Easter People...are salvation people

We are an Easter People and alleluia is our song.

This beautiful sentence was written by the North African bishop we know as St. Augustine. And during the season of Eastertide, we have been leaning into what it means to be an Easter People.

We began at the end of Luke’s gospel, discovering on the road to Emmaus that Easter people meet Jesus in their vulnerability and hospitality - or, on the road and at the table.

Then we dipped into Luke’s second book, seeing in Acts 6 how Easter people ...experience community and conflict . In Acts 8, we saw how Easter people...are called to share the good news. And last week Ellery helped us consider Acts 15 and how Easter people ...are marked by unity-in-diversity.

This week, we move into one of the epistles, Paul’s letter to the Galatians and we will see how Easter people… are salvation people.

When we shift genres in the Bible, it’s important to consider how that impacts both what we are reading and how we read it.

The epistles - or the letters make up half of the New Testament. When reading correspondence, we have to consider author and recipients, as well as the occasion for the letter and some of the context.

In particular, it’s important to realize that often times a letter was a stand-in for being able to be there in person. They were written to be read aloud to a group of people, so that, using the reader’s voice, it would almost be like the author was there among them.

With the epistle of Galatians, the back story of this letter is that conflict we read about last week in Acts 15. How will the Jesus movement handle the non-Jewish Christians. Do they have to become Jewish in order to be Christian? In particular, do the men need to be circumcised?

Now, you may think, “But I thought they settled that at the council in Jerusalem as we read last week?” And you’re right. They did. But you’re also wrong. They settled it, but that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing for the multi-ethnic family that the Jesus movement was meant to become.

James Boyce, NT & Greek Professor at Luther Seminary says:

Paul writes to the Galatian Christians out of deep concern that they are forsaking the gospel that he has preached and are listening instead to the message of certain Jewish Christian evangelists who are arguing that Gentile Christians must be circumcised according to Jewish law. Paul insists that people are justified by faith in Christ rather than by keeping the requirements of Torah. By faith, they participate in the death and resurrection of Christ and now live as God's children and heirs of God's promises. By the Spirit's leading, this life of faith is no longer marked by sinful works of the flesh but bears fruit in freedom that serves the neighbour through love.

This week and for the next couple of week’s we’re going to do a quick pass through this book. This week, we focus on the message of justification by faith. Next week, we’ll lean into the reality of being God’s children and heirs of God’s promise - and then the third week, which will be Pentecost, we will explore how the Spirit of God makes us fruitful children of God.

Let’s hear sections of Galatians chapters 1 & 2, listening especially for the gospel message Paul is calling them back to. Patrick, will you read for us?

[Reading]

Easter People are salvation people. Or, as our text puts it, we are justified not by the works of Torah, but rather by the faith of Jesus the Messiah.

In Acts 15, we heard the phrase “saved by grace” - and now in Galatians, we hear “justified by faith.”

But what does that MEAN?

The truth is, language like “saved” and salvation, justification, etc… these words are possibly used often in church circles, but I often struggle to translate them into words that make sense outside of a theological text book. I remember being taught about salvation, justification, sanctification and glorification. In fact, I can see my junior high handwriting in my mind’s eye. I remember having the ideas around being saved taught to me. The miraculous process of putting one’s faith in Jesus - and the transformation that occurs.

I remember them also not making a whole lot of sense in my own life. Having grown up in a Christian home, I had one of those very typical 1970s and 80s childhood experiences. I had moments of asking a question or being asked a question about whether I would follow Jesus - remember, this was the era of lots of altar calls at the end of services. And I had prayed a prayer with my Mom when I was 3 1/2 - I had gone the front during a service when I was 8. But I couldn’t see how the ideas of salvation and justitification applied to me or to my story.

Honestly, it was all a bit like taking all the parts of a piano and laying them out. And then trying to remember to glorious music that all those parts used to make back when they were assembled as an instrument.

Keys and strings and a soundboard and pedals when taken apart make no music at all.

And, as I’ve sat this week with the ideas of justification and salvation in general, I feel much like I’ve been handling a dismantled instrument. I am thankful for systematic theology - but sometimes in the systematizing, we lose something of the way it all goes together.

How do we look at salvation in such a way that it is both personal and cosmic? It seems we often want to focus on one at the expense of the other. So salvation gets shrunk down to something like “being rescued from the separation from God that my sin created” … and again, this isn’t a “wrong answer” but it’s a highly personal answer. What about the recreation of all things? How does salvation affect anyone beyond just me? Of course the other danger is to stay at a cosmic level. God is redeeming all things - and it really has nothing to do with me. This is also not a full picture. Salvation comes to us - but it always sweeps us up into a bigger story. We are saved because of God’s gracious action towards us. God instigates. God makes a way. God saves.

So what exactly DO we mean when we talk about being saved, being justified by faith?

Justified - to be declared righteous - restored to right relationship - forgiven, made part of God’s family, transformed by grace

And, to be clear, this wasn’t a NEW definition of justification. Jews didn’t rely on Torah observance to earn justification. They observed Torah because of God’s action in making & keeping covenant with them. The new part in the gospel is that God’s action is the birth, life, death & resurrection of Jesus. These Jesus followers, whether Jewish or Gentile, were responding to God’s initiative in Jesus. The response was to put their lives ONTO Jesus. To trust that what Jesus had done had justified them. Had restored the relationship.

What about the faith part?

Believe

Trust

Have faith

What do these words mean?

What does it mean to “believe”? Belief or believing can unfortunately take us down the path of “thinking the right things” or giving cognitive assent to something. Also leads to statements like “I don’t believe in [insert something that most definitely exists]” when what the person means is that they don’t think participating in that thing is morally right. But focus on “belief” can also digress into making sure one has a “check mark” next to each and every theological concept that a particular church or denomination has decided are essential.

And this is not what Paul is saying here… he writes: PISTEO

Sometimes translated believe, sometimes trust, sometimes to put faith in…

And as good Protestants, we have often mis-represented both our Jewish friends and our Catholic siblings. We have caricatured Jews as relying on Torah observance to somehow earn salvation. Which is not a proper representation.

And then we’ve portrayed Catholics as seeing works as a necessary component of their salvation.

Do you remember the scene in the Indiana Jones movie where he’s crossing the chasm. And he’s told that it will require a leap of faith? He throws some gravel out into the abyss and realizes that there’s an invisible bridge.

At what point does Indiana Jones have faith that there is a bridge?

Is it when he sees the gravel not falling the hundreds of metres down? Is it when he cognitively accepts that things may be other than they seems Is it when he actually steps out from the edge?

I’d say there’s faith happening all the way along. But if he never stepped out… I might doubt the rigour of his faith. I might be tempted to suggest that his thoughts (or beliefs) never managed to impact his behaviour. I might wonder whether he trusted. No, in fact, if he never stepped out, I would maintain that his trust was never realized.

But he did of course. He stepped out. He crossed the chasm on a bridge that didn’t appear to be there. One might say that he ‘walked by faith.’ So was he saved by his action or by his faith? Yes?

What we believe is meant to be demonstrated in how we live.

If we BELIEVE, if we put our faith in, if we trust that the death and resurrection of Jesus makes right relationship with God possible, then it will have to be demonstrated in how we live in our bodies. It’s not mere cognitive assent. It’s not a warm fuzzy feeling. Or some sort of spiritual “nod”… but, the works of faith will never be how we get into right relationship nor how we maintain it.

So. We are justified by faith. We are made righteous. Put into right relationship by faith.

Whose faith? Is it OUR faith in Jesus or Jesus’ faith?

Is it me trusting Jesus? OR Jesus living faithfully and thus being completely worthy of my faith?

And the answer is YES.

We ourselves put our faith in, believe in, trust in Christ Jesus so that we could be made righteous, brought into relationship with, restored to right relationship NOT by the works of the Law but by the faith (or faithfulness) of Jesus Christ.

When we put our trust in Jesus, we participate in His death and in His resurrection. And so Paul can write:

vs 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me.

How is faith expressed?

Well, remember how we said that what was true of Jesus would be be true of us - when we follow Him?

I suppose then, faith in Jesus is expressed by loving and giving ourselves away. Just like He did.

Going back to my own story in trying to make sense of these religious words in light of my own salvation experience…

There was a moment, far later in the story than I would have expected, where I came to KNOW this unconditional love and the initiating work of God to make relationship possible.

I was in my third year of university…and I had gotten myself into a muddle.

So, like Paul, it wasn’t intellectual understanding that justified me. It wasn’t anything I did or thought or felt… It was God being who God is. Loving me the way that miraculously comes so naturally to God. Unconditionally, always initiating, always hoping, always reaching out. Loving and self-giving - Jesus shows us what God is like, remember.

Tim Mackie of the Bible Project writes: Paul is saying that when people put their trust in Jesus, what is true of Jesus becomes true of them.

So may our trust in Jesus grow. May we discover together that Jesus is entirely faithful and trustworthy, and so we can step out in faith, living in our bodies in such a way that the things we believe are made evident. May we love and give ourselves just as Jesus did and still does.

Amen.