Books of the Bible-
Galatians
M&Ms and the Gospel
Galatians Series or
Reformation Galatians 2:1-14
The basis of the
sermon for today is from Galatians 2:1-14,
“By revelation I laid before them the gospel which I would
preach to the Gentiles…that the truth of the gospel may be
preserved among you. And also from Galatians 1:11,12, where the
Apostle Paul writes: I
want you to know my friends, that the gospel which I preach is not a
man made gospel; it was
not handed down to me by humans.
For I did not receive it from humans nor was I taught it by
humans; but the gospel I preach was given through a revelation from
God. It is God’s
gospel, not a human gospel.”
Here in my hands is
a bag of M and Ms. I am
not sure if you like M and Ms, but to me, they are very good candy.
There are many things I like about M and Ms, but the first
thing you notice about them are the variety of bright, shiny colors.
See here in my hand; all the bright shiny colors of the
candy. What brightness. What colors. But
even better than the bright shiny colors is the taste of the M and
Ms. You pop one into
your mouth, crunch your teeth on it, and you immediately taste the
rich, dark, succulent chocolate.
Ummmmm. M and Ms
come in two kinds: regular
or nuts. I prefer the regular that you can stick up in near your gums
and just let them melt over time.
Another thing about M and Ms is that they are like potato
chips; you can’t eat
just one; you have to
have another...and then another...and another.
They are just so compulsively good.
I have discovered
that M and Ms are not only good candy but M and Ms have become a
psychology of living. M
and Ms are a philosophy of life.
The M and Ms approach to living goes like this:
If someone is smiling, you give them an M and M and they
smile even more; if
someone is working hard, you give them an M and M and they work even
harder. On the other
hand, if someone is frowning, you withhold the M and M from them and
they figure it out; they
want an M and M so much that they start smiling.
If someone isn’t working very hard, you withhold the M and
M from them; they
figure it out; they
want an M and M so much that they start working harder.
The purpose of M
and Ming people is to positively influence their behavior.
It works well on the whole animal kingdom;
cats and dogs,
rats and mice, elephants and chimpanzees, husbands and wives, and
even children.
I would like to
tell you a story of how M and Ms worked with my children.
When my kids were younger, we used to go backpacking as a
family. Anne was eight
and Joel was five, and we were going to hike up to Annette Lake in
the Cascades, a 2500 foot elevation gain in three miles.
It’s a tough hike. So we needed to positively motivate the kids to move up the
mountain, and M and Ms would do the trick.
We gave each child a watch to watch the time, and after every
ten minutes of walking, they would ask for an M and M. We would give
them each an M and M. It
worked like a charm. Watch
the watch; ten minutes of walking; another M and M.
They loved it. After
eight minutes, Joel said he wanted an M and M.
Mistake, yes big mistake.
I gave him that M and M.
And then six minutes later, and then four minutes, and then
two minutes and then no minutes and he started howling that he
didn’t want any more of my M and Ms.
He wanted a ride; on
my shoulders. Whew!
So on top of my fifty pound pack, I put my fifty pound son;
put on the watch; and
every ten minutes, I would give myself an M and M.
Ten minutes, another M and M.
Ten minutes, another M and M.
Then eight minutes. Six
minutes. Four minutes. Two
minutes. And we ran out of M and Ms.
We would have died on the mountain, but luckily, after
searching deeply in her pack, my wife found another sack of M and
Ms. And up the mountain we went again. With new motivation and new energy, we made it to the top of
the mountain and our campsite.
The purpose of M
and Ms is to positively motivate people into action; to motivate them to do what needs to be done.
And it works, most of the time.
Some of the time.
Now, there is thing
negative side to M and Ming people.
There is a downside. That
is, if someone does you a favor, you feel that you have
to give them an M and M in return.
You’re indebted to them;
you owe them one. For
example, a friend came over the other day and roto-tilled my garden.
He couldn’t do that out of the simple generosity of his
heart and because we
were good friends and neighbors.
I was now in debt
to him. I
had to give him an M and M in return.
There is no such thing as a simple gift;
people now keep track of the transactions and who owes whom
what favors.
Another negative
side to M and Ming people is that you start to expect
them to give you an M and M in return if you do them a favor.
You are kind to others and you expect
them to give you some favor back.
I scratch your back; you
scratch mine.... I expect
you will scratch mine.
All of us learn
this psychology of M and Ming people very early.
M and Ming is very instinctual to the human race;
it is easily learned and deeply ingrained in all of us.
We can’t escape it. It’s
at the heart of all human relationships.
M and Ms are very
good candy. M and Ms are also a way of positively influencing behavior.
But as I have grown older, I have discovered that there is an
M and M theology of religion. There
is an M and M style of Christianity. In the M and M style of Christianity, God is the creator of
the M and Ms. God is up
there in heaven with an M and M factory, and God makes all the M and
Ms for the whole world. And God
gives out M and Ms to the whole world;
but we discover that this God gives out M and Ms quite
selectively. To those
people who obey his rules, regulations and rituals, God gives more M
and Ms; and having received their M and M rewards,
they obey his rules, regulations and rituals even
more faithfully. And
to those people who don’t obey his rules, regulations and rituals, God withholds
his M and Ms, until those people
figure it out that they need to obey his rules and
regulations in order to get more M and Ms.
And, if people really obey those rules, regulations and
rituals faithfully over time, God will invite those people up to
heaven when they die, and they live right next to the M and M
factory and they will eat M and Ms forever.
What sugared bliss!
Now, like all good
ideas, there are some negative sides to this religious M and Ming.
In this scheme of things, God no longer freely gives his
blessings; rather, God
has become the giant briber in the sky.
God no longer freely gives abundant blessings to all;
blessings have strings attached.
God’s blessings become bribes to motivate behavior.
Another negative
aspect of this religious M and Ming is that obedient people start to
expect blessings from God,
like God owes them their
blessings. This was
especially true of the Pharisees in the New Testament;
they thought of themselves as good, upstanding synagogue
folk; and they expected
God to bless them for their good behaviors with good favors.
The same is true with a lot of church folk:
They reason: I
am a good loyal Christian and church member, and I expect
God will heal my child or protect
my child from diseases and disasters or my parents from cancer and
coronaries. God owes it to
me, more than some of those pagan types.
Or as in the parable of the prodigal son;
the older brother
stayed home and expected the
blessings from the father.
Now, this M and M
theology is found in all religions of the world. In
all religions of the
world, there is a God who is a creator of the M and Ms up there in
heaven. In all
religions of the world,
God gives M and Ms out to his creation.
In all religions of
the world, this God gives more M and Ms to those who obey his rules,
regulations and rituals. In
all religions of the
world, this God
withholds M and Ms from those who don’t obey the rules,
regulations and rituals. This
is called “natural
religion;” it is
called “natural theology;”
It is the natural
way that human beings think that God works in this world.
And
the Apostle Paul calls this kind of religious reasoning
“man’s gospel” or a “human gospel.”
It has been thought up by humans;
it is instinctual to humans. It is well ingrained in the
human race. But
Paul says, “I want to
preach to you a new
gospel; a gospel that has not been distorted by human touch and human instincts. The gospel I preach I received as a direct revelation from
God; I receive it from
Jesus Christ.”
Now, this
new Gospel of the Apostle Paul will be very hard for you to
understand this morning; not because this new gospel is so complicated;
but it is difficult to grasp because we are so
deeply programmed to think M and M about God.
Because it is so
instinctual to think M and M about God (obey, you get an M and M;
disobey, you lose the M and M, it is difficult for our hearts
and minds to comprehend this revelation that the Apostle Paul
received from Jesus Christ. But
that is what I want you to do this morning:
to break free from M and M religion and hear this new
gospel.
What is this new
gospel? What is this new religion?
What is this new way of thinking about God?
This new gospel is not symbolized by M and M candy at all;
it is symbolized by the letters CC, the crucified Christ. Your mind now needs to focus on CC: on the crucified Christ,
on God who loves you so much, that God comes to die on the cross to
freely forgive you your sins.
Now, to get at
this, you need to think of someone out of your life experience who
loved someone else so much that they were willing to die for that
person. If you don’t
have any stories out of your own life or literature where someone
willingly dies in the place of another,
you won’t be able to grasp what I am talking about.
For example, I know a woman by the name of Myrtle Ringdahl.
Her daughter, Janet, my age, and an acquaintance of mine from years ago; her daughter Janet was on a kidney dialysis machine, and
gradually her daughter came closer to death.
And when I would call on the home of Oscar and Myrtle, it was
Myrtle who would say over and over again:
“If only I could die.
If only I could die in place of my daughter.
O God, please.”
Do you know any stories like that, out of your own experience
or through the experience of others?
Another example. My cousin Lois was dying down in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
She had cancer, cancer of the jawbone;
it was an ugly experience of pain and she had chosen to die
at home in here living room. When
I would call on my cousin Lois, her mother Anne, my Aunt Annie,
would take my out into the kitchen and look me right in the eye and
plead: “Eddie, why
can’t I die? Why
can’t it be me? I
would do anything if I could die in my daughter’s place.”
Do you know any stories like that.
To understand CC love, to
understand the heart of God, you need to be touched by love which is
willing to die for another. For
at it’s core, God’s love is not that of an M and M candy dispenser; I’ll give you an M and M blessing
if you are good. At its core, God’s love is so
great, it is willing to
die in your place.
Now, when you think
of God in terms of CC, for whom does God have this special
affection? In M and M
religion, God has special affection for those who obey his rules,
regulations and rituals; but
in CC Christianity, God has special affection for those who are
being crucified under the pain of life.
Let me illustrate. At
the first worship service today, over on the left sat Paul Carlson
who visits his wife, Ruth, every day,
his wife who has Alzheimer’s;
every day for years he goes to see her.
In the front row sat Art and Lou Farwick, Lou undergoing
chemotherapy. Lou is
always suspicious that this may be her last visit to church.
In the back sat Aden O’Dell who is fighting cancer and
Parkinson’s at the same time.
And in this CC Christianity, God loves all people and cares
for all people, but God has this special
affection for people who are being crucified on the crosses of
life. Hunger,
starvation, war. Whatever the pain of life may be, God is especially
close to people as they walk the valleys of deep darkness, the
valleys of death. By contrast, in M and M religion, God has special
affection for those who obey the
rules, regulations and rituals very well. There is a huge difference between the two religions.
In CC Christianity,
God gives us his blessings, freely
and generously; not
because we merit it; not
because we have obeyed the rules, regulations and rituals. God’s blessings are given
freely; they are not
bribes; and this is very
difficult for M and M people to understand.
And so God’s blessings come to you, not simply
when you on top of the world and you your family are all
doing well because you think you are following God’s laws fairly
well; but when you are at the bottom....when you have bottomed
out with alcohol, when you have
hit the bottom with drugs, when you hit
the bottom in your marriage/divorce, when you feel like you have
totally messed up, there is God to bless you with strength and
healing and comfort, and God’s hand will
freely reach down into your hole and lift you up and out.
God is at the bottom of the hole;
ask Jonah in the story of the whale;
that’s what that story is all about:
God freely saving you when you are at the bottom.
It’s so different than the godly M and M dispenser for
perfect achievers.
And eventually,
people start to think CC in their relationships with each.
M and Ms are very
dangerous when they are at the
core of your marriages, your
families or your friendships. If
the core of your marriage is, “I’ll scratch your back; if you scratch
mine,” if that is at
the core of your marital love, you have a sick marriage.
If M and M psychology is at the core of your family
relationships with your kids, your kids are sick.
Do well in school, and I will give you more M and Ms of my
love, you have a sick family. And
if M and M psychology is at the core of your friendships, they are
not true friendships at all. But
in all the great marriages, in all
the great families, in all the great
friendships, the
CC love runs
deep. You love so much
that you are willing to sacrifice for the other, spouse,
child, friend; you
genuinely and generously give to
each other, not to give
anything back. Every spouse wants a marriage where love is freely and deeply given.
Every child needs a home where they are loved ever so deeply in
all circumstances of life.
And every friend
enjoys a friendship where the people give deeply and generously of themselves to each other.
My best friend from years ago came thorough town last night;
you just give the best
you have to offer your friend;
that’s what friendship is.
You’ve got to
understand the purpose of M and Ms;
as I pop one into my mouth, I know that M and Ms are good
candy. But M and Ms are
terrible for marriage; terrible for parenting;
terrible for
genuine friendship. You
gotta understand what M and Ms are good for and NOT
good for.
And CC love is
given to strangers. The Bible is forever concerned about loving the stranger.
M and Ms are never given to strangers, because strangers, by definition, never
give back. You never
see them again. For
example, you are riding in your car and your car is behind the city
bus in front of you. Some
child is waving out the back window at you, making all kinds of
positive gestures. And
you enter into a momentary game with this stranger of a child.
Waving. High
fiving. Honking.
Thumbs up. Smiling. The bus turns a corner and your car goes
straight, and life moves on. But
in those few moments, two strangers give to each other. And so CC
love gives to strangers around the world, via world hunger, quilts,
missionaries. CC love
is forever being generous with people you never see.
CC love is always
given to strangers. Not M and Ms; you only
give to those that you see
can give to you back.
M and Ms.
I always have enjoyed M and Ms.
I prefer the regular to nuts.
Pop one into your mouth and you taste the dark succulent
chocolate. It is so important to understand what M and Ms are good for.
They are good for candy.
They are good at motivating positive behavior of dogs and
cats and rats and elephants and salespeople.
They even work at motivating husbands, wives and children.
But M and Ming makes for
terrible love between a man and a woman;
M and Ming makes for
terrible love between parents and children.
It makes for terrible
love within friendships.
You see, M and Ms aren’t love at all, and therefore M and
Ms make for terrible religion.
The Apostle Paul
said: The gospel I
preach is not a human
gospel. It has not been
touched by human hands. I
did not receive it from human
hands. This gospel was
given to me as a direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
The gospel is the crucified love of God who died on the cross
to freely forgive and love the whole world.
You need to understand CC;
it’s the essence of life and love and genuine faith in God.
Amen.
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