Reflections on "Praying for You" Colossians 1: 1-14

We opened the service with a hymn sing, so I knew we were going to be pushed for time.  I tried to keep the sermon short and to the point.  Not sure I achieved either!

“Praying for You” July 28, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Colossians 1:1-8; 1: 9-14 Richard B. Culp

Moving on to Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.  Argument as to whether it was actually written by Paul or not.  If written by Paul, it was probably written while he was imprisoned in Rome, or some argue imprisoned in Ephesus (See Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Meaning, by Dr. Robert A. Spivey and D. Moody Smith, 347;  or google author of Colossians to see current discussion).

Whether Paul wrote the letter or not, it comes to us as God’s Word.  Listen, as we hear God’s word.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s[d] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled[e] you[f] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

introduction:  Once again, Paul is writing a letter (he attributes the letter to Timothy as well) to people trying to figure out how to be the church.  

Paul finds himself arguing against others who suggest that Christians must do more

Paul will argue that what Christ has done is enough.  Some scholars argue that this letter to the Colossians is the best summary in the NT of who Christ is. 

Before getting to his argument, Paul has an elongated introduction in which he tries to establish his credibility. 

Why should the Colossians trust him?

He prays for them.

Move 1:  Paul commits to prayer.

a.  HIs commitment to prayer reflects his real concern for them

1.  Easy enough to see the faults in others.

2.  Does not take much to point out flaws or offer critiques.

3.  Most of us probably do not feel the need to add one more person to the list of those who feel they have the right, the need to correct us.

4.  Paul wants the Colossians to listen to him, to pay attention to what he tells them - not because he is a brilliant theologian; not because he is correct in his analysis; not because he is a leader in the early church.

5. No, Paul wants them to know that they should pay attention to him because he prays for them.

b.  Listen to what he prays.

1. He gives thanks to God for them.

2. He prays that they may be filled with the knowledge of God and be filled with spiritual wisdom and understanding.

3.  he prays for them to lead worthy live and bear fruit.

4. he prays for them to have patience.

5.  he prays that they may joyfully give thanks to God.

c.  Notice what Paul does not pray for them.

1. he does not pray that they be changed to see the truth of what Paul is telling them.

2.  He does not that they have everything work out perfectly in their lives.

3.  He does not pray that they encounter difficulties and challenges unless they follow what he tells them.

4. He just prays a prayer of thanksgiving for them and lifts them up to the power of God to be at work in their lives.

d.  And he prays every day for them.

Move 2:  Power of prayer?

a.  Prayer works is a lot of different ways.

1.  Prayer is suggestive to the person for whom someone is praying.

2. paul is a good communicator. 

3. He understands how his prayers have power when he tells the Colossians that he prays for them and what he prays.  

4. Helps them to consider the possibilities for how God might be at work in their lives.

5. Internship - woman came into my office.  She said she was going to pray for me every day.  She also gave me an index card with her prayer.  She did not know me well enough to make the prayer very personal, but she knew I was trying to learn to be a minister and she knew she wanted God to teach me and use me.

6. I still have that index card in my desk drawer.

b.  Prayer also changes the person praying.

1.  When Paul prays every day for the Colossians, it seems to me those prayers change Paul as well.

2.  As he prays for the Colossians, it helps him imagine what God might be doing in their lives and opens him up to see them in a new light.

3.  As you have heard in previous sermons this summer, as I have been reading Paul’s letters this summer, I have been reflecting on how Paul might speak to the divisiveness we see in our world.

3.  Not realistic, I suppose, but I wonder what people might say about each other if they had to pray for one another for a month before they could speak about the person publicly.

4. No FB posts, no tweets, no public announcements until you have prayed for the other person for thirty days.

c.  Prayer opens us up to the possibilities for what God might be doing.

1. The act of prayer changes us and the people for whom we pray, but pray also invites God to act and opens us up to the possibilities of what God might do.

2.   Paul will spend the rest of this letter discussing how God has acted in Christ so that we do not have to do other things to earn what Christ has given us.

3.  Paul is praying for the Colossians because he wants them to be changed by this gift from God.

Conclusion:  The Spirituality of Imperfection (42):    a Greek monk has been in a monastery for 38 years and bitterly tells another monk that in 38 years he has not been able  to learn to pray a “pure prayer.”  The colleague notes that this is sad, to which another replies that “it is a sad story that after 38 years of prayer the monk is still interested in pure prayer.”  

I do not know if Paul prayed a pure prayer.  I just know he prayed for others.

Go and do the same.

Reflections on "Another Way of Living" Galatians 5: 16-21; Galatians 6:11-18

This sermon finished a series of sermons on Galatians.  it probably should have been two sermons, but it was scheduled for only one week, so I did it all in one sermon!  

“Another Way of Living” July 21, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Galatians 5 and 6  Richard B. Culp

Galatians 6: 11-18   See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. 14 May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which[a] the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For[b] neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! 16 As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

17 From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.

18 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters.[c] Amen.

Move 1:  With all that Paul writes about not living by the law, we know the temptation;

we know why the Galatians are tempted to live by the law;

We know why Christians through the centuries have been tempted to live by the law;

We know why we are tempted to live by the law.

a. Living by the law seems easier.

1. The law lays it out there.

2. Do this or do not do that.

3.  It would be easy to take Paul’s list of living by the flesh and make it into a series of laws that would keep us in line.

3. the laws would give  us a measuring stick to judge ourselves.

4.  Better yet, the laws would give us a measuring stick to judge others.

5. And, as an added bonus, we could begin finding ways to work around the law, and rationalize why it is ok for us to work around the law, but not okay for those others.

6.  Easy to see the attraction of living by the law.

b.  But Paul invites us to another way of living - living by the spirit.

1. When my girls were in pre-school, there pre-school would bring in guest artists.

2. One of the guest artists was Jim McCutcheon, who was the “Guitar Man.”  He would come in and show off and play all sorts of string instruments related to a guitar. 

3.  of course, he also sold CDs.  

4. of course, we bought a CD for our kids.

5. Or course, my kids quickly outgrew any desire listen to the CD, but I still have it.  Still listen to it.  in fact, recently it was playing as I drove around Denton.

6.  One of my favorite sons is “The Kingerdarten Wall.”

7.  I goes something like this:

When I was a little kid, not so long ago,

I had to learn a lot of things I didn't really know,

How to dress myself, tie my shoes, how to jump a rope,

How to smile for a picture without looking like a dope.

But of all the things I learned, my favorite of them all,

Was the little poem hanging on the kindergarten wall.

Of all you learn here, remember this the best

Don't hurt each other and clean up your mess.

Take a nap every day, wash before you eat

Hold hands, stick together,

Look before you cross the street.

Remember the seed in the little paper cup,

First the root goes down, then the plant grows up! (Kindergarten Wall, By John McCutcheon; guitar man; https://lyricstranslate.com/en/john-mccutcheon-kindergarten-wall-lyrics.html)

1. Notice, the kindergarten wall teaches the children how to live togehter by calling them to a higher expectation than obeying a set of laws.  

2.  you could legislate those values, I suppose.

3.  You could make a series of rules - no biting, no hitting, no kicking.  That might help the kids not to  hurt each other, but no there are more ways to hurt someone than laws you could make.

4.  or what about clean up your mess?  You could come up with rules about putting your pencils back in your desk, or throwing away you lunch trash; but could you ever have enough rules to encompass “clean up your mess.”

3.  Paul tells us the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.

4. How do you legislate that way of living?

c.  To live by the spirit is so much more ambiguous and ambitious than living by the law.

1.  Go back just a few verses in Chapter 5 and we discover Paul’s admonition to love one another and be slaves to one another.

2.  How much harder to love and be a slave than obeying the law.

3.  Yet that is the Chirstian calling - love one another and serve one another.

3.  that is what is at stake for Paul - as he envisions a world where we are free from the law, but bound together by love, the only way he can see for us to live is by the Spirit, not by any laws.

Move 2:  For Paul, living is the spirit is what is means to be new creations.

a.   Just before Paul’s admonition to be a new creation in Chapter 6, we have this odd verse when Paul comments on his writing style.

1. It suggests that Paul had been dictating the latter to someone else, but now what he has to write is so important that he grabs the stylus himself to write the words.

2. What is so important?

3.  these words:   For[b] neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!

4.  Only as we give up our pre-occupation with the law and submit ourselves to live by the spirit can we be shaped and molded by the Spirit into the new creations God calls us to be.

b. For Paul, living in the spirit happens in the real world.

1.  Paul does not call us to some “cloudy and vague spiritual world. 

2.  Paul does not give us the option to say that living with the Spirit is for spiritual people among us - we want to just obey the laws and follow Jesus.

3.  All of us, along with along with all those first-century believers, have been called into a world that is empowered by, filled with, and shaped in accordance with the Spirit. 

4.  Paul expects us to be able to look t the world around us and see the difference between living a Spirit-filled life and choosing to chase after the law.

5.  The Spirit-filled life has a higher calling, is more challenging; the Spirit-filled life demands we not settle for our rationalizations, but instead give ourselves over to following the Spirit and living for each other as Christ has lived for us.(http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1684, Sarah Henrich, Luther Seminary)

 Here is where we But if good works are not the cause of salvation, they are nonetheless the mark and effect of it. If the forgiven man does not become forgiving, the loved man loving, then he is only deceiving himself. (Frederich Buechner http://www.frederickbuechner.com/blog/2019/7/15/weekly-sermon-illustration-the-fruit-of-the-spirit?rq=galatians%205

Conclusion:  Paul finishes his letter to the Galatians much more abruptly than he does most of his other letters.  

no flattery or commending of others; just a quick “let  no one make trouble for me” followed by “may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit brothers and sisters.  Amen.”

As if Paul understands the choice between choosing the law or choosing life in the Spirit is a serious battle with so much at stake, flattery is of no use.

they have to make a choice - law or Spirit.

We have to make a choice.

Amen.

Reflections on "Dear Nada" Galatians 4: 21-31

We had an infant baptism in worship after the sermon.  I attempted to think like Paul and imagine what Paul might have said if he were writing a letter to the newly baptized infant.  Not sure if Paul would have written such a letter, but here it goes.

“Dear Nada” July 14, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Galatians 4: 21-31               Richard B. Culp

21 Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. 23 One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. 24 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia[g] and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

“Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,

    burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs;

for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous

    than the children of the one who is married.”

28 Now you,[h] my friends,[i] are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” 31 So then, friends,[j] we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.

Introduction:  Paul writes letters. We read his letters to communities of faith. In this case, the community of faith learning to be a church in Galatia.

Even though Paul understands the Christian faith in the context of community, I suspect he wrote letters to individuals as well.  of course, he probably could not keep it personal, his letter would always be written with the idea it would speak to more than just the person to whom it was written.  

As we gather around the waters of baptism, I have been wondering what Paul might write to Nada.   Admittedly, we mostly read about adults or households being baptized, so Paul might not have had much experience writing to babies about babies being baptized, but I suspect Paul could have found words to write for any occasion, even an infant baptism.  If nothing else, Paul’s letter might a good way to lull Nada to sleep.

Listen to a letter Paul might have written on the occasion of an infant baptism.

Move 1:  Dear Nada, and all others who have been baptized, especially the children among you Galatians (see Paul cannot help himself, he has to include the whole faith community in his letter to Nada):

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,  who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,  to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

I write to you on the day of your baptism,  wishing I could be there in person with you.  I well remember the community of faith that surrounds you this day and fondly remember how they embraced me in my time among them.  So too, they will embrace you as you emerge from the waters of baptism.

As you receive their love and care, you learn an important lesson about following Christ  - be ready and willing to receive.

As you grow up, you will surely hear my name, read my letters, and learn my story. Know this, because the church in Galatia, the church which surrounds you this day, received me into their midst, they received the good news of Jesus Christ that I brought to them.

I was afflicted; it would have been easy for my brothers and sisters in Galatia to turn away from me, but instead they received me and ministered to me.  In that act of receiving me, they opened themselves up to receiving the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As you grow in the faith, Nada, may your life be marked by your willingness to receive and an openness to hearing and believing the good news that Jesus Christ is risen.

Move 2:  In your baptism, we declare that you are united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection.  

Perhaps that sounds odd, but it describes what it means for God to love you.  Wherever you go in life, whatever happens to you, there you will find God.  Or perhaps better stated, God will find you.  

One day you will hear the story Jesus tells about the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep and goes to find the one lost sheep.  The God who will not rest until the lost sheep is found.  

This is the God who claims you in the waters of baptism.  

This is the God who will be chasing after you all the days of your life.  

This is the God who will go anywhere and do anything, even die for you.  

This is the God who will not only die for you, but overcome sin and death so that you might have eternal life.

The God who claims you today in the waters of baptism.

Move 3:  In the waters of baptism, you are also united with those other Galatians who have entered the waters of baptism and emerged as new creations.

Indeed, you are united with them and all those who enter, or have entered, or will enter the waters of baptism.  

You do not live in the world alone.  You are connected, bound to others in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Move 4:  In the waters of baptism, my dear daughter, you have been given new life.  

            New life that is given shape and form by a promise, not by the law.

As you grow, you will taught about God.  Resist all teachings that demand you obey the law perfectly or that call you to seek perfection.  

your parents will have rules. I suspect you will break them time and again.   But, as you grow up you will discover their love is not defined by the rules. They cannot help but love you because they feel such overwhelming love for you, regardless of the rules.

In that gracious love, you see a glimpse of God’s love for you.  

We humans look to rules; God chooses to love.  When you hear the stories of God’s people, people like Sara and Hagar, you will see the temptation to make obedience to the law the most important thing about your faith.

But look deeper and see the moments when God’s people gave their lives over to God’s promises, instead of the law.  

Make your life about promise and hope, not law and judgment.

Live into the God’s promise God’s love instead of chasing after the law.

Move 3: Nada, in Christ, you have been made free - free to trust. 

The truth is, Nada, you will never be free until you learn to trust in God.

you will be tempted to trust those who flatter you; to trust those who make worldly promises.  They are looking for what they can get from you.  Once they get what they want, they move on to someone else to flatter and make promises.

Put your trust in God, who is not looking for what God can get from you, but instead looking to love you, to fill you with hope.  

Do not settle for faith that does not build off of trust in God.  As you will learn, only God can satisfy with the deep, abiding sense of knowing you are loved.  Trust in that love.

Conclusion: Nada, my words may have indeed put you to sleep.  I confess that I writetoo many words sometimes, but I am so excited, so moved by God’s love for you that I cannot help myself. 

But I will finishwiththree words, three words that will make all the difference in your life:  God loves you.

Amen.

        

Reflections on "In the Background" Galatians 3: 23-29

I used my phone in the pulpit for this sermon to take a selfie to start the sermon and then pano to close the sermon.  I don't know how well it worked, but it fit with what I was trying to do in the sermon.  I have been trying each week to find some type of "hook" into Paul's letter, in part because the sections of the letter we are reading are complicated and dense.  I do not want to trivialize Paul's theology, but I also want to make it accessible.

“In the Background” June 30, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Galatians 3: 23-29  Richard B. Culp

3: 23-29 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,[k] heirs according to the promise.

Introduction:  Do you mind if I take a selfie before starting on the sermon? (take selfie from pulpit)

when I was in OH, I had several people comment they had not seen any photos from St. Andrew.

It’s a pretty good photo, well at least it is of me.  You know with selfies, you really only get a good view of the person who is taking the photo.  

I suppose that is why there are so many selfies posted every day on social media.  Not just to chronicle what is happening in a person’s life, but to recognize that the most important person in the moment, the one who matters most, is the person taking the photo.

Everyone else is just background.  Y’all do make some pretty good background.

In our world of selfies, hear these words of Paul.

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Move 1:  Paul’s words are not about selfies, but about freedom, our being freed for relationship.

a.  You may remember that last week I noted that Eugene Peterson, the author of the Message, suggests that the overarching theme in Paul’s letter to the Galatians is freedom.

1. In this passage at the end of the third chapter, Paul tells us that we are free for relationships.

2.  Notice how Paul ends the chapter:  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,[k] heirs according to the promise.

3.  Offspring and heirs mean sons and daughters.

4.  Words that by definition are about relationship.

5. Can you be a daughter without being connected to someone?  Or can you be a son without being in some type of relationship?

c. With that in mind, we discover that Pual’s words about there no longer being a Jew or Greek, slave or free, or male and female, is not primarily about equality, but about relationship.

1. the point is not that we are all equal, as in separate, but equal.

2. the point is we are all connected to one other, bound together.

3.  The distorted human perspective sees that which divides – Jew and Greek; slave and free; male and female.

4.  in Christ, through faith, we are called to relationships that bind us together.

5. Who I am gives way to who we are in Christ.

c.  My neighborhood still had the sound of fireworks going off last night.

1.  As I understand it, our celebration of the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence, and then the development of our nation’s constitution, celebrate not just freedom, but the triumph of our new undertrained of we are connected.

2. thirteen independent colonies had to decide that their relationship to one another, the freedom they shared together,  meant more than their individual freedoms.

3.  They chose to be bound together in the greatest political experiment in history, one that continues today.

d.  Our nation’s freedom, of course, is a bit different than the freedom Paul describes (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/; or read American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, Joseph Ellis) 

1. namely, our forbears chose to be bound together as a nation;  in Christ’s case, Christ chooses us.

2. Christ chooses us and Christ binds us together, calling us to be free to be in relationship with one another.

Move 2: biblical scholars and church historians remind us that this phrase we read in Paul’s letter was probably part of the baptismal liturgy.

a.  Imagine a group of newly baptized believers emerging from the water, putting on articles of clothing, and being addressed by the person who baptized them with these words.

1. "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

2.  their new life in Christ is marked by their new found freedom to be in relationships defined by Christ, not by the world.

b. Notice the parallel groups described.

1. “No longer Jew or Greek” - not about nationality or heritage, but about those who are circumcised and those who are not circumcised.

2.  the historic marking of God’s people gives way to being marked by their relationships with one another in Christ.

3.  the promise given to the Jews has been opened up to all people through Christ.

4. “No longer male and female” - perhaps a reminder that we were all once mud and share the common ground of being brought to life by the blowing of God’s spirit into us.  

5. “no slave or free”  - the distinctions our world has that separate are undone by Christ who calls us to new relationships. 

6.  In our baptism, we find our common ground.

c.  I might note that in our liturgy for funerals where we give thanks to God for the life of a person and witness to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we also return to our baptismal imagery.

1. a reminder that we share in our human mortality.

2. At our death, all that we have been that might have divided us from others no longer matters.  In death, our unity with an in Christ is our only hope.

3.  A reminder that challenges us to examine how we live our lives and before our deaths.

MOVE 3:  Finally, Response to freedom

a.  A lot of what we hear about freedom these days is about how freedom removes us from responsibility to others.

1.  “I am free, so I can do anything I want.” 
   
2. “I am free, so don't tell me what I should do.” 

1.  how different that sounds than how Martin Luther describes Christian freedom: In In Freedom of a Christian,: 'A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, but subject to none. A Christian a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

1.  The new freedom with have in Christ binds us to one another.

2. A freedom that brings with it an obligation to care for others.

Conclusion:  Let’s take another photo - not a selfie, but a panorama, a photo to reveal all of us who are bound together in christ and freed to be in right relationship with one another. (Take pano from pulpit).

         6. The excitement and enthusiasm for doing a new thing had worn off, now they had to deal with the nitty-gritty of how to be thirteen states that co-existed and what did it mean to have a federal governme