Sermon: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” 
Scripture: Galatians 5:1-6, 13-18, 22-26   

Subtitle: Preparing for Our Independence Day  

by Topics at Ten Facilitator Jim Manchester  

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul implores us to put away our preoccupation with trying to maintain our old rule-keeping behaviors and begin living as if we know that God loves us. Jim Manchester’s written sermon is available on our website.

Sunday, June 27, 2010  
St. John’s MCC • 805 Glenwood Avenue • Raleigh, NC 

Scripture: Galatians 5:1-6, 13-18, 22-26
(The Message)

1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. 4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more internal: faith expressed in love.

13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out – in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good – crucified.

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Sermon: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Subtitle: Preparing for Our Independence Day
by Jim Manchester

Sunday, June 27, 2010 • 8:45 am
St. John’s MCC • Jubilation Worship

It was SO good to get inspiration from the Rev. Terri Steed during our Revival last weekend. She made me remember why I got so much out of her Sunday Morning Topics classes years ago.

Rev. Terri got me to do several unexpected things last weekend. I went bowling for the first time in 17 odd years. For the first time in 38 years, I cheered for the first college I attended – a Baptist school named Mars Hill College. I never thought I’d do THAT again.

Plus, I did something that I NEVER thought I would EVER do. I actually cheered – not once, but three times over the weekend – for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary – where I earned my Master of Divinity degree with Religious Education. Who would have thought it?

Of course, Rev. Terri Steed is like that. She’ll make you do things you don’t plan on doing. Good for her!

For all the times that I have criticized the current faculty at Southeastern, I should note that none of the professors who taught ME are still there. Unfortunately, most of them were not there for Terri either. As opposed to the professors who teach at Southeastern now, every single one of the professors I had had a much more loving and amazingly more inclusive view of the relationship God has with humanity. I was blessed by learning from them.

Unlike Terri, however, I have left my devotion to the “Principle of Threes” behind. I don’t feel compelled to have three points in this sermon. I understand why she still likes it, since it represents completeness and often reminds us of the Trinity.

Consequently, this sermon will be short and sweet. It will have only one point and one illustration. I’ll follow that up with one story. Ooops!

When our Senior Pastor asked me to prepare a message for this Sunday morning, my eyes twinkled. This chapter from Saint Paul’s epistle to the Galatians contains one of the passages that many people use to abuse God’s Rainbow People. When a person takes Galatians 5:19-21 out of context, the words Paul wrote can be used to damn us. We talk about that a lot in the class we offer on a regular basis called Freed from Guilt • Freed from Shame.

But this chapter is one of the places that Paul explains the blessings that dwell within the followers of Christ’s teachings – the Fruit of the Spirit. Our sister, Amy Lambert, showed us how that works a few months ago. You can access her message on our website. This chapter also contains evidence of Paul’s understanding that God’s love reaches to everyone.

I was intrigued by the selection of this text for this particular Sunday. I would think that a biblical section entitled “Freedom in Christ” would be scheduled for next Sunday, which is Independence Day. Perhaps, however, the lectionary’s authors realized that more than a few people will visit other churches next Sunday, so talking about this a week in advance may be very appropriate.

Shaun Harr will also preach a very different sermon from this same text at 11:00. You will want to be here for that. His message is entitled “Justice for All.”

I’ve entitled this message “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It has a subtitle: “Preparing for Our Independence Day.”

Let’s pray: Loving God, help us find your love and feel it deep within us. Set us free to live a free life one more time. Amen.

In Chapter 5, Paul was addressing an urgent “situation” that had developed among the small band of Christ followers located in the Roman province in central Asia Minor – now known as Turkey – that was called “Galatia.” Of all of the letters that Paul wrote that were collected into our Christian testament, this one was probably written first. Paul believed that the situation there was an emergency that deserved immediate attention so he took an unprecedented first step to address it; he picked up his pen and started writing. His rebuke of the congregation was quite stern, because he could see how the toxic drama of the situation was tearing the people apart.

You see, the people of the Galatian church had become focused on doing things the “right” way. They had decided that you had to act like a good Jew to be a good Christian – that everyone had to eat only the food that was allowed under ancient Jewish regulations. They even made sure that all the males in the congregation were circumcised.

Paul didn’t agree with that. He knew that the rules that were made up by ancient Jewish priests came from a mindset that said, “We have to prove that we are better than everybody else.”

Also, Paul knew that the ancient God of Israel was a loving God – not one Who seemed to be angry most of the time and had to be appeased by fearful religious people who thought that God would strike them down for the least, little offense. In short, they believed that God was just like them.

That’s why he wrote these words. Hear them again:

1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of [a rule-keeping system] trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. 4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects [or those imposed upon you by others who want personal power over you], you are cut off from [the blessings of a life following Christ’s teachings]. Meanwhile, we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit [that just doesn’t come]. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious [righteous] religion NOR [our] disregard of [that] religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more [internal:] faith expressed in love.

Paul continued in verse 23:

23-24 Legalism [– the belief that you have to follow all the rules established by someone who thinks that God doesn’t love you –] is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way, and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities, is killed off for good – crucified.

Previously, in verse 22, he explained the Fruit of the Spirit by saying:

22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, and able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

To me, that sounds like what I think of when I hear the words in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It sounds to me like Paul was asking us to quit tormenting ourselves with the rules of our past and to begin living as if we love God, love ourselves, and love each other.

We do that by ending our participation in the toxic drama that tries to surround us and taking up the healthiest drama in all the world – the gift of love and unconditional forgiveness that God freely offers us.

I can just hear the folks in Galatia protesting now! They would be saying, “But! We are in the right to make you DO things to earn a membership in our church-y-fied country club! (IS THAT A WORD?) How DARE you tell us that we are doing this religious, Christian thing wrong! This is the way other Christians have been doing it for years!”

My friends, from one drama queen to another – so I may not be talking to you – that is toxic drama. It is toxic drama that can suck the life out of us. Paul tells us to end our participation in all that stuff and start acting like God loves us.

Let me illustrate with something that I know some people think that may show how bound up in religious ritual they are:

Communion

I know someone here at St. John’s who refuses to participate in communion because this person says, “I don’t feel sorry enough for my sins.” Another person says, “Since I keep doing the same sinful things over and over, I’m not worthy of standing in front of God’s Holy Table.”

Friends, this communion table is open to everybody regardless of whether you are a saint or a sinner. Our church repudiates the need for official confession, repentance, and absolution before one can approach this table. There are NO qualifications for being worthy to participate in God’s communion. God invited you to be here on the day you were born and on every single day since then – no matter what else was going on in your life.

Let me be completely blunt about this. By refusing to allow yourself access to the Lord’s Table here at St. John’s you are participating in a form of self-humiliation that was imposed upon you by power-hungry clerics who wanted to make you think that you could actually DO something to make God hate you. They want you to think that God COULD decide to love you but ONLY if you follow THEIR very human instructions.

My friends, that is just NOT the case. We have repudiated that false teaching over and over, and, praise Jesus and His teachings to us, WE DON’T LIVE THERE ANYMORE! Our spirits dwell in a place where we can know – without a shadow of a doubt – that God loves us to the deepest parts of each of us – just as we are – no matter who we are or what we’ve done. It’s time to start living as if we believe that “Christ has set us free to live a free life.”

In short, we do not need to be good Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or whatEVER we used to be, for God to love us! Just as Paul said to the Galatians, it’s time to move on. It’s time to break the bonds of Satan’s slavery that have shackled our lives!

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me many years ago.

When I was a much younger man, I served as a member of the staff at a medium-sized Baptist church just outside of Charlotte. Now, this was a time when the forces of greed and evil were first beginning to overtake Southern Baptists, and I was always on the alert for anything that sounded as if it was coming from that political faction within the denomination.

In June of the first year I worked at the church, a young man came home from college. His parents, who were active members of the church, lived across the street from the church, and, probably because he was quite attractive, I noticed him immediately. (Please keep in mind that this was during a time when I was newly married to my wonderful ex-wife.) I asked around about him and learned that he had been a regular participant in the church’s youth program before he left for college.

It had been several weeks and, much to my disappointment, he hadn’t joined us for worship services. I had actively looked for opportunities to meet him, but had not found one.

One day, while I was outside on a smoke break, I saw him loading his car for a summer trip, so I wandered across the parking lot to introduce myself.

We talked for a few minutes while he told me which college he attended and how things were going. Eventually, I invited him to attend services at the church before he returned to his studies in the Fall.

The young man responded to my invitation with a very strange question: “Have you been born again?”

That wasn’t the response I was looking for.

At first, I thought the young man was promoting the religious right that I was trying to avoid, so, thinking quickly, I fumbled with my words a bit before I started re-saying the formula that I had been taught for so long: “Why yes,” I said. “I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and have been baptized into new life in Christ.” I was so proud of my answer. I was just sure I had answered this young man correctly.

He looked at me with sad eyes and said, “You just don’t get it. Do you?”

I was stunned.

I thought, ‘What do you mean I don’t “get it?” What was wrong with that?’

You see, I was repeating a ritualistic answer to one of Jesus’ life-changing questions that had been taught to me for more than two decades. Even though I HATED what the politicians were doing to my Baptist denomination, my answer showed that I was still stuck in the Pharisaic view that it was something that I DID that validated my relationship with God.

I was sticking with the rules.

What the young man was really asking could have been phrased a bit differently. He could have said, “Have you realized that God loves you just the way you are and wants you to live a life that is filled with abundant joy, happiness, and self-fulfillment?” After all, that’s what Jesus’ was REALLY saying to Nicodemus in the third chapter of John’s gospel.

At the time, I couldn’t have answered the young man’s powerful question because it was true that I didn’t “get it.” I didn’t have a clue.

I was still hiding my SELF – not acknowledging God’s gift of being different. Not allowing myself to become the loving gay man that God created me to be. Not allowing myself to follow God’s plan for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I was a coward, so I said goodbye to the young man and scurried off – back to my comfortable little office in my comfortable little church and my comfortable little fake life.

Instead of representing the religious right as I feared, the young man WAS right! I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand how much God loved me.

Paul says in verse 13, “It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.” I hope you will let that freedom ring in every aspect of your life.