My doubts about it.

Exclusivity and Mercy: Two Sides of the Same Coin (Luke 13:22-30)

Trinity Episcopal School For Ministry

11/1/10

Luke 13:22-30

‘til 2010

“He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.  And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.  And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.  And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Passages like the one Joanne read this morning usually leave me depressed.  I mean who wants to hear about places where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” and roads that are so narrow that many will try but few will get in. 

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty clueless about how to preach this stuff to myself let alone the inclusive, hell-haters of the 21^st century? 

It’s in passages like this that our hippie Jesus sounds less like the homeboy Christ who’s always “down and never frowns,” and more like one of those weeping Old Testament prophets we don’t even read anymore.