The Faith of Our Father (Gal 1:1-12)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on May 29, 2016, Proper 4)

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Word for Word, Deed for Deed 

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, a day of remembrance, a day when many in our nation will acknowledge and honor the shadows of fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The shadows of our ancestors loom large over us this weekend.

So too the shadows of fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers loom large over Paul as he writes the beginning of his letter to the Galatians. Over the next several weeks, we will walk through Paul’s message to the Galatians, and we will see that he never quite escapes the shadows of his ancestors. Paul is a man of tradition—a man torn by tradition, torn between the old and the new. He goes back and forth, on one page showing respect for his forefathers, on the next rejecting them. I imagine that as he wrote his letter, he paused frequently to contemplate his relationship with his ancestors: “On the one hand…. But on the other hand….”

Paul, remember, is a part of the Jewish tradition. He had grown up his entire life studying the stories of his ancestors, living according to their teachings as closely as he could. By his own admission, he was an unbelievably enthusiastic follower of his tradition. So much so—I imagine—that if he had read Elijah preferred to wear green tunics, he would have worn only green tunics, even to sleep; or if he had heard David ate standing up, he would have only taken his meals standing up, as awkward as that might have made family dinners. Paul wanted to be his heroes. He wanted to replicate their faith. For him, tradition was replication. It was emulating—copying—his forefathers word for word, deed for deed.[1]

Betraying the Tradition 

Paul’s predicament with tradition reminds me of a parable.

There once was a great teacher who lay on his deathbed. Beside him was his closest follower, a student who had diligently followed every instruction he had given. On the last day of his life, the old wise teacher praised his student: “You have done everything I have taught.” But then he gave him a curious warning: “I sense, however, that you are in danger of betraying my teaching.”

The student was hurt. “Never,” he said. “I have given my life entirely to your words and deeds. I repeat them every day. I will never betray your teaching.”

The old wise man shook his head. “You misunderstand. If you promise only to repeat what I have done, then you have betrayed me already.”[2]

The Good News (Inside Tradition) 

Most of his life, Paul had been like the faithful student. He had repeated the words and deeds of his tradition. But then one day he encountered the living Christ, and he realized that the gospel—the good news—was not about reliving a past life but about receiving new life. He saw that his faith tradition was not about reproducing the words and deeds of his forefathers, but rather about encountering the God that those words and deeds point to, the God who inspired those words and deeds in the first place. The whole reason that Paul is writing this letter to the Galatians is to remind them of this gospel: the good news that new life comes not from replicating tradition but from encountering the living Spirit within it.

In fact, Paul has already preached this to the Galatians in person. But after he left them, some other Christ-followers came and told the Galatians that they were abandoning too much of the Jewish tradition. These other Christ-followers told the Galatians that in order to enjoy the full embrace of God, they needed to keep the old customs like circumcision and the dietary laws. But Paul takes great exception to this. From his impassioned words in today’s scripture, we can almost see the steam rising from his red ears. At first he refers to this mistaken teaching as “different good news”—but then he shakes his head and says, no, we can’t even call it “good news” (cf. 1:7)! Indeed, one might ask, how is it good news to be told that to receive God’s love you must be circumcised and lay off the bacon?

As we will discover later in his letter, Paul is not ready to relinquish the tradition of faith. By no means. He only worries that the old laws and customs have gotten in the way of what they originally proclaimed. He only worries that they have hidden God rather than revealed God. He only worries that a counterfeit gospel of replication has gotten in the way of Christ’s gospel of grace. What matters most, he says, is not repeating a certain set of words or replicating a certain set of rituals but receiving new life through the grace of Christ, which is to say, receiving new life not because of anything we’ve done but because of what God has done for us. That has been the story all along, and that, in a word, is the gospel of Christ.[3]

A Faithful Betrayal? “Unheard of! Absurd!” 

All this talk of tradition—and it’s almost impossible for me not to hear echoes of Fiddler on the Roof. I’m reminded, for instance, of the way that Tevye responds to the news that his daughter has rejected the husband that he has chosen and has instead resolved to marry her childhood sweetheart. In characteristic fashion, he struggles with what he initially perceives as a challenge to tradition. “On the one hand,” he thinks, I’m the father, and I get to choose whom my daughter marries. “But on the other hand,” he realizes, my daughter and her sweetheart love each other. And isn’t that what matters most for a marriage?

In other words, Tevye realizes that in the case of his daughter, the most faithful response to tradition is not to repeat the past custom of arranged marriage but rather to honor the spirit of love that inspired marriage in the very first place. In order to be faithful to tradition, he must tweak it. Some might even say, he must betray it.

Similarly, I think of last Sunday, when our children and youth led us through a wonderfully colorful worship service. At communion, they offered not only bread but also cookies. “Cookies for communion?” As Tevye would say: “Unheard of! Absurd!” But in fact, it might be said that they were honoring the tradition even more faithfully than if they had eaten bread. In ancient Judea, Jesus proclaimed that he was “the bread of life,” because bread was a daily and important part of his listeners’ diet. But if Jesus were speaking to a group of 21st-century children, if he were trying to get his message across to them, it’s not inconceivable that he would say something like, “I am the cookie of life. Whoever comes to me will never want for a satisfying snacktime ever again.”

Beyond Mere Repetition 

Our faith, Paul says today, is not merely a repetition of the faith of our fathers and mothers. That, of course, is what Paul thought earlier in his life. But when he encounters the grace of Christ, he sees beyond the words and deeds of his fathers and mothers. He sees the God of love who inspired them. And that, I believe, is why the only “father” or “mother” that finds mention in today’s scripture is God. Three times, Paul refers to the “Father,” and each time he is referring not to the human ancestors of his faith tradition but to the God who inspired them.

When Paul says “Father,” I wonder if there’s not also an echo of Jesus, who also addressed God as abba, Father, Daddy. Jesus does not use “father” in the old, conventional sense of “head of the household,” final authority, the strong arm that gets things done. In the mouth of Jesus, “Father” means forgiveness. “Father, forgive them,” he says from the cross. So too in the mind of Paul: “Father” means a love that releases us from the closed patterns that imprison us “in this evil present age” (cf. 1:4), whether those patterns be the brokenness and hurt of sin or the meaningless demands of lifeless tradition.

The most faithful response to tradition for Paul is not to repeat what his fathers and mothers did, but in fact to relinquish those words and deeds in order to honor the God who inspired them in the first place. It is a pattern that we see throughout scripture. We see it in the prophets, who come along and remind the people of Israel: God desires not that you merely repeat the sacrifices that your ancestors did, but that you make the sacrifice that really matters, the sacrifice of your own hearts to God and to each other. We see it in Jesus, who says: “You heard it said among your fathers and mothers…but I say to you….”

The gospel of Christ is not mere repetition. Our faith is not merely the faith of our fathers and mothers. It is the faith of God—a faith that we mirror. It is the good news of a God who is always doing a new thing, a God who sets us free from the closed patterns of “the present evil age,” from patterns of sin as well as patterns of lifeless tradition. The gospel of Christ is not the God of replication. The gospel of Christ is the God of resuscitation, rejuvenation, revival. It is the God of new life.

Prayer 

Holy Father and Mother of our faith:
You are the one who breathes new life
Into the present stagnant age.
You are the promise of a kingdom
Where outsiders are welcomed,
Where closed patterns are broken open by love.
When we confuse the good news with mere repetition,
Confound us again with the gospel of Christ.

In the name of our freedom, Jesus Christ: Amen.

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[1] See the field of discourse that C. Wess Daniels draws from in “The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal?” Quaker Life (Jan/Feb 2010): 27-29.

[2] Adapted from Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic And Other Impossible Tales (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2009), 117-118.

[3] And this gospel is not contrary to tradition. As Christ himself would say, this gospel is the fulfillment of tradition: it is what has been inside it all along.