11For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. 18Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24And they glorified God because of me.
Well, my friends, today we are eavesdropping on an argument
between the first factions within Christianity. I don’t know if overhearing their disagreement
will discourage or console you. You
might find the early infighting St. Paul documented—and probably contributed to—a
reason to despair. After all, how can folks like us ever find common ground if
the saints of old were quarrelsome? However,
you might see in these historic squabbles evidence that it’s human and sometimes
even helpful to disagree, that expressing differences can be clarifying and
generative, that there comes a time to take a principled stand, and that every
theological trajectory needs to make course corrections over time. Paul’s course correction moves us toward
grace.
First some context. Paul’s letter to the Christians
in Galatia demonstrates
that, from the start, there were competing versions of Christianity. Paul wrote
this particular letter to one of the churches he’d founded but which had fallen
away from his teachings after Paul had moved on. Although Paul had insisted his new converts
in Galatia did NOT have to adhere to the Mosaic Law, Jewish Christians later
visiting the Galatians insisted that Jesus followers must be circumcised.
They must have felt what we at Open Table would feel
if a persuasive visiting preacher insisted that gay Christians had to become/behave
as straight men and women to be real Christians. The Galatians must have experienced the
confusion and turmoil we might undergo if someone convinced us that women could
not be pastors or church leaders. Or that real Christians had to believe every
word of the Bible is literally true. I suspect the visiting preacher would
have to pour some potion into our communion wine to get very many folks here to
accept a narrower Gospel, but we can imagine the havoc this alternate teaching
would cause.
Paul is writing this letter to reiterate a freer
Gospel upon which his church was founded. And he’s ticked. He’s angry that other
Christians had undermined the work he’d done to welcome those skittish Gentiles
and insist upon a Gospel of Grace, not a Religion of Requirements.
Paul, himself a circumcised but also very Helenized
Jew, had established churches far beyond Jerusalem—in Galatia, for example, in
what is modern-day Turkey. As a missionary to the non-Jews in pagan cultures, he
understood the core of the Gospel differently than Peter and the other original
disciples still based in Jerusalem. Paul—like
many whose theology changes after getting to know people of other cultures—came
to believe the Gentiles should not have to follow Jewish practices of
circumcision and dietary law, for instance, to experience the loving God he’d
encountered so powerfully in Christ Jesus.
But Jerusalem-based Christians like Peter and James feared that such a
Christ-centered religion was taking Jews away from the Torah and might leave
them without their moral anchor. Despite Paul’s boasts that he was the most
Jewish of the Jews, his detractors worried that Paul was taking people away
from the core of Judaism with his focus solely “on Christ’s inclusion and the
love of God”.[i]
Anyone placing bets back then would have put their
money on Peter and the more conservative Jerusalem Christians winning this contest
between competing Christianities. Peter et.
al. seemed to have more credibility since they were the original
apostles. They had walked the shores of
Galilee with Jesus. How could Paul claim
authority to teach about Jesus if Paul had never met Jesus? Indeed, Paul had cruelly persecuted the first
Christians before his conversion. He had been the enemy! How trustworthy could
his interpretation of the Gospel be?
Paul had an impossible case to make in this first fight
for Christian orthodoxy. Brazenly, Paul took
a liability and made it seem like an asset.
When accused of not having met Jesus or been thoroughly instructed
by the “real” apostles, he insisted he had experienced the Christ in a superior
encounter of the mystical kind:
“11For I want you to know, brothers and
sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12for
I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received
it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”
And since those stories about Paul persecuting
Christians were still circulating, he tackled that bad press directly, again
transforming scandal into testimony:
“13You have heard, no doubt, of my
earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was
trying to destroy it.”
Not good credentials for a church leader. But Paul
added:
“God was pleased to reveal God’s Son to me,” which changed
him forever. Like South Carolina’s
forgiving fans of Congressman Mark Sanford, the early Christians loved a good
scandal, particularly when followed by public repentance.
To further bolster his case, Paul insisted he was
not de-emphasizing the laws of Judaism because they were too difficult for him to
follow. He bragged,
“14I advanced in Judaism beyond many
among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions
of my ancestors.”
So it’s not as if Paul couldn’t cut it in
traditional Judaism. Instead, he felt chosen for a powerful experience
with the forgiving Christ. From then on
he, a saved sinner, preached the “infinite love
of God, which he believed had been revealed in the life of Jesus,” a love he
could experience only by grace. Paul’s
previous experience of trying to earn God’s approval through religious
observance was “just another form of human slavery” (Spong, chapter 33).
What we see in Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a fervent fight for “the heart of what he believed was the Christ experience” (Spong, chapter 33). Paul is defending the gospel of grace with a passion that verges into arrogance, defensiveness, and disdain for differing opinions.
But if he loses points with us for losing his
temper, he gains our appreciation with that compelling story, told in more
detail twice in the book of Acts, about his Damascus road conversion.
A good story can trump religious rules and it’s
hard to beat Paul’s testimony that he was convicted of his misguided religiosity
after hearing the voice of Jesus and being blinded by the Light of Christ. Personal
experience can beat stolid tradition. Lived faith bests received beliefs. Love over
law.
Since we are the heirs of Paul’s story, it’s hard
for us to hear this letter to the Galatians objectively. Our tradition names the first theologian of
Christianity as the hero of this contest.
By holding Paul too highly, we might miss his angry tone and forget that
Paul nearly lost this battle which would have left Christianity a sect within
Judaism. Way has led on to way, but by going
all the way back to the mid-1st century, we see these different
emphases within Judaism did not represent two distinct religions. Not yet.
Which makes me consider our role in choosing our
battles, in deciding when to make a big deal out of differences in beliefs.
Was Paul right to draw this line in the sand in Galatia? Are you sometimes justified to raise your voice, and blood pressure, to make points of disagreement? When should you make very clear that you disagree with sisters and brothers—and how?
Was Paul right to draw this line in the sand in Galatia? Are you sometimes justified to raise your voice, and blood pressure, to make points of disagreement? When should you make very clear that you disagree with sisters and brothers—and how?
The death of Will Campbell this past week guides my
own response today. If you have not heard
of Will or read his books, I encourage you to read Friday’s tributes to him
in the Mobile Press-Register or New York Times or The Tennessean.[ii] He was one who comforted the afflicted and
afflicted the comfortable. A former
Southern Baptist preacher born in Liberty, Mississippi, in 1924, Will became
convicted of his racism and converted to a Gospel of inclusion and love while a
young man. When his very first
congregation accused him of preaching only two messages--against racial segregation
and McCarthism--he left pastoring to be the chaplain at the University of Mississippi--until
his integrationist efforts cost him that job.
At that point he became a “free agent for God” whose Gospel was Paul’s:
inclusion, love, and grace. He marched
with civil rights warriors but also ministered to members of the KKK (the "Kluxers" as Will
called them) whom he came to see as fearful victims of classism, poverty, and ignorance.
What Will did better than anyone I’ve known personally was to stand against
injustice while having compassion for both the victim and the (often racist) oppressor.
His shocking summary of the Christian Gospel: “We’re all bastards but God loves us any
way.”
I met Will first through his books and then in person
when he accepted my invitation to speak to my students to whom
I’d assigned his book Brother to a
Dragonfly. I was thrilled and
terrified the first time he addressed my class because I knew Will did not
suffer fools gladly, enjoyed his bad boy persona, and was entirely
unpredictable and outrageous.
The first time Will visited my English class, one of
my students, a religion major and aspiring preacher, seemed agitated. During the Q and A, he chided the good
Reverend for including 4-letter words in his book and repeatedly “using the
Lord’s name in vain.”
I half expected Will to snap back that he used those
words “to shock preacher boys like you.”
Instead—and I should explain this took place during Desert Storm, our first war in
Iraq—Will redefined what it means to “take the Lord’s name in vain.” He explained, “’Taking God’s name in vain’ is
when we pray to God to make our bombs land on other people. That’s using God’s
name for a vain and awful purpose.”
The young blonde preacher boy in the back of that
college classroom showed no sign of understanding what Will meant.
Days later I received a letter from Will. The note asked me to share an enclosed letter
addressed to the young blonde preacher boy.
“He seemed so bright and earnest,” Will wrote me. “I hate to lose him to
the right-wing meat grinder.” Over several gentle pages, Will spoke to that
young preacher boy about his own commitment to Christian pacifism and matters
more important than religious scrupulosity.
I’d like to know if/how my former student received
the news of Will Campbell’s passing.
Perhaps the blonde preacher boy is now a balding pastor who preached this
morning against “the gay agenda.” Or perhaps he has had his own conversion to a
Gospel of peace, of love, of grace.
While traveling the road to Damascus to hunt down
early Christ followers, Paul heard an accusatory voice from heaven asking,
“Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Will Campbell often spoke an accusatory word to the religiously
superior or naïve with a similar question: “Why are you deciding who is and who
isn’t covered by God’s grace?” But after
stunning the complacent, Will offered care and support, even for the KKKer, even
for the pious preacher boy.
What I recognized in Will was a measured choice to
err on the side of defending the underdog all the while noticing that the
oppressor is afraid and wounded, too.
Paul and Will’s authority derived from their
own conversion from early prejudice and exclusion. Paul had first felt his
Judaism threatened by a band of alternative Jews living a simple religion of
love, but he became captured by the faith he’d once tried to exterminate.
More amazingly, the ones he had persecuted
started seeing God’s glory in him.
He became the Christ encounter for the next generation of Christians. And neither Paul nor Jesus nor Will Campbell aimed
to oppose their religion—just to expand it.
Let us stand for inclusion, love, and grace. But let’s remember the big issues are as complicated
as the people these issues affect. Take a stand--without polarizing the issues
or disrespecting those who see things differently. If you can still regard your
opponent with compassion, take a stand. Speak your truth emphatically. But above all, receive and give God’s grace.
God bless Will Campbell.
[i]
John Shelby Spong, Re-claiming the Bible
for a Nonreligious World. New York: HarperOne, 2011.
www. 55/Civil-Rights-leader-preacher-Will-Campbell-dead-88
Wonderful remembrance of brother Will. It truly revealed his heart. Thanks
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