Galatians 1:11-24
June 6, 2010
“GOD, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
Maybe you are attending your high school reunion. In the midst of
conversation with some of your old high school buddies, someone asks:
“Do you remember Johnny G? You remember. Johnny G?”
“Oh, that Johnny? Yeah, I remember Johnny”, and you roll your eyes. “He was a wild one!”
“That Johnny is now a preacher”, someone says.
“No way!”, you exclaim. “Johnny G. a preacher? You’ve got to be kidding! What was God thinking?”
“Do you remember Saul,” someone asks at the high school reunion?
“Saul?”, you respond. “Are you talking about that serious, intense guy, that guy who became a big name in Judaism?”
“Yeah, that’s him. Only, did you hear? He kind of went off the deep end for awhile. He was so enraged over what the followers of Jesus were doing, he took the law into his own hands. He became his own accuser, judge and jury; he set out to eliminate all Christians. Then he became one.”
“What?,” you ask. What do you mean “he became one?”
“Saul became a big-time Christian. He even has a new name…Paul. He now proclaims Jesus as Messiah, as resurrected Savior. He says the risen Jesus himself called him to serve. Go figure!”
“Go figure indeed!”, you exclaim. “I don’t get it! How does one go from a Jesus-hater to a Jesus-proclaimer overnight? Sounds a bit fishy to me. I’ll tell you what…if I were a Christian I’d think twice about trusting the guy based on his past life. Unless it was God-himself who zapped Saul, I think it would be impossible to change that much! I’d stay as far away from him as I could, I’ll tell you that! I wonder what his agenda really is about.”
Saul-who-was-now-Paul was writing a letter to the Christians in
Saul had been zealous for the traditions, for the Law of Judaism. He was steeped in Judaism. He breathed Judaism. He lived for following all the laws of Judaism to a T. In fact, he would write this to the Philippian Christians: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
And now, Paul was in the midst of a debate with some Jewish Christians who believed that Gentile converts to Christianity ought to first become Jews by being circumcised before they are baptized into Christianity…and Paul adamantly proclaims the opposite of what folks would think from this Jew-of-all-Jews. The faith, says Paul, is about the Crucified and Risen Christ. It is baptism that is the door into Christianity. Go figure, said some. God, what were you thinking!?, said others.
When I read and think about some of the struggles within the early Christian church, I sometimes am amazed that Christianity was able to survive. There were some major divisions, conflicts, battles in the early days of Christianity, and that includes the question of circumcision and non-Jewish converts. For much of Paul’s ministry, he might have felt as if no one liked him…whether it was Jewish Christians or former Jewish colleagues. It is so ironical that it became the Apostle Paul who would concentrate on proclaiming Jesus to non-Jews. Folks in both camps could be heard murmuring, “God, what were you thinking?!” And that is part of the reason I believe that the Church is of God. The Church is still alive regardless of its inner battles, its mistakes and sins, and its insistence in every generation to major in some of the minor things that just don’t matter. The Church is still alive because it is God who still chooses to speak and act through the church. If we think of Paul and forget or minimize the immense transformation that God initiated in Paul’s heart, we miss a significant piece of the faith. The message: never underestimate what Jesus is willing to do to extend the mission of God’s church. He was willing to grab his arch-enemy and turn him into one of his greatest allies.
Paul continues writing in this letter to Galatian Christians: “But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me (Jesus’ original disciples), but I went away at once to Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.” Paul takes no credit for this transformation. He calls his transformation an act of God’s grace.
Maybe you look at your own history, your own Call to faith, your own faithfulness or failings, and maybe you ask, “God, what were you thinking?”
Maybe you look at another sitting beside you or across the room from you, and maybe that person doesn’t live the faith exactly like you. Maybe it is difficult for you to see Christlikeness in his or her lifestyle. But here is how today’s text speaks to me. It is God who calls. God has God’s own reasoning for issuing the call to serve through human beings who certainly lack in any kind of perfection. God has chosen to perpetuate his mission through the church, through human beings centered around the Word and the Sacraments, human beings who sing off key, human beings who stumble through discipleship, who forget that Scripture houses Christ, and who speak and live God’s love at just the right time to ignite the transformation of faith with the flame offered by the Holy Spirit. There are indeed failings and forgetfulness, but there are also all kinds of Sauls who become Pauls through the grace and the love of God. As you and I view co-workers in the Kingdom, maybe we ought to be more concerned about his/her gifts rather than his/her past.
What was God thinking when He called the likes of you and me? God was thinking…grace. Amen.
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