Brunswick Baptist Church

Sermon 27 June 2010

Bible readings: Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62

Theme: The freedom of love

Most communion Sundays we have someone from the congregation speaking to us about a turning point, or turning points, in their faith experience. I think we will look back on last Sunday’s worship service as turning point for our church. For those who were not present, Janine spoke to us most eloquently about the nature of worship, and where the organ might or might not fit in with worship in our redeveloped buildings. She reminded us that true worship is about justice, kindness and humility, and that our buildings are for ‘mission not members’. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and lonely, clothing the cold and naked, healing the broken, and uplifting the down-trodden, this is Jesus’ mission and message to his followers.

Following the sermon Ruth led us in time of group reflection and discussion and feedback which seemed to indicate that a majority of the congregation was, with great regret and reluctance, willing to release and gift the organ to another worshipping community that would have much greater need of it. I thought Carl summed it up beautifully when he said something like, ‘It’s not such a big deal really, we might get it right, or we might get it wrong. We’ve made wrong decisions in the past and we’ve managed to live with them. We’re still here’. True wisdom!

How we make the decisions about what we will do with these lovely buildings is far more important than the actual decision that we make, and far more important than the function and the form and the aesthetics of what we end up with. I say that, because how we make the decisions reflects who we understand God to be, who we understand ourselves to be as a community of disciples of Jesus, and how others will either see an accurate or a distorted image of Christ by the way we relate to each other. How we make difficult decisions, and how we are together as followers of Jesus, is in itself an act of proclamation .

I am proud and impressed by the way that this community has been able to manage this decision-making process, and the long, sometimes frustrating process of deciding on exactly what we will do to bring our property back to good condition. These are issues that have split other congregations, and I want to use Paul’s letter to the churches in the region of Galatia, which we know as Turkey today, to look at some of the basic principles which have held us together thus far, and which I am confident will hold us together over the next 12-18 months of the building process.

The works of the flesh

Paul was writing to a number of churches in this small region of Galatia, some of which he had probably helped establish, and in all of which he was recognised, at least by some, as a church leader and Apostle. But there were other itinerant preachers who were challenging Paul’s apostleship and his theology of salvation by grace not works; men who taught that to become a Christian one had to become a Jewish convert and observe the law of Moses, including circumcision. Paul had to battle to retain his place as the Apostle to the Gentiles, and he defended his theology vigorously, ‘All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse’.

But it seems that Paul may not only have been battling against these Judaising Christians, but also against another group who may have distorted his Gospel of freedom, a group characterised by what Paul calls the ‘works of the flesh’:

§ Fornication (from which we get our word pornography’)

§ Impurity (literally ‘uncleanness)

§ Licentiousness (‘sensuality’)

§ Idolatry

§ Sorcery (from which we get our word ‘pharmacy’)

§ Enmities (‘hatred’)

§ Strife

§ Jealousy (literally ‘zeal’)

§ Anger (‘passion’, even ‘sorrow’)

§ Quarrels (same as strife)

§ Dissensions (‘divisions’, literally ‘standing apart’)

§ Factions ( a ‘choice’ or ‘option’ – a ‘sect’)

§ Envy (‘spite’)

§ Drunkenness (‘methai’)

§ Carousing (‘lascivious feasting’ – comes from the word ‘village’)

You can see how in many of these categories Paul is combating a theology of freedom that leads to license or loose living (fornication, licentiousness, drunkenness, carousing). ‘We are free from the constraints of the law and the commandments, let’s party’. Paul’s response? ‘You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence’.

But he is equally taking aim at those who undermine the fellowship by creating factions, causing division, creating disharmony in order to preserve theological purity. These were no doubt well meaning Christians who nevertheless constantly sniped and undermined Paul’s theology of salvation by grace by urging Gentile Christians to be circumcised and to follow the Jewish laws and traditions. Paul doesn’t single out only the alcoholics and womanisers as those who are controlled by the desires of the flesh, much as many conservative Christians do today. He also brands the schismatics, the theological trouble-makers who undermine the spiritual wellbeing of the community, as being those who self-indulgently gratify the desires of the flesh in a different way. Paul says, ‘I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves’!

These were Paul’s battles, battles for the souls and the spiritual and theological freedoms of Gentile Christians, but I haven’t experienced them as our battles at BBC. I have been in churches where I have felt my ministry and preaching were being undermined by legalistic theological factions, and I have been in other churches where I’ve had serious questions about some of the partying that different groups engaged in – ‘carousing’ would have been a pretty good description! The fact that neither of these extremes is characteristic of BBC should not lead us into a false sense of complacency. Paul would say that the struggle between ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ runs right through the heart of each one of us, and is part of the greater struggle between good and evil in the whole cosmos. That’s the bad news.

The fruit of the Spirit

The good news is that there is an antidote to this battle that rages in humankind and all of its attempts at social and spiritual community. Paul moves from a carnivorous image – ‘flesh’ – to a horticultural image – ‘fruit’ – to illustrate the quality of life in the spirit. Flesh is to be killed, torn apart, masticated. Fruit is to be plucked when ripe, savoured, enjoyed. This week we picked the first oranges for the season from our tree, and it was a most enjoyable experience. It’s a small tree, we prepared the soil and planted it five or six years ago, fed the soil each year, protected the tree from gall wasp and other pests. Jenny has as it were loved it into being. So it is with the life of the Spirit.

The first fruit of the Spirit identified by Paul is ‘love’; it is not only the first fruit, it is the fruit that makes all of the others possible. ‘The law is summed up in a single commandment’, says Paul, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. This love is the very antithesis of idolatry, dissension and licentiousness; this love is the agape love of God measured by the self-giving, self-emptying love of the crucified Christ. And it is this love that makes possible:

§ Joy, not the synthetic joy that comes from over indulging in a good wine, but the joy, or rejoicing, that Philo describes as the ‘intoxication of the Spirit’.

§ Peace, ‘eirene’ or ‘shalom’; that tranquillity of spirit that speaks of wholeness and wellbeing when the love of God is so embedded within us that the anxieties and fears that characterise human existence, no longer hold sway over us.

§ Patience. Interestingly this word appears as a negative in the ‘works of the flesh’ – ‘thumos’ or anger. It speaks of great passion which sometimes can be anger, sometimes rage, sometimes deep sorrow. As a fruit of the spirit it is a ‘macrothumos’, a big passion. This kind of patience is not disinterest or apathy; this kind of patience is a big passion, it feels deeply, but it is a passion that looks at the big picture and trusts in the activity and providence of God to bring about transformation in a broken world.

§ Kindness. The word means ‘usefulness’, ‘responding to need’. It is very practical and doesn’t just say to a hungry person, ‘be of good cheer’. Kindness rolls up its sleeves and gets involved as in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

§ Goodness, or generosity; the church at Pentecost held everything in common and shared their meals and their goods so that no one was in need.

§ Faith. If love is what creates and makes possible the fruit of the Spirit, then faith is what puts it all into action in the world. Faith is not intellectual belief, it is the total commitment of ones being, ones relationships, ones possessions, to God’s mission of love in the world.

Fruit is something to be enjoyed, to be savoured, to be shared, to be given away. Paul says it is about freedom, not freedom for myself to live as I want so that the world serves me; but freedom to not live by rules and regulations, freedom to truly love one another without taking advantage of that love.

This kind of freedom can only exist when it is truly lived in the Spirit. In his book, ‘The Church in the Power of the Spirit’, Jurgen Moltmann writes, ‘The charismatic rule of Christ in the community is essentially liberation from the violence and pressure of the powers of this world. The gifts and tasks which the exalted Christ gives and appoints are the powers of the life liberated from prison’.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.