"Let Him Be Eternally Condemned!"

This morning’s scripture reading is Galatians, chapter 1 verses 1 through 10, and can be found on page 822 of your pew Bible.

-I invite you to listen for the word of God.

Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the brothers with me,
To the churches in Galatia:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

-The word of the Lord

-Thanks be to God

Sermon

I have had some pretty funny jobs from time to time. Being an Associate Pastor is definitely the most respectable position that I have had the honor of holding, especially compared to my stint as a “secret shopper” for Captain D’s.
As you all know I am sure, Captain D’s is a great little sea food place that specializes in fried fish, and I should know, as I have had just about everything on their menu. My job as a secret shopper was to go to any Captain D’s and order, watch the clock to record the time it would take from giving my order to receiving my food, and to research the general quality of the food and customer service at any given Captain D’s. I would fill out a little questionnaire on the Captain D’s Website, and then would be reimbursed for my time and expertise. The beauty of this job for me was that I could eat Captain D’s for free just about whenever I wanted, but my surveillance of the restaurant served another purpose. The head-honcho’s at the Captain D’s Headquarters, whether they are stationed in New York City or on a huge Pirate Ship in the south Pacific I’m not at liberty to say, but they used this under cover operation of secret shoppers to keep an eye on their stores. If one restaurant were treating their customers badly, corporate head quarters would hear about it. Also, if an employee were doing a particularly good job, corporate head quarters would hear about that too. In a fairly inexpensive way, Captain D’s employees had to stay on their toes and treat every one with respect, because they knew that anyone could be a secret shopper.
In ancient Greece there were stories that operated in a similar way. There were stories of gods and goddesses who would take human form, go out into the world and see who would treat them with respect and who would not. Those people who treated the secret shoppers of Greek Mythology, the gods and goddesses in human disguise, with respect were rewarded - and those who didn’t were punished. It was a good technique for keeping people acting right, and so it lives on with Santa Clause who is always watching to see who is naughty and who is nice, who is good and who is bad, who is serving fried fish the way they are supposed to and who is slacking off because we never know who is watching, so we are supposed to treat everyone as we would like to be treated.
According to Bible scholar J. Louis Martyn, it is in the light of such undercover scouts that we should understand Paul’s identity as “Apostle.” He is one who has been sent by Jesus Christ and God.
As God’s “secret shopper” Paul seeks to be a servant, not to human powers, but to God. He speaks as a representative of the one who sent him, and he speaks as a representative of Jesus, who in becoming human found out just who was naughty and who was nice. In taking human form, Jesus found out that people are often more interested in serving ancient laws and traditions – making faith cosmetic, changing the appearance of evil rather than changing the evil itself. Jesus realized the true misguided-ness of human kind as he was tried, convicted and hung from the cross by plenty of people who claimed to be God fearing and righteous – for too often we serve what is not God and so do not recognize God in our very midst.
Paul, ambassador, or scout, of God is once again checking on the Galatians. As a traveler in Asia Minor, an area we now call Turkey, Paul was welcomed and embraced by the Galatian community. Their hospitality gave him a relationship that allowed him to present his new friends with the gospel, but now Paul writes to the Galatians and is disappointed. He writes, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!”
Paul sounds mad, really mad in fact. He is disgusted that the people who were once so receptive to the gospel are now “turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all.”
His words, though obviously directed to the Galatians, have a lot to say to us now, nearly 2,000 years later in a part of the world Paul would have known nothing about. Not because his words hold some secret code or meaning that reveals the future, but because the Galatian people’s situation is not so unlike our own. Just as the Galatian church was once receptive to the gospel, on fire for God as many would say this country once was, now the Galatians are in need of a rebuke for they have slid into another gospel - just as many would say that this country, founded on Christian principles has abandoned the truths that we once held so dear.
It makes me wonder what Paul would make of this world that we live in if he was getting so mad at this little old community out in Galatia, a small town in a place we now call Turkey – just because they decided that turning back to Jewish customs wasn’t such a bad idea.
Would he speak out about how our community has changed, speak out against a growing secularism, the way prayer seems to have been kicked out of the public schools, the way the difference between right and wrong seem so less clear, the lack of respect for the Sabbath, increasing divorce rates, the broadening of what marriage even means – would he be disappointed in such things? Would he think that we had failed in our duty to God, faltered in our faith as he observed us as God’s representative?
Would he call to those who tempt us as he called to those who tempted the Galatians away from the true gospel, would he challenge the changing tide saying, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
I know that there are many who believe Paul would do just that.
Not unlike the Georgia woman fighting to have Harry Potter books removed from schools so that her child’s education will be free of witchcraft and wizardry, a temptation that she assumes was not there for her as a child and so should not be there now.
Not unlike the street preachers who stand on street corners of Atlanta condemning same sex couples to the fire and brimstone of hell, these relationships would never have been accepted just 50 years ago and so why should they be now?
Not unlike the mothers and fathers who fight for public Christian prayer to be made a part of everyday life and for the 10 Commandments to be made a public reminder, visible in every court room across this country – they remember praying each morning before class, so why should their grandchildren not have the same experience?
I wonder about not only Paul, but also others, like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, even Richard Nixon, what would they say about the world as it is today?
What would Martin Luther King Jr. think about this country now? Would he be proud of increasing diversity in all regions of the country, or would he be disappointed as so many were to see that the crowds of those with no where to go in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina were mostly African-American, would he be disappointed to see that in this country poverty and race are still linked in a way that seems to say nothing has really changed – or that at least the evil that really needs to change has remained while we have occupied ourselves with things that don’t really matter.
It’s hard to say what Paul, or anyone would think of this country or of this world if they were to come back – But I do know that there are many who think this country is going to the dogs – and I believe that they think so for all the wrong reasons. I do know that there are many people who see all the changes that have taken place in the last 50 years and who cannot help but be disappointed, while I think that they should be disappointed about all the changes that should have occurred but haven’t.
Our world is changing, and this country is changing just as the Galatian community was changing, but today we too often go after the wrong agents of change.
So it’s a good thing Paul is a tricky guy. He uses strong language. He speaks with a big heart and a lot of passion because he is sent, not from humans; he speaks, not on the basis of human authority, but he is one sent from Jesus speaking Jesus’ words. Representing Jesus, that great secret shopper who surprised the world of sinners by his presence, Jesus who had every right to condemn the world as a bunch of hypocrites for they said they believed in God but did not recognize him and in fact put him on the cross - Jesus who should have wiped us all out for our sinful and misguided ways, instead, freed us from our sin, freed us from the present evil age that is so much a part of everything we do and say that we don’t even know it is our reality.
Like Atlanta’s street preachers, there are many who believe that evil is out there changing this country for the worse, that the force that corrupts us is right out there and that Jesus should come and wipe those folks out saying to them as Paul did, “let him be eternally condemned!”
But we know that is not what Jesus did – and Paul knows it too.
Jesus came to this earth and he did not condemn us as he had every right to according to the law, rather, he set us free by showing us the error of our ways – the fallen-ness of our tendencies, the brokenness of the societies which we have created.
As we look to the future, we must ask if we are like “Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” Are we like Paul who asked, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
– or do we serve a past that we have idolized, no longer serving God but serving the memories of a country or a church that was not nearly so rosy as we remember it being.
God who was present to us in Paul the Apostle, in Jesus Christ, and now in the Holy Spirit - sets us free from judging ourselves according to the past – sets us free to know and be receptive to what God is doing in the present and in the future. As for those who tempt you to do other wise, it is to those who Paul says, “let him be eternally condemned!” But of course, what’s the point in that, as for those who are still striving for a bygone era, they are already condemned to serve the past, rather than serving the living God who Paul knew would be doing something new in our midst.
-Amen.