I would like you to follow me for a moment, although you may wonder where I am going with this. I want you to picture that you are about to go out for an evening’s fine meal at a great restaurant. You have dressed up and you are wearing your finest. You are looking forward to the succulent food that this restaurant is known for, and you are ready for an evening of delicious, savoury food. You go to the restaurant with great expectations. You have already been on their website so you know what you are going to order from the menu. You have decided that the filet mignon is your choice tonight.
This will be a great evening. You can’t wait. And so you sit down and a waiter comes over and after you have gone through all the usual niceties, the waiter wants to know what you are going to have. You say with great joy and a watering mouth, “Filet mignon, medium, please.”
The waiter says, “By all means. How would you like that prepared?”
You ask, “Well, how does the filet mignon normally come?”
He says, “Normally, here we serve a filet mignon on a bed of strawberry ice cream, and we garnish it with pickled onions, and we top it with shaved white chocolate.”
You think for a moment, and you say, “Are there any other options?”
He says, “No, I am sorry. Our chef will only serve filet mignon with strawberry ice cream, pickled onions and shaved white chocolate.”
You then resort to the last thing you can do, you say, “I’ll just have the filet mignon without anything else. Just bring me the filet mignon.”
He says, “No, the chef will not just serve a filet mignon. He has become world renowned for his bed of strawberry ice cream, pickled onions and shaved chocolate. So, I am sorry, you just won’t be able to have the filet mignon.”
You then think, “Well, I’ll have lobster tails.”
Then you are informed that they come on a bed of chocolate ice cream with pickles and shaved brown chocolate. You realize this is not the restaurant for you and you leave.
You leave feeling disappointed because you know what the really good thing is, and you go away somewhat angry, because you have been forced into something that you never wanted in the first place. It may seem like an absurd leap to draw the same conclusion from our text from the Book of Galatians. Some people wanted to add things to the Gospel, and there were those in the Church in Galatia who felt that it was important to add something more than what was originally given.
What was the problem in Galatia? What did they want to add? If the Gospel was the filet mignon, what were all these added extras that are being talked about in this passage that are in fact, as Paul said, not Gospel at all? Well, the Church in Galatia was founded by the Apostle Paul and was based on his preaching. We are not sure which of the churches in Galatia he is writing to. It could have been towns in the north or in the south. But it is clearly to the churches in Galatia that he is writing. Whatever is happening is starting to spread even beyond one congregation, and that is the key. There is a movement starting.
Paul helped found this church. It was his preaching, maybe along with the ministry of Barnabas, who had created the Galatian community. Paul had, like he did with all of them, a great affection for this congregation, but he had received word that something was wrong in Galatia. Wherever he wrote Galatians from, he had been told that there was trouble once he left. You see, once he left, some other people came in. When they came into the church they brought with them a series of obligations and changes that could potentially alter the nature of the church. They were often well meaning, good people. They probably wanted to add to the Gospel in order to make it better according to their views.
What they added was a series of laws. What they required from the Galatian Christians, who were mainly Gentile, was that they first become Jews in order to become Christians. Their argument was that Jesus was a Jew, and a faithful Jew, they needed to be faithful Jews as well. And so they started to introduce the need for dietary laws. They said you had to have the dietary laws if you are going to follow Jesus. For males, you have to be circumcised if you are going to follow Jesus. You have to abide by the conditions of The Torah and of the law. So, in a sense, you had to become a Jew and a Christian at the same time: one required the other. The Apostle Paul was amazed! He was stunned by this!
This was because he knew that this was fundamentally going to change the nature of the Christian faith. The language that he uses – and you will notice this from our text this morning, that they are words of dissent and anger. He rebukes them. He says they are perverse. He admonishes them. He is astounded by them. He uses a Greek word to describe them: “They are an anathema.” Ana-thema, which is from where we get the word “anathema.” Literally, they are subverting the things of God. Paul does not spare the language here. He is upset with what is happening in the Galatian Church. He sees it fundamentally altering everything that he holds dear and he see this causing the whole thing to crumble.
What was his concern? Why was he so vehement in his language? Why is it such a warning? It is because he was concerned about the dangers of that which is known today as “value added” when it comes to religion. Marketers have got us down pat. They understand human beings. We all love to go to the things that make something sound better or bigger than it really is. For example, who does not want to buy something that is going to make him feel better if it is “extra strength”? You just get the feeling that if you take it, you are going to feel better faster, so “extra strong” is what you want.
In most cases, that means that there is a little extra pain killer added to whatever it is that is actually going to make you feel better, but extra strength is good. We go with that word “extra” and you know that this is usually in red or yellow on the top left corner of a package – your eye goes right to it! It is the same thing if you want “extra value” in a meal. Essentially, you are going to pay more for it, but you are going to feel you are getting extra value on it because you are getting more than what you are actually paying for it, and you feel good about it. It might kill you, mind you, but you still feel that the extra value is what you really want!
“Extra” is the word that gets you. Extra special! Remember the Esso Extra ads that used to come out? They made you feel your car was going to go faster: Esso Extra – boost it! We love it. We are suckers for it. So, someone comes along in the Christian Church and says, “I am going to give you extra Gospel. I am going to give you extra religion. You can have more than what you have already been given and it will be great!” The only problem is it was being enforced from the outside. For the Galatian Christians, these extra things or thing that they had to do or embrace was fundamentally changing the nature of the very message and Gospel in the first place. It was being imposed.
I was reading an interesting article in The Chicago Tribune on-line. I love reading this on-line because you can, or at least until very recently, get a lot of good articles for free – and you know I am cheap! So, I go to The Chicago Tribune and there is a story about a researcher at the University of Colorado called Dr. Fescher, who has done an experiment about exercise. In fact, she concludes moderate exercise can do you harm. Now listen to this one: You are all feeling really good now, aren’t you? Moderate exercise can do you harm!
Dr. Fescher did an experiment on animals. One group of animals was encouraged to do exercise and given room to do exercise but they did it of their own volition. What she discovered was – and who knows the science behind this – the animals that were performing this were actually able to boost their immune system. But the other group of animals who were forced to exercise, forced to be on the wheel and couldn’t get off but still did the same amount of exercise, were stressed in doing it. They felt that they were being pushed into it, and therefore, the immune system did not respond as positively as those who were able to do it of their own volition. In other words, those who are being forced to do something have the stress that goes with it, and the stress takes away from the benefits of doing it.
I am not a scientist and I cannot corroborate that, but it told me something that I think is very interesting, and this, I think, is true of human life as a whole. If we are forced into doing something, if we are being manipulated into doing something, we do it differently than if we do it of our own volition. What the Apostle Paul was concerned about was that all these additions to the Christian faith were rules and regulations that were forcing Christians to do things and, because they were doing those things, it took away from the essential goodness of the Gospel itself.
For Paul, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about grace. As James Dunn says, there are two Hebrew words that Paul uses in his own thinking when it comes to grace. One of them is to suggest that grace is a favour: you give someone a gracious thing. The other one is loving kindness – “chesed.” The first is a gift that is given; the other one is an attitude of the gift that has been given, the motivation behind it. And so, Dunn concludes that Paul’s understanding of grace in Galatians is that there has been both the favour of God upon his people, but even more than that, there is this “chesed” this loving kindness that is the gift from God. Dunn’s argument is that Paul suggests “Why then do you need all these added extras?” Why do you want to add something to what is already fulfilling and supporting and encouraging?
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:7 talks about the sufficiency of this grace in his life. He talks about it in terms of his own suffering. It is a wonderful personal statement of faith. I quote him:
To keep me from becoming conceited, because of these surpassingly great revelations there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
In other words, the Apostle Paul understood that even when he was suffering, even when he was facing difficulties – his “thorn in the flesh” – still, the grace of God in Jesus Christ was sufficient for him. Why? It is because it was based on an action. It was based on the coming of God in Jesus Christ. It was based on something dynamic: that Christ died and was raised again. It was based on reciprocity that you then exchanged the grace that you have been given in giving it to others as well.
For the Apostle Paul, all these added laws just took away from all of this. It hurt it. It perverted it. But, what did it do? It did something even more. It is what I call the “effects of the Un-Gospel.” In other words, when you add something to the Gospel, when you say you have got to fulfill this law or that commandment, when you have got to be this, or you have got to do this religious practice, you take away from the essence of the graciousness of God. This is manifested in many things. Clearly, it manifests itself in division.
Paul knew that this Galatian Church was going to be divided. There were going to be some who would want to adhere to the rituals and the laws and the ceremonies and there would be those who wouldn’t. Immediately, there is division. He saw a schism coming within the Church in Galatia that was based on things that you do or things that you don’t do. But, isn’t it true – let’s just be honest about this – isn’t it true that so many of the divisions that have occurred with the Church over time have occurred because of the add-ons rather than the core, rather than the central message. Rather than embracing the filet mignon, have we not got caught up in the strawberry ice cream? I think we have!
A few weeks ago, I was driving, and it was one of those very snowy days and I thought it would be better just to pull over for a while and not to force it, because the roads were very slippery, and the plows were just coming out. I pulled in to a coffee shop to warm up and to soothe my soul. I ordered my coffee and sat there. I had been to a religious event and so I was wearing my clerical shirt, the one I am wearing this morning. In the line-up there was somebody who was talking to me, and we were talking about religion and about the resignation of the Pope.
This person wanted to have a conversation with me, and said, “Well, you are a priest and so I’d like to know what you think?”
My first comment was that I was not a priest: “I am a minister.”
She said, “Whatever! Yah, I know. [“Whatever!” – it’s so twenty-first century!] It doesn’t matter.”
I said, “Well, you know, I am really not connected with the papacy in any way and I have no special insight, because I am a minister.”
She said, “Oh that is right. But, you know, I thought ministers wore those collars that went all the way around the neck, and priests wore the one with the little bit of white in the middle.”
For those of you listening on the radio, I have one with the little bit of white in the middle, so she thought I was a priest, and the others are Protestants. I never knew that, but anyway, she thought that. So, she was absolutely convinced then that I was a priest and was pretending not to be. Then she said, “Okay, so you have a different belief then. Okay, I’ve got it!”
I said, “No, actually, no! No! No, it is not a different belief. It is the same. What I believe in is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. We all believe that. All Christians believe that.”
She said, “Well, you do know what I mean: you do things differently.”
And I said, “Aha, there you go! There you go! There’s the problem!” (There is the strawberry ice cream coming up again, as opposed to the filet mignon, right?) It is all these added things that have become the source of division, not the central thing.
Paul knew that when that central thing wasn’t emphasized and all these other things were added on, that the centrality of the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ gets watered down. It gets pushed to the side so that these secondary things come to the fore. Paul saw this happening in Galatia. He also knew that it would put an end to Evangelism. He knew that if you had to become a Jew before you became a Christian, then the ministry to the Gentiles would be compromised and he knew that would be the end of his mission and his ministry.
He had to stop what was happening in Galatia because if it continued, it would do great harm. He also knew that it would add a whole bunch of restrictions on people just when they had found their freedom in Christ, just when they felt the joy of God’s loving, kindness in the grace of the Gospel. Now, for Paul, to revert back to something else that existed before, was an anathema!
We see the same things today, do we not? When you think about it, the difference between those who share the faith and cults is that cults like to celebrate the “add-ons.” They like to celebrate the extra revelation that came to whoever, or the particular writings of some group, or a particular exercise that sets them apart from everybody else. This happens when we concentrate on the secondary add-ons rather than on the Gospel. The churches that truly believe in the Gospel are the ones that are held together by a common faith: the faith that Paul spoke about.
It is also true that we, as human beings, like affirmation. We like to be doing something special. We like to belong to some sort of inside group. We like to have our own little clique within the broader church. We like to espouse our own particular views. We like to be with people who think like we think, and so on. Therefore, the add-ons become attractive to people who want to separate themselves from the broader community, because they somehow feel that they are morally superior or more intellectually enlightened or better than everybody else. These add-ons attract people who are looking for affirmation and belonging.
The problem is that the Gospel then is seen as being ordinary, that we need something more to add to it, and go beyond it, as if the Gospel isn’t enough. Paul says that it is sufficient. He says, “This grace is all I need. It is the glorious message of Jesus of Nazareth.” To go beyond that, to add things to it, to augment it, is just like putting ice cream, pickles and shaved chocolate on a filet mignon! It ruins it!
In your life, when you sometimes feel a little unstable in terms of your religion and your faith and you wonder if you should be like somebody else, or you should adopt a particular way of doing things, or you are motivated or you are moved by some modern idea or new notion that has tickled your fancy, or perhaps someone has written a controversial book and that book now rises to the top of the charts because it has something provocative to say, just listen to Paul. Listen! Remember that the add-ons can take away, that the add-ons can detract.
What is sufficient is the grace of Christ and God’s loving, kindness for you through Him. May you reciprocate that every day of your life! Amen.