Proper 6

Preparation

    Please begin by reading Galatians 2:11-21 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--“Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is”  

    It is often the case that when I read a Bible passage I’ve read many times before it speaks to my spirit in a new way. Like this passage from Galatians, Bible texts are often rich with multiple layers of meaning and many themes we could explore. But for some reason, different themes seem to stand out at different times. I suspect that basically it just means that God is trying to get my attention about something. I suppose this should not be a surprise. For after all, when Jesus taught us about the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives, he said this: “When the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide you into all the truth … . (John 16:13)

    What came to mind when I begin to think about this passage from Galatians this time was that leading a Christian life means “putting our money where our mouth is.” I don’t know how common that expression is around the world, but here in North America it has to do with whether someone’s actions are consistent with their words. Are they willing to commit themselves and their resources to doing what they say is important, or are their words just empty words? Paul discloses here that he had a big disagreement about that very thing with “Cephas.” (“Cephas” is the Aramaic equivalent of the Greek name “Peter.” “Cephas” is the apostle Peter.)

    Of course the very first followers of Jesus were all Jewish, just as Jesus himself was. In the early years of the faith, these Jewish followers had to wrestle with whether non-Jews (Gentiles) could also be Christians. Was Christianity just for the Jews, or was it for everyone?

    The answer to that question might seem obvious now, but that is only in hindsight. At first, it was a major issue. (For information about a big meeting called in Jerusalem to settle this issue, see Act 15.) Paul, whom God called to be a witness for Christ to the Gentiles, was a leader in bringing clarity that Christianity is for everyone. The apostle Peter had been brought around to that view. But apparently Peter later backed down in the face of criticism from others in the Jewish community who took him to task for eating with Gentiles; something a very devout Jew of the time would not do. So Paul told Peter to his face that he was not putting his money where his mouth was. He had let public pressure move him away from what he knew God wanted him to do. He reminded Peter that he himself had been set free from the intricate and impossible-to-meet demands of the law of his old faith through his new faith in Jesus, so how could he now reverse course and demand that Gentiles abandon that freedom?

    So what are the life lessons here? First, any effort to bring ourselves into a solid relationship with God based on our own efforts is doomed to failure. No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to always “dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.” It is just not humanly possible. But the good news is that is not what it’s all about anyhow! All we really need to do is just relax and trust that Jesus has taken care of it for us. It is not what we do that will restore us to full relationship with God, it is our deep faith in Jesus that does that. As Paul says here, “a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

    Of course that does not mean that we should ignore what we know full well God wants us to do in a given situation (and we can trust that the Holy Spirit will teach us what that is). We still have the obligation to “put our money where our mouth is.”

    But this is not an invitation to return to beating ourselves up when we fail! As we see here, even Peter was not perfect and Paul admits elsewhere (Romans 7:15) “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Our tendency is to want to fall back on that notion that we have to do it ourselves and to beat ourselves up when we fail. But if even such towering figures of faith as Peter and Paul sometimes failed, how can we possibly think that we won’t? Falling back into that trap is falling back into slavery to law, the very thing Paul condemns.

    Our task is simply to put our faith solidly in Jesus. Yes, we are to do the best we can to follow where Jesus leads us—to put our money where our mouth is. But God’s work in the world will not stop if we fail now and then. We are not the saviors of the world. Jesus is. What wonderful freedom and joy that knowledge can bring! DiscipleC

revclay

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Galatians 2:11-21

 
    But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

    But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

    We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!

    But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. [NRSV]