• "True Justification"
• Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
• September 5, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

The New Testament is the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. There is one theme that governs the New Testament interpretation: Jesus Christ. The New Testament reveals that the major episodes and teachings of the Old Testament point forward to Jesus Christ.

In the epistle today from Galatians (3:16ff.), St. Paul establishes a major point of interpretation. In various places in Genesis (12:2-3, 13:15-16, 17:6-8), God promised Abraham that his descendants or "seed" would be fruitful, inherit the Promised Land and be blessed. As the epistle says, "To Abraham and his seed were the promises made."

St. Paul says that, in the fullest sense of interpretation, God made his promise, not to all the physical descendants of Abraham, but to one particular descendant, Jesus Christ. "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." The blessings promised by God to Abraham's seed are inherited by Jesus Christ.

This helps us to understand our theology of baptism. We are, as Galatians says in another passage, "baptized into Christ" (3:27). We become members of his body. We literally become part of him. Why? Because he is the descendant of Abraham who inherits God's promises. If we are part of him-members incorporate in his mystical body-we are heirs of God's promises also.

We inherit the covenant promises because Jesus Christ has fulfilled all of the covenant requirements- not because of our own innate ability to be righteous. Fallen, sinful man was, and is, unable to fulfill the righteous requirements of God. So God created a new people, a new Israel in and through the person of Jesus the Christ, or Messiah. God sent his Son into the world to do what we could not do and provide a means for us to be saved through faith in him.

Because our hope is rooted in Jesus Christ and what he has done, our practice of the faith follows a pattern that is different from the pattern of ordinary human religion. We are not trying to justify ourselves by our behavior. Rather, having been justified by Jesus Christ, we are trying to do what Christ would do. We are free to love.

This contrast is brought out in the gospel in the parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer occasioned the telling of the parable by asking, " dWhat shall I do to inherit eternal life?" What he was really asking was, "How can I justify myself before God?" Now, in the light of Jesus Christ we know the answer. There is really nothing we can "do" to inherit eternal life. It is a gift from God received by faith. As Ephesians says, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (2:8).

The lawyer didn't understand this. So Jesus gave him something to do. Go and obey the fullness of the law: Love God with all of your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will live. But the lawyer realized that there was a neighbor, or two, that he could not or would not love. So he, as the gospel says, "Willing to justify himself" said, "And who is my neighbor?"

This is the way self-justifying religion works. It looks for loopholes and exceptions. "I love all those who love me" or, "I am better than most" or, "I am not as bad as some" or, "I really didn't mean to do what I did." These and other equivocations serve to hide the fact that, by nature, we don't do what God wants us to do. We don't fulfill the commandment to love.

Christian behavior begins with confession rather than self-justification. We acknowledge the manifold ways our motives and actions fall short. But we also know that Jesus is changing us into new people. He is in the process of purifying our motives and transforming our behavior. Consequently, we don't ask, "Who is my neighbor?" We don't try to justify ourselves by exception and loophole. Rather, having been justified by Jesus Christ, we try to fulfill the commandment of love.

We can see this pattern in the liturgy. We do not come to the altar of God to try to explain to God how we really have been pretty good people; we do not come "trusting in our own righteousness." We come, rather, acknowledging our manifold sins of thought, word and deed, desiring to be reconciled with the Father through Jesus Christ.

We leave the altar as members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ and heirs through hope of the kingdom. Having been justified, we leave the altar to do all such good works as God has prepared for us to walk in-to be a better neighbor to those we find wounded along the road.