Grace to you and peace from God and from our Lord JC.
The Apostle Paul was really a sort of Johnny Appleseed to the early church. Johnny Appleseed in American folklore, of course, went around planting seeds. It’s a nice start here, but it’s not an entirely good metaphor for Paul, though...because the problem with Johnny Appleseed -- at least, in the very limited way I understand the legends -- is that he was never around much to nurture the growth of his trees, to tend the saplings, to prune the branches. Planting a church is wonderful...but nurturing it’s growth, tending its young and new converts, and pruning back fallacies and perversions of its core message, the Gospel -- this is where we find Paul in our lesson today. Here in Galatians Paul’s returning to a tree in Galatia that he planted, but a tree that needs some help…
Here’s the main issue in Galatians: there were these Jews that had converted to Christianity. Great, right? They had migrated up from the Holy Land, with the message of Jesus, away from the temple in Jerusalem, to modern-day Turkey. And as you might imagine, they had brought their “Judaism” with them...in some ways consciously and in some ways unconsciously...all their traditions and rituals and -- I imagine in a beautiful way -- incorporated all that into their understanding and practice of this new-faith Christianity.
This happens all the time. Think of how any number of cultures appropriates Christianity, wrapping it up with their own people’s history and traditions. Latin American Christianity is almost synonymous with Latin American culture. In Mexico, for example, Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), a Christianity-based tradition (other parts of the church celebrate All Saints Day) is celebrated by everyone -- it’s what the whole culture does. Examples abound from other parts of the world -- Christianity in Africa, or in Southeast Asia, or in Northern Europe. When we humans migrate, we bring with us our cultures, our histories, our practices, our convictions...and often that’s all so wrapped up in our religion, that you can’t tell them apart.
I love Garrison Keillor. I’ll probably listen to him on my way home today, and laugh my head off. But I think he’s done a disservice to the Lutheran church, in that he’s crystalized a limited picture of what being Lutheran is. I think many people -- within the church and without -- tend to think that’s what being Lutheran is. That’s it! Upper-Midwesterners with Scandinavian (or even German) roots, who are entertainingly self-effacing, dry-humored, hard-working, meat and potatoes, quiet, and loving people...plodding along from field to kitchen table, to sanctuary, to village meetings, and back home again, week after week , their whole life through. I can relate to those roots, many of you can relate to those roots. He’s done a masterful job of telling many white, Northern European Americans’ cultural stories. But this is not what it means to be Lutheran at its core. And it can be radically unwelcoming!
What if you can’t relate at all to old Garrison Keillor Lutheranism? Then you have no place in this church? [pause]
It’s almost be like we have an apple tree that needs some pruning. Some checking, some tending, some love.
Paul is pruning the Galatian Christians with Jewish roots, rather than Keillor-ish roots. He’s not cutting them; he’s definitely not cutting them off or down: but he is cutting off their assumptions and hopefully some of their practices, which excluded and overlooked others. Because excluding and overlooking others puts the Gospel at stake.
Paul testifies to his own days of excluding, overlooking and -- in his case -- chopping down of others. That was another life for him, but it’s worth bringing up to these young Jewish Christians. Check your zealousness. What have you been zealous about lately? What have you been overly sure about lately? Have you ever been so right about something you’ve been wrong? So passionate that you’re like a stem that’s growing green and leafy all by itself, while the rest of the tree is withering? Maybe we need to be pruned a little too...
Our confession this morning certainly indicated that:
“Just and gracious God, we come to you for healing and life. Our sins hurt others and diminish us; we confess them to you...Bind up our wounds, forgive us our sins, and free us to love, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.”
Pruning is a way of loving, right? It’s coming back and tending, not just planting seeds and hoping for the best. No gardner spends time on a tree that’s having problems because she hates that tree, right? It’s because God loves us that we get pruned, checked, and tended.
This week let’s think about practices in our own lives and in our congregational community’s life that either consciously or (more often) unconsciously exclude and overlook others.
So circumcision was the issue then, which might seem a little weird to us Christians now, but this was a purely and richly religious marking (or branding) and setting-apart for Jewish males. And these Jewish Christians were absolutely convinced that others weren’t as Christian -- now -- as they were, because of this special practice and marking.
What markings, what brands, do we have or put on ourselves, that make us feel better or more superior than others, and thereby exclude and overlook others?
Who is not as great as we are? As you are? What parts of you, of your psyche need to be trimmed a little?
Friends in Christ, God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, comes back to give us a trim, to prune us, to check us, and ultimately to love us. And this happens whether we like it or not -- God’s love, that is. We can be resistant to the pruning -- like are kids are resistant to getting a hair cut or a cleaning. We can resist it, but that love is there regardless. That grace and mercy is for you.
(I’ve been continually coming back to this idea: “Losing your/my faith” means “no longer able to trust in God’s grace”.)
Paul’s words to the Galatians are words to us as well. And they are God’s words. Words of God, words of life. They renew our faith, they humble us, they check us, they challenge us, and they enable us to grow in even more healthy and loving ways FOR our procession outward to this huring world that God so dearly loves. God’s words (not Paul’s words, as he makes clear here) -- these are God’s words, and they fill us with joy, they calm our anxious souls...and they fling wide open the doors of the church and the doors of our hearts. Thanks be to God for that!
Hey, Johnny Appleseed gave us a great song, let’s make that our closing prayer here: “Oh the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed.” AMEN.
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