Sermons

Sun, Feb 28, 2021

'Faith' grounded in faithfulness

Series:Sermons
Duration:13 mins 20 secs

In John Wesley’s day, poverty and unemployment were rife…

and those who did have jobs worked in appalling conditions.

Due to the oppressive social conditions…

however…

drunkenness was rife.

Cheap gin was widespread.

It was sold in little shops throughout the poor quarters of English towns…

and there were whole laneways that were filled with grog-shops.

Meagre wages were squandered on gin so that families suffered.

Those social conditions…

the financial stress from squandered wages…

not to mention the drunkenness itself…

also meant that domestic violence was rife.

Consequently, Wesley condemned “hard liquor”.

In doing so, he was trying to address a destructive social practice of his day.

Divorced from those circumstances… 

however…

his teaching was later misconstrued.

A century later, Methodism adopted a policy of total abstinence.

Alcohol, in all its forms, came to be regarded as “the devil’s creation”.

It was blamed for all of society’s ills.

And abstinence became a symbol of genuine conversion.

To be a Methodist, you had to sign a pledge of abstinence.

In doing so…

however…

the Methodists were misunderstanding…

even distorting…

what Wesley had been trying to say.

 

Sadly, that often happens with tradition.

Divorced from its original context…

and, in many cases, from the culture in which it arose and made sense…

it can take on new meanings that were never intended.

And it doesn’t just happen with practices, such as abstinence.

It also happens with stories.

It can even happen with more mundane texts.

I mean…

look at the trouble that the High Court has… 

in trying to decipher what the drafters of the Australian Constitution meant…

and how that applies to us, today.

Of course, it goes without saying…

that we bump up against that problem all the time in a religious sense.

We have inherited many traditions…

stories…

and texts…

all of which no longer exist within the culture and context in which they were first formed…

practiced…

spoken…

or written.

Over the centuries we have added layers of meaning…

and, often, certain interpretations of the traditions, stories, and texts have become so forceful…

that those interpretations have come to define those traditions, stories, and texts.

So, when we read those texts…

for example…

we read them only through the lens of that particular interpretation…

which is…

in the end, just that…

a lens.

And it’s not necessarily the right one…

nor a helpful one.

 

Since the time of Martin Luther… 

and the beginning of the Reformation… 

Paul’s letter to the Romans has been read not just as a theological treatise–– 

which it was never intended to be––

but, effectively, as a dissertation upon the dichotomy between ‘works’ and ‘grace’…

and on how we can be ‘saved’.

Reading his own existential struggles––

and some of the distortions of mediaeval Catholic doctrine–– 

into the text…

Luther heard Paul criticising the Hebrew religion for seeking to earn God’s forgiveness and salvation…

through their obedience to the Law.

But, in Luther’s mind, forgiveness couldn’t be earned.

Rather, it was freely given––

because of what Jesus Christ had done on the cross.

“Justification by faith”, then, became the slogan––

indeed, the sine qua non––

of the Reformation.

And our reading this morning is at the heart of Luther’s understanding of all this.

Here…

it seems…

Paul offers Abraham as an exemplar of the sort of attitude that Luther championed.

Indeed, as verse twenty-two is usually translated in English, “his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness”.

Abraham was not considered righteous because he kept the Hebrew Law…

and he didn’t earn God’s approval through any deeds…

or works.

It was solely based on his faith.

 

And yet, if we understand it that way––

if Abraham’s faith was sufficient for him to be deemed righteous…

then why was Jesus necessary at all?

 

But Luther’s interpretation of Romans is deeply flawed…

on so many levels.

 

The central issue that Paul tackles in the letter…

is not ‘how does God go about saving some generic human being’?

Rather, as a first-century Hebrew…

writing to a community comprised of both Hebrews and non-Hebrews…

his concern is, ‘what constitutes the people of God’?

Or, more specifically, ‘on what basis do we become children of God… 

and have a relationship with God…

and with each other’?

 

On one point, Luther was right.

Paul affirms that Abraham was not considered righteous––

or earned God’s approval––

by keeping the Hebrew law.

After all, it didn’t exist.

It came after Abraham.

God promised Abraham that he would have many descendants…

indeed, Paul asserts here, that he would become “the father of many Gentiles”––

that is non-Hebrews––

not simply “many nations”, as our translation suggests.

And Abraham trusted God’s promise.

And Abraham responded with faithfulness.

And, from that faithfulness, Abraham founded a family of God…

who were born into… 

and who inherited…

this covenant between Abraham and God.

The Hebrew Law–– 

when it came later on––

was intended to be a way to clarify and to ground… 

for Abraham’s descendants…

what it meant to continue to be faithful to that covenant…

to be faithful to God.

And Paul expects Hebrews––

including Hebrew Christians––

to continue doing that.

 

But what about those who weren’t––

who aren’t––

descendants of Abraham…

and heirs to God’s promise and the covenant?

How do they become part of God’s family?

Paul argues that non-Hebrews––

people like us––

are adopted into God’s family…

and become part of Abraham’s kin…

through the faithfulness of Jesus…

in which we participate through our faithfulness in response to Jesus’ faithfulness.

 

Part of the problem…

when we read Paul’s letter to the Romans…

is that English translators––

as heirs of the Reformation––

translate the Greek word that Paul uses as “faith”

when, in the context of covenant relationships…

it actually means “faithfulness”.

And if we re-read Romans as a whole…

and especially our section this morning…

and every time that we see the word “faith” we replace it with “faithfulness”…

we start to get a very different picture.

 

And yet… 

having said that…

Abraham isn’t presented here as a model or exemplar of faith and faithfulness.

We are made ‘righteous’––

we enter a right, healthy relationship with God­­––

on the basis of Abraham’s faithfulness…

first and foremost…

and on the basis of Jesus’ faithfulness.

Paul’s argument, here, is that you and I are not ‘justified’…

and can have a right relationship with God…

because of our individual faith in Jesus––

and certainly not in the sense of intellectual assent––

but because of the promises and covenants that God made with these two individuals…

in response to their faithfulness.

In a sense…

Paul is arguing here that Jesus Christ is for us non-Hebrews…

what Abraham is for the Hebrew people.

In a sense…

we are Christ’s progeny…

and, as such, the people of God.

And we’re called to be faithful in that––

to live out the characteristics of our progenitor.

In effect…

we’re called…

simply… 

to forget all of these arguments about ‘faith’… 

‘works’…

‘righteousness’…

and ‘justification’––

even if we don’t use those particular words to understand our “faith”––

and, simply, to get on with being the people of God.

That, too, would be an appropriate ‘repentance’ for Lent.

 

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