LIFE AND NEW LIFE (Graduation)
Pentecost 2
Galatians 1:11-24 and Luke 7:11-17
Paul Swartz - June 5 & 6, 2010

The collected works of Martin Luther number 56 such volumes. The reformer could write! And the printing press was a great force multiplier for a newly literate reading public. Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch notes that “there were 390 editions of various writings of Luther published in 1523 alone.”

Amongst this massive output, Luther had his favorites. His favorite book of the Bible was Galatians from which our lesson for today comes. “The Epistle to the Galatians is my epistle. To it I am, as it were, in wedlock.” Years later when a friend was editing the Latin edition of what would become these volumes of his collected works, Luther made a suggestion: “If I had my way about it, they would republish only those of my books which have doctrine. My Galatians, for instance.”

Luther locked into Galatians for an important reason. In this little letter of just six chapters, St Paul makes an impassioned and uncompromising defense of the radical grace of God. It is here that we enter into the very heart of what God did in Christ…not what we have to do to earn God’s favor. Luther insists that God in Christ says to us, “I am more certain to you than your own heart and conscience.”

No wonder this Galatians text is paired with the Gospel account of a grieving widow on the way to the cemetery to bury her only son. When Jesus saw her, He had compassion on her. The woman hadn’t even sought Jesus out. She did not come running to Him. Nope! Jesus saw her in her need. Remember, women in that society had no status. She was a non-person, and now without a husband or a son, she would be completely “bottomed out.” No Social Security, no heathcare, no public aid.

No wonder Luther loved this Galatian text. God loves us no matter what. He doesn’t scrutinize whether we’re good enough to deserve His love and care. Our God finds us! To our graduates, to all of us, we have before us a model for life and New Life. Let’s come at this in a little different way.

What is the first thing you remember buying with your own hard-earned money? Can you remember what it was?

Every kid has had some longed-for, worked-for, saved-for dream. Our grand-daughter just sent us a picture of her “American Doll Twins” for which she had been saving her money. For me as a kid it was an American Flyer Baldwin Diesel Train set. My brothers and I distributed Christmas toy catalogues after Thanksgiving for one of my dad's dealers in town, and my eyes focused in on that train. My older brothers had train sets, and I wanted one of my own. Not only can I still see it in my mind’s eye, I still have it and also the catalogue...and, you know what? It still runs! As a matter of fact, it's in pretty good shape and is worth far more than the $15 "wholesale price" I paid.

But, the things we did save up for and got as a kid...how’d that work for you? Did life’s earliest purchases always work out well?

The ninja warrior “action figure” doesn’t actually DO anything. Bummer!

The BB gun jams and never fires again after the first six shots. Bummer!

The sea monkeys float in the water for a minute then sink into the silt never to be seen again. Bummer!

The transformer breaks in the midst of "transforming." Bummer!

Benjamin Franklin never forgot the first purchase he ever made. It was a tin whistle. When he was a little child he saw it in a store window and coveted it, and finally got the money and went and bought it. Almost as soon as he had purchased it, he knew he had been cheated. It had cost him too much. It wasn’t worth what he had paid for it.

But if he paid too much for the whistle, he didn’t pay too much for the lesson it taught him. It stayed with him all through his life. And ever after he would look at men and women, friends and acquaintances, politicians and statesmen, absorbed in the pursuit of power, or of fame, or of wealth, and see that they were all getting too little for what it was costing them. Never one to be shy, Ben would say to them, “You are paying too much for your whistle!”

How much are you paying for your whistle? The first lesson in Economics 101 should be that everything in life comes at a cost. Everything exacts a price!

Want to get into a great college? Start spending your hours and days studying hard, investing in knowledge, compounding your cognitive abilities.

Want the best-looking lawn on the block? Start feeding the grass, researching nutrients, mowing, watering, mulching, aerating. The cost will be time, sweat equity, and not a little moolah.

Want your family, your marriage, your children, your relationships to be strong and whole and healthy? It doesn’t just happen by happenstance. You have to make special time for each person you love. You have to listen to each concern and care about every problem. You have to watch Barbie go shopping instead of the basketball game. You have to be able to know the names of the Jonas brothers and the four kinds of Pokemon and how to find out anything about anyone on Facebook.

Life costs. The question of life is this: is the whistle you are investing in worth it? And if it is, how high a cost are you ultimately willing to pay for your whistle?

The apostle Paul paid a lot for his “whistle.” Eventually he paid the ultimate price. Actually, Paul bought two “whistles” in his life — and he paid a heavy price for both.

The first “whistle” Paul bought into was the life of an excruciatingly Torah-obedient, highly educated, politically correct, powerful and influential Pharisaic Jew who was also a Roman citizen. Paul studied hard. Then he put his scholarship into practice. He preached to popularize the revitalization of the Torah way of life Pharisees were proclaiming to the first century Jewish people. Paul could claim he was “the Pharisee among Pharisees.” Paul could claim to be “blameless under the Law.” He had worked incredibly hard. He had paid a big price, in time and perseverance, in commitment and conviction.

Paul had paid big bucks to get the anti-Christian, whistle-blower life he believed would bring him everything he could possibly want.

Until. Until that moment on the Damascus Road when it was revealed to him that the whistle he was holding was worthless without the breath of God. Until that moment on the Damascus Road when he realized that the breath of God was not found in that whistle of Torah fundamentalism, but was found in a person — in the person of Jesus, the Messiah, the only Son of God, the Compassionate Christ who gives life and New Life…in the person of Jesus who did not check to see if the widow of Nain had fulfilled the 631 Jewish laws in order to merit His compassion…in the person of Christ our Savior who is still in the business of claiming for life those who have been marked for death.

What whistle have you been paying big bucks for that isn’t worth the cost?

So many of our kids are convinced that the whistle of “popularity” is worth everything they have. Our kids think the prize of popularity is worth spending all their money on the “right” clothes, the “right” hair, the “right” look, the “right” music. To be “popular” at all costs can cost our kids their self-identity, their independent mind, their unique personal curiosity, their spontaneous compassion.

We parents might chastise our children about chasing after “popularity.” But we have an adult version that is just as bad, if not worse. That “game” is called “fame” and a socially acceptable “success.” Is your “whistle” a house in the “right” neighborhood. Is your “whistle” a membership in the “right” club? Is your whistle the next promotion, the newest electronic toy, the latest model luxury car?

Or is your whistle giving off a more subtle sound? The sound of influence? The siren song of power over others, of command and control, of making colleagues into subordinates and then making them toe your line?

Paul had all the power, all the clout, all the zealous conviction of “rightness” in his possession when he was suddenly blindsided on the Damascus Road. Paul was totally convinced of the piercing, perfect quality of the tone his whistle played. He was a model Pharisee, one who upheld the Law over all else. He felt no qualms about “persecuting” and terrorizing the “Church of God.” Paul freely admits in today’s Galatians’ text that he wanted nothing so much as to “destroy” or "annihilate” all those who confessed Christ as their Savior.

In the Twenty-First Century we have a fearful word for people as convinced and convicted as was Saul of Taursus. Saul knew he knew the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. He judged everything that stood outside his Law-defined Truth as a threat. You didn’t agree with Saul? You were worthy of destruction, without any hesitation. We would call Saul today a First-Century terrorist, ready to exterminate any and all who impugned or insulted his “whistle” which he had purchased on his own with all his passion and power: his understanding of a life of faith lived according to the Law.

Then, abruptly, in a revelatory flash of light, Paul threw his whistle away. The voice of God revealed to Paul that the Truth was not the Law. The Truth was Love. The Truth was a Love that had come to earth in a Person who lived and died on earth. And that Person’s name was Jesus! God’s Love had lifted Jesus out of death and brought Him back to glorification with the Father. And all this was done to defeat death for the sake of all humanity. What a miraculous new song. No wonder Paul looked at his old whistle and chucked it aside without another thought.

Saul the terrorist became Paul the tenderest — wanting nothing more than to encourage and engage and love those whom he had terrorized as evil and ignorant. The ones who had seemed and been deemed most worthy of persecution were now the very ones Paul sought out with the message of love and grace.

Ralph Waldo Emerson had a saying: “In nature, nothing is given; all is sold.” You pay a price for everything…pleasure, advancement, whatever. Everything costs! Nothing is free. Every whistle you buy is secured at the expense of life and health. The price for every whistle must be paid.

There is only one whistle that is free in life: that’s God’s grace, freely given to all who will receive it…like the grieving widow of Nain! So we praise, as Paul did a few verses earlier (verse 6), “God’s glorious grace, which He has freely given us” in God’s only begotten Son.

For our graduates, for all of us, we need a faith fit to live by. So often we get side-tracked paying too much for whistles that don’t bring meaning, fulfillment and purpose to our lives. We humans just aren’t constructed to go it alone, living without that power which God freely gives and wants us to have.

With that power of God’s grace we will find ourselves developing a self fit to live with as we discover that life is not just getting satisfaction for ourselves. Our greatest days are those when we are totally giving ourselves for others. That’s when we become our truest selves.

Then also, we will seek a work fit to live for. It’s a lousy spur track that chugs along working and sacrificing just to make money and protect it. Remember, it’s relationships, people—family and friends—that really count. Despite what it looks like on the outside, cars, boats, houses, and possessions bring only temporary happiness. You may find yourself paying way too much for those shinny whistles that you’re out of breath, gasping for air, never able to take in the “ahaa’s” God wants for you. Isn’t it time to get a new whistle to blow, one that is God-breathed? Believe me, that whistle will take your breath away, and give you a whole new way of living and being and breathing in the world. And this whistle of love and grace, forgiveness and faith, is the only whistle in life that is FREE!

The story of the young man from Nain, is not a story about the power of Jesus to call people back into existence. It is an admonition to you and me to do His deeds in this world—to really LIVE and discover NEW LIFE through the acts of compassion, of love, of caring. The greatest gift this account gives us is that it shows that the Lord is not only for eternity, but also for this life.
May you graduates, may we all have a faith fit to live by, a self fit to live with and a work fit to live for. AMEN