Ash Wednesday is a solemn day in many churches. The human made traditions of Lent begin with a day of remembrance and awe. We come to church clean and leave smudged with ash. We hear these words as the ash is placed on our heads or hands, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." But right at the very same time we hear Jesus' own words about prayer, hypocrisy, and our true treasure as God's people not being on this earth but in heaven.
Jesus' word's about prayer and worship in Matthew open us all up to some real tough questions. Jesus told his hearers not to do anything just for public show. He told them to pray in secret and not to make a spectacle with their words, actions, or appearance. Even before day one of the church at Pentecost Jesus recognized the tension that we live in as his followers. We want to live in Christ; yet we struggle because we want some external sign, some evidence that we can show the whole world to let them know that we are in close with Jesus, that we are in tight with God. But we don't have an external sign for what's going on inside of human spirits, human heads, or human hearts. The ashes today might mean everything about your honoring God or they just might be a motion that you go through tonight. Still we know that our feelings and our decisions alone aren't ever enough to save us.
Even before the cross there was a real tension in Israel about who was in and who was out. Jesus went to the Samaritan people who lived right along side Israel but who were considered unworthy even though they worshiped the same God. He ate and drank with tax collectors, traitors, and prostitutes. He knew that the kingdom of God was bigger than just the people who acted holy. After his death Jesus' followers were sent out by the Spirit far beyond Israel. They met with Ethiopians, Greeks, Romans and many others spreading the message of Jesus to the world. We spread it today welcoming in young people who live in a post-Christian culture that doesn't know God. We spread the promise today not in some far away land, but right here and now in this space, in this town and wherever we work and play.
The Apostle Paul was one of the great missionaries of the early church. He traveled to many places talking about his own life changing experience of Jesus Christ. But he had been a prosecutor of the church first. Before he met Jesus he had been called Saul. He hated Christians. He was the one who held the coats of those who killed Steven. It was this very same man who Jesus gave a new name to: Paul. Jesus sent Paul out as an apostle. He went on many journeys telling about Jesus and visiting churches. He often sent letters to churches he had visited encouraging and challenging them as they learned to live out their faith together. Some of the churches he wrote to were in Galatia. Galatia was a tiny region in the western part of modern day Turkey. In known history this land has been home to the ancient Hittites, Celts, Romans, Greeks, Turks, and more.
It was in this land, where one of the earliest churches got its start, that one of the greatest debates of the early church happened. Paul intended to just pass through Galatia on his journey. But he ended up spending considerable time with them instead because he got sick. Rather than just passing through and talking about Jesus he was got to be a part of the new churches growth and seeing faith transform the people of Galatia into Jesus' followers. Many, if not most of the people in Galatia who came to follow Jesus were not Jews. They were among the first Christians not to come from a Jewish background.
Paul's health restored he traveled on from Galatia. The church he left was young and wrestled from day one, just like all Christians do, with how to best follow in the way of Christ Jesus. And Paul heard about their wrestling. They wanted to be followers of God. When he was there, Paul had told them the Good News. It's right there in the opening of his letter to the Galatians.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Galatians 1:3-5 NRSV
For Paul, for Martin Luther 1500 years later and for all of us today this Gospel, this good news is our hope and our freedom and our promise. Jesus gave himself for us. We are set free from our sins. There is nothing more to do but to live today in that freedom. This is the very promise that we cling to at every funeral, baptism, Good Friday, and above all every year at Easter. Jesus has died and he has risen. The bondage of death has been broken for all of us today; right now we are free.
I believe Paul left Galatia hopeful because this new church was experiencing the freedom that come in following and serving Jesus Christ. Paul ventured away from Galatia, but news came to him. The new church was struggling with old rules. Something new was happening the church in Galatia was starting to live under old laws of Moses and not in the new freedom.
The apostle sent a letter to the churches in Galatia that he knew and loved. It was not an easy letter to write. If you've ever had to confront and challenge someone in the church or in your own family you know that its not easy to be the one making these judgments. It can be especially tough when you are challenging people you love and care about as brothers and sister when they are close to you. I finished a letter just like this today. It was incredibly tough for me to write and very hard for the person who got it to receive, but I judged that I must speak at this time. I knew that I could no longer remain silent without eating up myself. Jesus warned us, “judge lest you be judge.” Certain times and circumstance call us not to be silent no more, but to stand up and live in the freedom of Christ: to sin boldly as Luther said to the early church. Sometimes we have to take risks and challenge each other. Even so knowing that We are called to action in it is still tough to be the one to challenge another. I know what it is to confront someone close by, still I can't imagine what it was like to write this letter to brothers and sisters at a distance.
Paul felt the same exact way when he wrote to the church in Galatia. He wrote bluntly not to be mean but to challenge his friends.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ . NRSV.
If you have ever received or written this kind of a letter you know the hard part of being in the body. We are here to support one another; but we are also here to be challenged and to challenge one another.
Our old friend, Gordy on the organ, says it so wonderfully about Zion, “We're in this together.” Paul felt the same way about the church. We are all in this together. We all need to be challenged and to challenge. Paul heard about the church in Galatia. He heard that these people who had never been Jews were being told that they had to take on all the old traditions of Judaism in order to be Christians. Paul was so very upset. He'd come to them promising freedom and now in place of freedom they were being told to follow the rules. He heard that they were choosing to follow rules and laws and he had to write to them. He couldn't be silent any longer. His own conscience wouldn't keep silent. Jesus death made the Galatians and all who believe in Jesus right with God, but they wanted to do something and to show something more for their efforts as proof. They'd heard about the old law and now they wanted to follow it.
Paul was hot. How could they give up freedom. How could they give up all these gifts. For what; for old rules about diet and circumcision. Oh he was so frustrated. He'd come and declared freedom and they'd taken on all these rules. He wrote to them from experience. He knew what it was like to follow the rules and to live as people told him. And he also knew freedom in Christ...
You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles... Galatians 1:13-16 NRSV.
Sometimes the stakes are to great to sweep things under the rug. Paul knew what the freedom of a Christian meant for himself and the whole world. Paul wanted the church in Galatia to breath free. He wanted them to know Jesus love. But he knew that he could not be silent while they gave up the promise for another Gospel.
This same letter is for each of us today.
What is your freedom? Is it Christ?
What rules do you follow to be right with God?
Love God and Love your neighbor as Jesus taught;
or do you follow another set of rules
Paul talked about freedom that he knew first hand and he wanted everyone who believes to know that same freedom. We come today out of tradition for the ashes but God's word calls us to freedom. AMEN.
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