![\"harp\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/429\/2016\/06\/harp.jpg\")
<\/a>Pastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nReverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each Wednesday, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight his sermons as an example of preaching the Gospel through mimetic theory.<\/em><\/p>\n Mimetic theory claims that humans form identity by defining who is \u201cin\u201d and who is \u201cout.\u201d In this sermon, Tom explores how Paul sought to lead the Galatians beyond this identity into a new identity in Christ, where all people are \u201cin\u201d because all are children of God.<\/em><\/p>\n Year C, Pentecost 6, Proper 8 Can You Reject Harp Music and Still Be Christian?<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week I went to the hospital to visit Bob Sleight, an old farmer and delightfully crusty character we all know and love. On the day he was admitted a woman with this huge harp came by and offered to play some music for him.\u00a0 He respectfully declined. The next day she came again, dragging this heavy instrument to his door and again asked.\u00a0 He again politely said no and this time offered more explanation.\u00a0 He said he didn\u2019t like harp music and then added that where he was going they don\u2019t have harps. She got the message and left.<\/p>\n The next time I came to visit Bob, Sue and their son Bob Jr. were there.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t wait to tell me this story and we all laughed heartily. The laughter was freeing and wellness-making.\u00a0 Fears disappeared from the room and a sense of wholeness and grace took possession of our shared space. This was not \u201cold time religion,\u201d it was the presence of the new kingdom Jesus is bringing.<\/p>\n Their humor told me volumes about their theology and that Christ had set them free from worrying about whether they were \u201cin\u201d or \u201cout.\u201d They knew they were \u201cin\u201d because there is no \u201cout.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the message of Jesus that Paul is trying to get his friends in Galatia to see. There is no \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout\u201d because Jesus has shown us that all are children of God, even though we all conspired to get rid of Jesus, the boundary buster.<\/p>\n The problem Paul has encountered in Galatia was that after Paul left them some \u201creligious folk\u201d came and told the Galatians that they weren\u2019t religious enough.\u00a0 They needed to try harder to be religious.\u00a0 They needed to get circumcised, eat the right foods, and keep Sabbath rigorously to show other people and God that they meant business.\u00a0 If they didn\u2019t do these things they weren\u2019t real Christians.<\/p>\n It would be like saying to Bob that he should listen to the harp music and take it seriously even though he didn\u2019t like it, and his not liking it only showed that he wasn\u2019t a real Christian and he ought to be ashamed of himself and learn to like it.\u00a0 When we all laughed that\u2019s what we were throwing off.\u00a0 We were saying to each other and Bob, \u201cstand firm and don\u2019t submit to the bondage of slavery again.\u201d<\/p>\n Now I want to paraphrase the next section of Paul\u2019s arguments against being religious.\u00a0 I am using religion here to mean feeling you have to do certain things to be in with God and other religious persons and if you don\u2019t do those things you are out, not a true follower of Christ, and damned for all time. I concede that refusing harp music is at a different level than refusing adult circumcision but I think the principle is the same and it\u2019s the principle that Paul was getting at.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t read the middle section of Galatians 5 this morning as our lectionary text skips it but I am going to read it to you anyway.<\/p>\n Paul writes, \u201cLook, I, Paul, am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, having Christ won\u2019t help you.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 If you decide to force yourself to listen to harp music even though you don\u2019t like it and can\u2019t see the point of it; being a follower of Jesus won\u2019t help you.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t made right with God because we like harp music, we are made right with God because God loves us and Jesus has shown us this in his life, death, forgiveness and resurrection.\u00a0 Furthermore, this isn\u2019t a personal thing for us alone, it\u2019s for all humans\u2014an event has happened that gives us new and updated information about a love so deep it encompasses the whole human race.<\/p>\n Paul knows the Galatians are new to this understanding of the universe and some people who claim authority from Jerusalem, the mother church, have come and filled them with fear. The false teachers have been saying that Paul was wrong and dangerous for telling them they are free, that they could live without fear for the first time in their lives, so Paul says it again.\u00a0 \u201cAgain I swear to every man who has himself circumcised that he is required to do the whole Law.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Having to do religious things rather than depending on Christ is a slippery slope because it\u2019s not built on trust and relationship, love and grace, daddy-dependence and mother-embrace; it\u2019s built on trying to be good rather than trusting in God. Here is how Paul puts it: \u201cYou people who are trying to be made righteous by the Law have been estranged from Christ.\u00a0 You have fallen away from grace! We eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness through the Spirit by faith.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The minute you feel you have to make yourself \u201cgood\u201d by listening to harp music you distrust your relationship with Jesus and that will cause you to feel separate from him.\u00a0 You will drop out of that hope of already being right with God through the Spirit by the faith of Jesus.\u00a0 You\u2019re living in a different space then and its one where you feel you must do things to stay in it.<\/p>\n Now here is where we have misunderstood Paul for a long time.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s next sentence is going to jerk us out of some bad theology that actually paved the way for the holocaust in Germany. \u201cBeing circumcised or not being circumcised doesn\u2019t matter in Christ Jesus, but faith working through love does matter.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 You can be circumcised and you can be uncircumcised and still be \u201cin\u201d with God because it is not about \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout.\u201d\u00a0 There is only \u201cin\u201d and that\u2019s the good news and the freedom Paul is afraid they are going to abandon. Somehow in history this got interpreted as uncircumcised Christians were \u201cin\u201d and circumcised Jews were not\u2014another \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout\u201d scheme that got used to create that horrible separation between Jews and Christians that led to the scapegoating and extermination of eight million Jews.\u00a0 Theology is important! Now we see that Paul actually had the opposite view from how we had interpreted him.<\/p>\n This is threatening to get too long, but I must read Paul\u2019s next paragraph using the Modern English Version of the Bible and I am going to make some comments as I read it.<\/p>\n You were running well\u2014who stopped you from obeying the truth? <\/em>(The truth that God loves all people and there is no \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout.\u201d) This line of reasoning doesn\u2019t come from the one who calls you. <\/em>(The one who called them is God through Jesus.) A little yeast works through the whole lump of dough. <\/em>(The yeast refers to the fear that these false teachers are spreading among the people and the impact it\u2019s having on them.) I\u2019m convinced about you in the Lord that you won\u2019t think any other way. But the one who is confusing you will pay the penalty, whoever that may be. <\/em>(Paul expresses confidence that they will be able to figure this out.\u00a0 The penalty that those who are confusing them will pay is living with the fear themselves that they are attempting to generate in the Galatian people.\u00a0 They will feel compelled to listen to Harp music and like it, lest they be excluded from that place where harps are always present.\u00a0 Paul is not <\/u>threatening damnation for he doesn\u2019t believe in it.)<\/p>\n The next sentence will surprise you for Paul himself sounds like a crusty old farmer.\u00a0 He says, \u201cI wish that the ones who are upsetting you would castrate themselves.<\/em>\u201d Yes, he said that! Maybe that\u2019s why the lectionary people decided to skip this section; it\u2019s painful to hear, particularly for men.<\/p>\n Now we run smack into the section we did read this morning.\u00a0 \u201cYou were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don\u2019t let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n I made a point all along to stress that Bob was very respectful in his dialogue with the harp lady.\u00a0 He was clear with her each time.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t accuse her of being pushy, nor did he order her out of the room, he used gentle humor that made himself the butt of his joke when he said where he was going they didn\u2019t have harps.\u00a0 There was no violence in his response except to say that if anyone was going to hell it was him, and since he knew he wasn\u2019t, there wasn\u2019t any violence toward him either. I think Paul would agree with me that it was a brilliant response.<\/p>\n But what if in his freedom Bob had gotten snotty; arrogantly or angrily called the woman a hypocrite or a religious fanatic and ordered her out of his room?\u00a0 If he had done that he would have been indulging his selfish impulses by putting her down so as to raise himself up.\u00a0 That\u2019s that same old I\u2019m \u201cin\u201d because I have just scored on you by showing that you are \u201cout.\u201d If he had done that he would be serving himself at her expense.\u00a0 And believe me, it must have been tempting but it wouldn\u2019t be serving each other through love.<\/p>\n Maybe for Bob it is an old and gentle habit, acquired through many years of trying to love your neighbor as yourself, but at some point, or maybe through trials and failures, Bob learned to discipline his impulses. Or maybe, like most of us, he\u2019s still learning and this was a crowning achievement in that process.<\/p>\n Paul sums it up when he, in essence says, if you want to be in good with God and your neighbor, don\u2019t do it by trying to be good so as to gain an advantage with God, you don\u2019t need to do that, its wasted effort that gets in your own way; just love your neighbor as yourself. And remember \u201cIf you bite and devour each other,<\/em> (like Bob could have done but didn\u2019t) be careful that you don\u2019t get eaten up by each other.\u201d<\/em> It seems to me we have a lot of biting and devouring of each other going on politically these days.<\/p>\n I want to end by reading the last two verses from this inspired section from Paul\u2019s letter to the Galatians.\u00a0 He writes, \u201cThose who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the self with its passions and its desires.\u00a0 If we live by the Spirit, let\u2019s follow the Spirit.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not become arrogant, make each other angry, or be jealous of each other.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n Image: Flickr, \u201cHarp\u201d by Artur<\/a>. Creative Commons License, some changes made.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d Reverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each Wednesday, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1014],"tags":[1923,1952,129,1953,143,176,200],"class_list":["post-3702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wednesday-sermon","tag-galatians","tag-insiders","tag-mimetic-theory","tag-outsiders","tag-paul","tag-sermon","tag-tom-truby"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/strong>June 26th<\/sup>, 2016
\n<\/strong>By Thomas L. Truby
\n<\/strong>Galatians 5:1-25
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n