I.

Perhaps the same thing could be said about Christians that Paul says here about his fellow Jews: that a person is not necessarily a Christian who just appears to be one outwardly; and that, like Paul says about circumcision, true baptism is not something merely external and physical. Rather, a person is a Christian who is one inwardly, and real baptism is a matter of the heart.

That is probably an oversimplification, but I suspect it’s not far from what Paul would say to us. His point has to do with hypocrisy. Some of the members of the early church were evidentally requiring a higher standard of perfection and obedience from others than they were from themselves. As Jesus himself might observe: They were quick to identify and criticize the speck in the eyes of others, while conventiently ignoring or rationalizing the logs with which their own eyes were burdened.

Hypocrisy is one of the standard charges levelled against Christians. It sometimes seems to people outside the church like we require a higher level of perfection from others than we do from ourselves. For instance, we do this with our children all the time. I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about one of the crises of parenthood: that is, how do you keep your kids from doing the stupid things you did when you were a kid. Of course, it is only now that we recognize that these actions are stupid. At the time when we were doing them we called them fun. So we try and keep our children from finding out what we were like when we were younger. If they were to discover the true dimensions of our own youthful behavior, it would become a bit more difficult for us to credibly insist upon higher standards of behavior from them.

Christians have usually unconsciously tended to adopt this kind of somewhat parental attitude towards society. The church has historically filled this function as an institution wielding social authority. We are often at least perceived as talking about what people should do and how they should act or not act.

So we deliver this message of standards and boundaries, which is fine, until we realize that we sometimes have, and have had, problems keeping within them ourselves. In fact, we have been very quick to forgive and justify ourselves for actions we are even quicker to condemn in others.

For instance, we’ll condemn and exclude a person just for being homosexual, while we ignore or quickly forgive adultery and other kinds of sexual violence when they are committed by people we know. We demand hard work, civic responsibility, family values, and self-sacrifice from poor and underprivileged people, and overlook the same values when dealing with the successful and wealthy. We Christians talks about integration and racial unity, while to our shame Sunday morning remains the most segregated time of the week.

My point is not that we need to be just as hard on everybody equally, but rather that everyone is entitled to the same care, understanding, forbearance, and forgiveness that we are glad to receive ourselves.

II.

If our job as Christians is to be like a parental figure in society, and I’m not sure it is, but if it is, what kind of a parent should we be? The parental images Jesus uses to describe God are not the vindictive, punishing, retributive kind, but Jesus portrays God as a father who runs to welcome home the lost son, or like a mother hen who patiently gathers her chicks.

In other words, the task of believers in society is not to deliver judgment but to model grace and forgiveness, love and holiness, goodness and compassion. It is not to throw the book at people and compile lists of sins and sinners. It is not to scare people or coerce them into behaving according to certain accepted standards. It is not to act like the bouncers at the door of God’s Kingdom, whose mission is to carefully examine everyone’s credentials and judiciously exclude anyone wo doesn’t measure up.

The issue that Paul is dealing with here is not the transgressions of his believer friends. Rather, he is most upset about their willingness to judge others and sanctimoniously pretend to be better, when they were not. His problem is that they were self-righteously condemning and excluding others, and in so doing failing to imitate the graces of God. In their judgmental attitude they were actually working against God.

God’s attitude, revealed in Christ, is just the opposite. Rather than condemn us based on our sins, God saves us based on God’s love and forgiveness, irrespective of our behavior.

Thus it really upsets me when Christians feel it is their sacred duty to deliver judgment, condemnation, and exclusion against people, even other Christians, on the basis of some perceived sins. Because, no matter how vile may be the sins of others, it is usually a far more grievous sin against God to engage in judgment, condemnation, and exclusion.

Paul is not saying that the pious Jews are really just as bad as the Gentile sinners. He is saying however that Gentiles are just as redeemed and delivered by God as Jews because what is important is not your label, your language, your ceremonies, or your tradition, but whether the law of God’s love is written upon your heart. And whether that law is written upon your heart or not is most visible and evident in how you treat your neighbors and your world, not in whether you have gone through certain rituals, meticulously keep to religious laws, or carry a certain pedigree.

God is not looking for people who know the text of the Bible really well, or who can recite the Shorter Catechism by heart, or who went to church regularly and gave generously to the church’s mission, though these things are important. God is looking for people who find ways to embody God’s love and live lives of acceptance, justice, forgiveness, peace, hope, faithfulness and love.

III.

The law is not so much about specific actions, as it is about a certain kind of approach to life. Paul is frustrated because his fellow Jews thought you could satisfy God by obeying the six-hundred-odd laws of the Hebrew Scriptures. And evangelism was in danger of becoming simply a way to get more and more people to follow these laws.

Paul felt that faith had to be deeper than this, because, like Jesus, he knew very well that you could piously keep the letter of the law, and still not be in tune with the spirit of the law. You could keep to the letter, and still be filled with anger and hatred. Not only that, but you would feel righteous and pious because you were technically keeping the law, while you were behaving abominably towards others.

Whenever God’s law of love is reduced to a simple list of dos-and-don’ts, which remain essentially unchanged in every situation, it becomes what Paul calls a "written code" which "kills." And that goes for the Jewish fundamentalists of Paul’s day as much as for those who are ready to condemn and exclude from the church today people whom we judge not to measure up to our moral standards.

Rather than judgment and violence, exclusion and threats, we need to dwell on God’s Earth among God’s people with respect, awe, wonder, thanksgiving, confession, and praise. We need to recognize that we are all in this together, that none of us is sinless, and that all of us need to know the presence and power of God’s saving love in our hearts and in our world.

It matters not whether we are Christian or Hindu, religious or atheist, conservative or liberal, gay or straight, a saint or a criminal, young or old... we are all broken people who have that brokenness in common. And we need to know that we also have in common the healing and delivering Spirit of the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ. Those of us who are believers are much more effective witnesses to the good news when we proclaim and embody this love and forgiveness, than we are when we embody instead the godless bad-news of rejection and exclusion.

The thing to remember is that all those distinctions and oppositions and dualities have been broken down in Christ. He comes to reveal our oneness with each other and with the Earth. In the end he even reconciles us to God. In God’s eyes, which is to say, in truth there is no male or female, no rich or poor, no Christian or heathen, no gay or straight, no black or white, no advanced or primitive.... We are all one in Christ Jesus.

How little justification there is, then, for enforcing these distinctions between us. And how much justification there is for celebrating and dwelling within that oneness we all share in Jesus Christ.

May we look at others and see not vile sinners who need repentance, but simple children of God. And may we look at ourselves and see not perfect and upright saints, but simple, broken, mortals who need forgiveness and cleansing as much as anyone. And may we look to Jesus Christ, and see God’s love come to dwell with and within us, saving us and all of life, to gently carry us home.

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