We are Jews by birth
and not Gentile sinners.
As we know that no-one
is justified by works of the Law but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,
we also have come to faith in Christ Jesus in order that we may be made
righteous by the faith of Christ and not from works of the Law, since no flesh
is made righteous by works of the Law.
But if while seeking to
be made righteous in Christ, we are also found to be sinners: is Christ then a
servant of sin?
By no means!
For if I build up the
very things I tore down, then I show myself to be a transgressor.
For, through the Law, I
died to the Law, that I might live in God.
I have been crucified
with Christ.
I myself no longer
live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in
the flesh, I live in the faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself
up for me.
I do not treat God’s
free gift as worthless, for if righteousness is through the Law, then Christ
died for nothing.
~~
There’s
an old joke about two Irish laborers who are repairing a road. On the street, there are several buildings,
including a house of ‘ill repute.’ One
day, they look up from their digging to see the local Protestant minister going
into the house. “Outrageous!” one
exclaims. “And to think he’s meant to be
a man of God!” The next day, they see
the local rabbi going in and the laborers are similarly shocked and murmur to
each other as they return to their shoveling.
The next day, the local Catholic priest walks into the house. “Oh now, would you look at that,” says one of
the laborers. “One of those poor girls
must have died.”
A more
serious story is told among the Greek Orthodox, who have a great tradition of
fables involving an unnamed ‘saint,’ who in this story is a priest. The story goes that on Good Friday he was
going house to house with a large icon of the crucifixion written on a cross,
offering it for the faithful to kiss.
After going along a street for a while, he enters a brothel. “Oh no, don’t, Father,” warns the Madame, “you
don’t know what kind of house this is.” “My
daughter,” replies the saintly priest, “I know exactly what goes on in this
house. These are who Christ came to
save. Will you kiss the cross?” The story ends there, so we don’t know how
many went away and sinned no more. We do
know that Christ was once again made known on a cross in between sinners.
At this
point in Galatians, Paul is narrating the conflict he had with the church at
Jerusalem. They objected to his practice
in Antioch of dining with Gentiles. For
them, fidelity to God, faithfulness, meant keeping themselves separate at meals,
even from fellow believers in Christ. “We’re
Jews, God’s chosen race, not Gentile sinners!
We owe it to the God who elected us to set ourselves apart from this
messy world, which (they quite accurately observed) is full of sinners! It’s these boundary markers, these works of
the Law, that make us righteous.”
No,
replies Paul. We are Jews,
yes. Not Gentile sinners,
no. But we’re not saved by separating
ourselves. We’re saved by Christ’s
faithfulness. We’re righteous because he
immersed himself in our sinful messy world, because he loved us and gave
himself up for us. The impassable God
bled for us and as that skin was pierced every boundary you might want to mark
was erased. Christ was so faithful,
lived his life so transparent to God, that in the midst of messy sinful
humanity, with messy sinful nails piercing his very body, God’s action was
manifest in him. That’s faith, to know
yourself as so radically connected to the Father that no situation is too messy
for you to go to as bearer of that mystery.
And
daily, Christ pierces another boundary.
He enters and lives in us. We can
live lives transparent to Christ, because we’ve died his death in the waters of
baptism. His faithfulness opens up new
life for us. Kiss that cross. Taste that faith. Live it.
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