|
| |
“Heirs According to the Promise”
1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time -
Access Awareness Sunday
June 24, 2007
Please pray with me, O
God, who makes us as your own, be with us as we discern your Word, that in
hearing we might understand, and in doing your will, we might allow the Holy
Spirit to stir within us and bring us to a more clear realization of your
Kingdom to come. In your Son’s Name we pray. AMEN.
The Spiritual Wisdom of the good
news of the gospel is prevalent today in our texts as we are now four weeks
after Pentecost in celebrating the Holy Spirit among us. But as we know in all
of scripture, there are upswings and downturns in many instances that find us
wondering how, why, and where are we in all of this? Our texts today tell us of
the power of God through Christ Jesus in us as we are heirs of Abraham
according to the promise that God has for us and our lives; positive stories of
the power of God in us, our faith in Christ with us, our freedom
as Christians in Christ. Paul tells of his own experiences of the law vs.
the grace of God before our faith and specifically in the inclusiveness of our
Christian faith. But we also know, these texts include warnings and potential
dangers as freedom of faith with a kind of fear beyond our grasp, an unknowing
instability, even calamity.
Historically, in Luke, and in the
Gospels of Mark and Matthew, this is the second of perhaps four of Jesus’
authoritative stories; his calming the sea, his healing the demoniac, and then
the unknown hemorrhaging woman, and finally the daughter brought to life from
the dead. There seem to be so many parallels in this story for me as I pondered
this text; the demons (Legions as many, from
Latin: Roman soldiers) are the evil characteristics that mount up inside
us, the man could be the whole city, our town in chaos and unrest or our nation
at war as we fear for our freedom, and the swineherds are those business-leaders
who we feel are cheating us out of what we think is ours and who eventually
receive their ‘come-up-ance.’ They lose their demons and businesses! These
evil-spirits are a handful for the Spirit of God, huh?
We hear loud and clear though, it
seems to me, of that power of freedom of the spirit of God in the exorcist story
of the Gerasene demoniac, the hope of a man naked, fleeing society and possessed
with demons. And also, a spirit of God that reclaims, transforms, clothes, and
lifts up a man (perhaps the city) who is fearful of power beyond anyone’s
wildest dreams, beyond anyone’s imagination or assertion. There is great power
here seemingly twofold; the Spirit of God as a threatening freedom in
Christ as ‘a great fear (v. 37)’, imprisonment, destruction, or death, and at
the same time, the Spirit of God as hope, love, acceptance, and freedom. In our
Christian lives it is for us the inclusiveness of our faith and yet the
threatening powers that surround us in our everyday lives. I have two examples
in my own life:
Are there times for us, who are in
the working world, that we wonder where the demon-possessed are? When I worked
at the hospital for so many years, we received a six-week schedule for hours; I
worked days, p.m.'s, and rarely nights, but we knew who we were going to work
with on the week-ends. As you may be aware, hospitals have ‘skeleton’ crews on
week-end shifts to accommodate vacations, time-off and long week-ends; fewer
people did the work of many on week-ends. Sometimes we had two persons
accomplishing 4-5 person’s work. I also knew that if I was with any particular
person of strict discipline, I had to ‘toe the line’, ‘rules are rules’ and
there were no exceptions; a break was at a certain time, so many minutes for
lunch and no more; you know what I mean, those of you who are employed. My point
is, it’s not a faith experience or a ‘faith-agreement’ it is as exactly written
with no exceptions. Guess what kind of fellow-employees I liked to be with best?
I really believed flexibility was important, then as now.
Were you ever in a situation where
you thought you were doing OK, and indeed you were violating the rules? This
isn’t a story about the ‘highways and bi-ways’ of speeding!! Once a golf partner
and I were in a state women’s best-ball golf event over near Milwaukee, and we
were pleased to be accepted in the always filled event. My friend and I have
similar handicaps and so used similar reasoning for choosing clubs for shots.
This day on a par three (three shots to play the hole) my friend looked in my
bag and asked what I normally used and I told her. She, for some unknown reason,
took my 5-wood and played the designated yardage, and I think she did fine,
well, as a team we did very well for the event. Our score won low gross and low
net; the play for the day for our handicaps.
Our playing partners (unknown to
us), from another club, must have been watching what we had done on that one
par-3 hole; they called us on a ‘shared club’ rule, which obviously was
‘unlawful.’ If I remember, we did not run out and shout, ‘what have you to do
with us, don’t torment us’, but we did become in-eligible for any prize. We
learned that golf rules are there to help you; a person is allowed fourteen
clubs and you use your own clubs!! Needless to say, we were not too graceful to
our playing partners who called us on the rule, but now I always carry a golf
rules-book with me for help, too.
And yet Paul is saying here that,
as faith comes, as we believe/trust in others, ‘we are no longer subject to a
disciplinarian ( v. 25)’, or in the Greek
it is a word, paidagogos meaning someone watching over you until you
don’t need supervision anymore. In our world we interpret that as becoming an
‘adult’ perhaps or becoming ‘a man’ as is sometimes understood. Paul says,
‘until Christ came’ meaning while we were imprisoned or while we are partial to
all kinds of rules and regulations, until Christ appeared and we became apart
from the law and are justified in our faith through the grace of God.
This is the freedom of the
gospel, the freedom of any demons among us, and freedom to be God’s chosen
people. And Paul distinctly uses an identity of us as Christians of the faith;
‘baptized into Christ’ and ‘clothed with Christ.’ Doesn’t that sound like a
freedom to grasp, to cling to, to want to proclaim? It’s freedom because it’s
inclusive, all-encompassing, and totally Christ oriented. Christ is one-ness,
Christ is central, and Christ inclusive of Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male
and female. We are all one in Christ Jesus.
The good news of the gospel,
though, is that the Spirit of God is that power in our baptism of becoming one
in Christ. As heirs of Abraham according to God’s promise for us, we, as
God’s children through faith are cleansed, baptized and clothed in
Christ. This is the purpose of the power and grace of God, through Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit in us. We are free from fear and filled with God’s love as
we know that the ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ (Prov. 1:7).
Yes, there is conflict, fears, pain, and in God’s grace to us, we might be
fearful of God’s powerful love. Yet we are transformed into a wholeness, a life
in Christ of freedom for our discipleship; God is in and with
us.
Thanks be to God. AMEN
|
