Ongoing Conversation

Galatians 2:1-10


The Christian faith is and always has been an ongoing conversation.
The central question at the heart of the conversation is how do we live in light of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? How do we live in light of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon men and women of every class and culture.
The New Testament begins this conversation.
As Rob Bell phrases it in his book Velvet Elvis,
“God has spoken and everything else is commentary” (52).
And for early Christians, God had spoken definitively to the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
One of the early Christian writings puts it this way:
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1)
Christians of the first century believed that they were living after the end of the world.
They looked for a final judgment to come, but lived as if God had definitively spoken and appeared on the stage of human history and made all things new.
And this was the experience of the early Christians when they were suddenly given joy, courage, faith, and hope and love to a degree they had never experienced before on the day of Pentecost, the feast of the first fruits.
What do we make of this sudden outbreak of spirit?

They would have conversation and think about it and believing in the power of God and the words of Jesus, they would make decisions on what it means to live after the end of the world.
And most if not all of the New Testament testifies to this process of coming to understand the significance of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on what it meant to be a human being living as it were after the end of the world.
Rob Bell talks about how this was a longstanding tradition within the Jewish community, and still is – having conversation and making decisions about meaning based on the wisdom of the past and the experience of the present.
Rabbis were set apart for the task of studying the various traditions of interpretation and of being able to wrestle with the questions of the present in light of decisions of earlier teachers and writings themselves.
A Rabbi would become known for their particular way of interpreting the scriptures and their way of living that they would advocate in light of the scriptures was known as their “yoke.”
There would be longstanding traditions that would be known as the “yoke” of Rabbi so-and-so. Just as many Methodists in many ways follow the “yoke” of John Wesley and many Presbyterians the “yoke” of John Calvin. And I'm not sure about Lutherans....
But Jesus came along and offered a new yoke.
We have to remember that a common name for Jesus in the gospels is Rabbi.
And Jesus said of his yoke:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
And the yoke would be given over to the Rabbi's students those we read in the gospels referred to as “disciples.”
And Jesus trusted his disciples, I believe knowing that the Holy Spirit would come upon them, and said to them
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:18-20
Jesus hands over the responsibility of decision making to his disciples,
saying that what they bind (in other words, forbid) they will have the authority to bind
what they loose (in other words, permit) they will have the authority to loose.


This is the process that every pastor is involved in preparing for Sunday morning worship.
But this is also the process that Bible Studies are engaged in when they open the book and talk about it. This is the process going on at council meetings and even at coffee hour.
For Jesus says, “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”


The Bible is a communal book. What was written in it was written in the context of communities of worship and common life.
What books are in the Bible, even, was decided by a community.
And this conversation is ongoing. It doesn't stop when Jesus is no longer around.
It doesn't stop when the disciples receive the Holy Spirit, it continues to go on.
And it is still going on today.
We as the two or three gathered in the name of Jesus in the presence of the Holy Spirit, indeed empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we are entrusted with the power to make decisions in light of our time our place our community.
And yet so many times we are afraid of making new decisions and prefer to rely upon decisions that were made by our ancestors for their times and their place and their communities.


When we look at Galatians 2 and Acts 15 our readings for this morning we see this
ongoing conversation in process.


Here's how Rob Bell narrates what happens: “To understand what they are facing, we have to understand that they are Jewish – Jewish believers who are circumcised and eat kosher and recite Jewish prayers and celebrate Jewish feasts. Jewish followers of a Jewish messiah who live a Jewish life in a Jewish nation. But all sorts of Gentiles (people who aren't Jewish) start becoming followers of Jesus. People who don't eat kosher, who aren't circumcised, who don't dress and talk and look and live like them. So what do they do? Do they expect all of these Gentiles to start being Jewish? And what exactly would that mean? What would that look like?.... After hearing all sides of the issue they decide to forbid (or should we say they bind?) several things. Here is why this is so important: They have to make decisions about what it means to be a Christian.”


And they make decisions knowing that it was a decision of theirs – they didn't claim that God made the decision alone – here's how the book of Acts puts it: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”


The ongoing conversation of what it means to live in light of Christ and the Holy Spirit led them to make a decision with lasting results – trusting that where two or three are gathered there Christ was in their midst.


And I think it's important to recognize that in Paul's story of what happened on that day, he mentions that included in his company from Antioch when they went to Jerusalem was a young man named Titus.


Titus was of Greek ethnicity and Greek cultural background. But Titus had become a follower of Jesus and had by faith received the Holy Spirit, the first fruits of God's new creation coming into being in humanity.


So Paul brings along Titus to Jerusalem in order to ground the conversation in experience.
Here is a real person, Titus, who has not been circumcised, does not keep kosher, but yet he too has been given the Holy Spirit. And there were some among the church in Jerusalem that were extremely uncomfortable with Titus – so much so that they tried really hard to get him to submit to the rites of circumcision. But Paul and company kept this from happening and the conversation that came of all of this was momentus. The pillars of the Jewish Christian church, Peter, James, and John met Titus and conversed with Paul and Barnabas and learned that Titus was one of many gentiles who have been changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, who have come to believe that God is truly at work through the spirit of Christ in the world. And this was a challenging thing for the Jerusalem believers.


But then Peter spoke up and told the story of Cornelius and how he had seen a whole family transformed by faith.


And stories of experience in the present combined with and reinterpreted the wisdom of the past and new decisions were made. Decisions with lasting results.


We have to keep in mind however that communities of Christians make decisions and not all of these decisions are helpful. This is why it is an ongoing conversation. The latin phrase that came out of the reformation was “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda”
roughly translated “the church reformed, but always reforming.”


And so it comes to us. And it comes to my mind that this church has been a church reformed and reforming. All you have to do is look at the churches ongoing conversation between the 1930s and 1965 when it decided that it would be fitting to join the baptist and congregational communities into one United Church of Acworth. I hope to be able to dig into the records and read more about how that conversation went about. Who were the Titus's in that story – those whose presence challenged the dichotomies of in and out. Baptists and congregationalists had a long history of rivalry in New England. It was no small feat to join together and I'm sure that some who despised such efforts left the church at that time.


But in 1965 the church became United and decisions continued to be made in council meetings by two or three gathered with Christ in their midst of how to be witnesses to God's new creation in this place at this time for these people.
One way I catch a glimpse into this conversation myself is by reading the old annual reports. I did this on Thursday at the church on the hill while it was downpouring and thundering all outside – and I feared I would lose my light on a few occasions, but it stayed and so did I and opened up the file cabinets and poured through the files.


And I found documents from 1975 and letters that were sent back and forth between the church and the Craws about coming to Acworth and what the church hopes the Craws will be able to do for Acworth. And I read the pastor's reports that Harold “Pappy” dictated as Janet typed them in their typewriter. I read about the way that the Craws worked with the youth of the town, how they built up Christian education, and read Pappy's reflections on what it meant to be a pastor in Acworth. And all of it is inspiring to me, and I think helps me contributed to our own Acworthian ongoing conversation of church reformed and always reforming.


It helps me to know how others have related to their times so that I might know how I might creatively engage my own times. And there were bits in there that I pulled out and want to share with you. Some prophetic wisdom from one of Acworth's beloved pastors. So here are two quotes:

In 1976, his first report as Acworth's pastor: “I find the greatest enthusiasm in our church for the restoration of our lovely meeting-houses, an enthusiasm which we share fully. However, unless we are able to develop a like enthusiasm for a viable church life, these buildings will become lovely mausoleums, monuments to a departed faith and a vanished people.”

and in 1978: “I believe this church needs to broaden its base of support, not just in a financial way, but in moral support for its worship and other programs. This is a ncecessity for the future. Money will come when we have interested people and if we o not have interested people – the money isn't of much value.”


Let's get creative and let's take up the challenge and engage this wisdom of the past in light of our experience in the present. And let's be courageous – for the same Holy Spirit who empowered and guided our ancestors in the faith will indeed guide us today.


I want to invite every one of you – members and non-members alike – to join in a conversation at council meetings, at coffee hours, at one another's homes sharing a meal, at soccer games, at concerts, at the Village store –


Because there are Titus's among us and there are new decisions to be made.
And where two or three are gathered, Christ is there with us.