Galatians 6:7-16; John 10:1-11;16-20

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God will not be mocked | 4th Sunday after Pentecost | 06.07.2025 | Gal. 6:7-16 and John 10:1-11;16-20 | Evan McClanahan |

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In 2023, a newly-elected Texas Legislator from Tarrant County, Salmon Bhojani was sworn into the Texas House of Representatives. Mr. Bhojani is not a Christian, but a practicing Muslim. So, for his oath of office, he placed his left hand not on a Bible, but on a historic Quran. He is not the first elected representative to do so and he certainly will not be the last. My question is, should that be allowed? Or should we demand that an oath of office be taken using a Bible, the historic, social, cultural, and legal basis of American life?

In our reading from Galatians, Paul says: „Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap what you sow.“ It is a powerful warning to those who would teach things about God that are not true. In Galatians, Paul has been arguing against the so-called Judaizers, or those who insisted that new Gentile Christians had to – as a matter of law – get circumcised before they could follow Jesus. Paul’s argument is that Gentiles did not need to follow ceremonial aspects of the law to be a follower of Jesus.

And Paul has little to no respect for those who came into Christian communities and taught exactly that. He believes they are placing these delicate, new Christians under an unfair burden of Hebrew law, and he strongly condemns these teachers as false teachers with „another gospel.“ So, this is not a friendly debate about issues on the margins. These are core, central issues.

Hence, the language about mocking God. He continues: “If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh;” This is clearly a reference to the practice of circumcision. Christians are no longer under any kind of law with respect to the flesh, including the sacrifice of animals in the temple. Jesus is the sacrifice offered to God, once, for all, for the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, the Spirit given to the Church at Pentecost, that draws us to confess Christ as Lord, is all we need. „But if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.“

In truth, every religion but Christianity is a religion of the flesh. No religions today – at least as far as I am aware – demand some kind of ritual sacrifice. Rather, it is your works that are the sacrifice. Every religion on earth except for Christianity is a religion of works. Sadly, even many iterations of Christianity are religions of works!

Only Christianity offers you a promise of forgiveness through the finished work of Jesus. Only Christianity offers certainty and peace. Only Christianity says that Jesus died for us „while we were yet sinners,“ and does not go on to demand from us the kind of holiness that only God Himself possesses.

Yes, we are called to holy living upon our confession of Jesus as Lord. Paul writes: “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.” But upon our imperfect execution of “doing what is right,” God forgives our failures and calls us to return to him, as the Prodigal Son, daily dying and rising in our baptism. Trust in Jesus is all that is needed for peace with God.

That is not so for any other religion. There are no equivalent promises. There is no acceptable sacrifice offered. In most cases, there aren’t even religious texts that can be authenticated or cannot be said to be from God! There are, at best, moral teachings to be as good as we can be and hope God is – or the gods are – merciful to us.

Now, I am not saying that those other religions cannot do the basic job of keeping people in line or serving as the basis for a civilization. But I am saying that our nation is a Christian nation. When we say the word “God,“ it means something. That word is a referent to only one possible Being who has revealed Himself in only one place infallibly: the Bible. Other uses of the word “God“ are by definition contradictory, for competing claims cannot both be true. They can both be false; one or the other can be true; but they both cannot be true. God will not be mocked.

And Jesus understood the importance of boundaries as well. In our Gospel, Jesus is sending out the disciples to take the good news to the world. Two by two, they bring the news of Jesus and are accompanied by miracles like exorcism. These disciples are in the midst of spiritual warfare, squarely situated between the God of the Bible and all other claims. They are amazed at their ability to cast out demons, but Jesus tells them to think little of their gifts and delight instead that their “names are written in heaven.”

Okay, so where were we? Paul is saying that God will not be mocked, that to engage in a religion of the flesh is tantamount to mocking the God of the Bible. Jesus sends his disciples to proclaim that he is the fulfillment of prophecy regarding the God of the Bible, and that if their message is rejected, then they would be right to shake the dust off their sandals in protest.

So back to a swearing-in oath wherein a newly-elected representative places his hand on a Quran. Should we allow it? Mind you, it’s not that I’m worried that there will be some groundswell of non-Christians running for office and swearing oaths to other deities by the dozen. But it’s more of a thought experiment, or perhaps a kind of cultural gut check to see how we feel about this.

The best case for swearing such an oath is that the Quran represents, to the person making an oath, the kind of ultimate truth claims and threats of judgement that helps ensure that the oath-taker will be trustworthy. Whether we think the Quran is true or not, the oath-taker does. And that is about all we have to keep anyone accountable, that they promise to do something and they believe they will be punished by God if they violate such a promise.

A case can be made against it, but it would obviously be controversial and politically incorrect. It would go like this: our system of law is built on the biblical framework for law and morality. Our understanding of honesty is rooted in the Christian understanding of honesty. Our notion of God – like the Trinity – is uniquely Christian. If one is to represent a majority Christian people, then they should have the same standard of authority by which they can be held accountable.

Besides, the only thing that really holds a society together anyway is our voluntary willingness to live by a common code of good and bad, right and wrong, built on a shared, recognized divine bedrock. If we want to avoid brute power and force, then a voluntary agreement on moral principles is absolutely key to any chance of harmony. So we have to agree on some ultimate standard. For our nation that is Christianity. For others, it is Islam. For others, I suppose it is Mao’s Little Red Book. You get the idea.

We may already be at an inflection point where lines have to be re-drawn, where the experiment of pluralism or secularism has come to an end. It is just impossible to decide how to live together without a shared standard, without a shared God. We celebrated July 4 two days ago as a nation. But many of us are asking: who are we? Are we still one nation under God? Which God? Whose God? How do we know who or what this God is and teaches?

God will not be mocked. Are we mocking God if we use that title but are actually speaking about a wholly different God? I think so. After all, I suspect if I tried to swear an oath on a Bible in Saudi Arabia or China, that would be unacceptable. Why wouldn’t the opposite be true here?

As I said, I don’t lose sleep at night about this. And there are many so-called Christians who take an oath with their hand on the Bible and violate that oath daily. Still, the West faces an identity crisis. Are we Christian? Or not? We talk about God a lot. Do we really honor him? Or in involving him casually so often but ignoring him, are we mocking Him?

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


©Evan McClanahan
pastor@flhouston.org
First Lutheran
Houston, TX 77023