Listening to the news and current events can be disheartening.
Conflict rages all around the globe.
Corporations fight other corporations and governments in order to guarantee themselves a bigger slice of the economic pie.
Religious groups wage holy war against other religions and even factions within their own religious communities.
Conservatives and liberals line up in battle lines much like our ancestors did. Firing rounds indiscriminately hoping to hit someone on the opposite side.
It’s an understatement to say that we, as fellow inhabitants on this planet, have become polarized.
What is even more disheartening for me is the way in which those of us who chose to follow Christ are divided.
We kick and claw at one another.
“No, you’re wrong!” says one faction.
“How can you say that? The Bible is clear that YOU are in error!” screams another.
“I belong to Apollos!”
“I follow Paul!”
“No, you’re both wrong! Peter has the true way!”
It seems that this thing called the Church is not only vulnerable to all of the forces of human nature, it is also quite fragile.
It breaks and fractures easily.
The broken pieces crash to the floor and scatter every which way.
It’s almost impossible to not become discouraged and lose hope.
So, I did the only thing that I could think of in order to wrap my head around these things.
I prayed.
I asked God to put those of us who follow Christ in the shadow of God’s wings. Not to protect us. But, to empower us.
For what?
I’m glad you asked!
To empower us to be the Royal Priesthood and Holy Nation that the Scriptures claim that we should be. To be harbingers of the Reign of God in this world. Here. Now. Just as Jesus of Nazareth was 2 millennia ago.
Not, however, as so many people who lay claim to christianity do.
Recently, I’ve been studying Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. In it, Paul had some interesting things to say about the state of affairs in that church. After Paul and his friends had established the young community and moved on to other places, it appears that some other folks came in to stir things up a bit. These others were, according to the text, teachers of the Jewish Law who also followed the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. They claimed that in order to be Real True Christians, the people in Galatia had to conform to Jewish rules that set them apart from other people. These so called works of the Law were male circumcision, dietary restrictions, and observation of the Sabbath and other Jewish Holy days.
The Galatians were confused. But, they listened to their elder brothers in Christ and began to embrace these requirements.
When Paul got wind of what was happening he just about burst a blood vessel. He wrote a rather pointed letter in which he called these later teachers, “Accursed!”
No, he wasn’t happy at all.
He then spent the rest of the letter explaining what the problem with these practices were and why they were so dangerous.
The underlying point to all that he wrote was, “What makes you think that what was started in the Spirit could possibly be completed in the flesh?”
To clarify, Paul’s usage of the term “flesh” in this entire letter refers to conforming to the Jewish rules of purity that those other teachers had insisted be followed.
And, to be equally clear, one of the most egregious results of following those rules is that they erect barriers that separate people from one another. And, in Paul’s argument, they can also separate people from God.
Ok, so what does any of this Paul stuff have to do with why I feel disheartened and in need of God’s empowering?
Because, many in today’s church follow the example of those Jewish teachers way back when. They say that they follow God and God’s Spirit. But, in reality they lay obstacles in the path of people who need God in their lives.
“You can’t follow God if you’re gay!”
“If you don’t stand for the national anthem, you can’t possibly be Christian!”
“Abortionist! Murderer! Not Christian!”
I could go on and on with the works of law that many people require of any Real True Christian.
That’s not what I see Paul saying to the people who were trying there best to follow the Way of Christ.
“What was begun in the Spirit must be completed in the Spirit.”
While that seems a simple statement, it requires the empowerment I wrote about earlier.
It requires people who take the idea of Royal Priesthood and Holy Nation seriously enough to realize that the rules and laws that so many people try to enforce simply have no place in the Kingdom of God.
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