The Marcion Heresy

Summer Sermon Series: You Pick – I Preach!

Galatians 3:23-29 and Deuteronomy 32:48-52

          This morning we are kicking off our summer sermon series “You Pick – I Preach!” with an exciting sermon about the Marcion heresy.  You are probably thinking, ”Marcion, what the heck is that, and why do I care?” or if you’re Lars you are thinking “I am bored already” or if you are Dwight you are thinking “The correct pronunciation is Martian”, or maybe you are just thinking “what the heck is going on?”  Friends, this whole summer I am preaching on topics of your choice and one of our esteemed members has chosen Marcion, and as we get into it, I think you will see why.

          Let’s set the scene.  The year is 140 and Marcion, a wealthy ship owner and the son of a bishop has just landed in Rome.  He is fleeing his hometown of Sinope in Pontus where he was excommunicated for immorality.  Once in Rome, Marcion makes a large donation to the orthodox church and ingratiates himself into their organization.  He begins preaching his radical beliefs there and in the year 144 he is excommunicated again.

          But that doesn’t stop Marcion, he is a skilled community organizer and the things he says are compelling.  Marcion sets out a canon of scriptures, the first list of New Testament books that are said to be authentic and continues to spread his gospel.  Communities are established all over the Roman Empire where Marcion’s views are propagated.  Converts of all ages, rank, and background flock to his churches and by the later half of the 2nd century Marcion’s followers are the chief rival to the orthodox Christian church. 

          So, what was Marcion’s great heresy?  “I don’t believe in the vengeful God of the Old Testament.  I worship the God of love found in Jesus Christ.”  Sound familiar?  I actually know quite a few people in this church who have told me just this exact thing.

          Now, Marcion was a little weirder than that, as he was influenced by the thought of his time.  In the year 140 what we call the Old Testament, or the Hebrew canon was pretty much set.  And Marcion took the whole thing literally.  When God walks in the garden in Genesis and asks where Adam and Eve are, Marcion saw a God with human form who had limited knowledge.  Marcion called this creator God “Demiurge” and throughout the Old Testament Marcion found this god constantly involving himself in contradictory courses of action.  He was fickle, capricious, ignorant, despotic, and cruel.  Marcion rejects this creator god, a jealous tribal deity of the Jews, as well as his law which represents legalistic reciprocal justice and punishes mankind for its sin through suffering and death.

          Marcion is a follower of Jesus Christ, and he believed that the God Jesus professed was an altogether different being.  This is a universal God of compassion and love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy.  For Marcion, the Christian gospel was wholly a gospel of love to the absolute exclusion of the law. 

          Marcion believed that Jesus was the son of a Heavenly Father, but Jesus’ body was only an imitation of a material body.  Jesus didn’t have a physical birth, death, or resurrection.  Marcion believed that Christ came down from heaven and taught a new kingdom and deliverance from the malevolent Demiurge.  However, followers of the evil god, killed Jesus.  Fortunately for us, in doing so, they unwittingly purchased humanity from Demiurge and now we can escape from his kingdom into the realms of the God of love.  Marcion believes that if we have faith in the love of God, then we will be freed from the legalistic requirements of Demiurge’s Judaism.

          Marcion is basing his argument on some Gnostic ideas, like a body-less Jesus and two gods, as well as the letters of Paul, where grace triumphs over the law.  In fact, Marcion was the first to create a Christian canon by declaring that the only true Christian writings were Paul’s letters and some parts of the gospel of Luke.  It is his statements that will eventually force the church to begin creating a canon of its own or deciding which books should be in the official New Testament.   

          In time the Marcionite church died out.  Those in the early Christian movement rejected his ideas and his communities.  And because Marcion required celibacy of all converts, his communities reached a point where they could grow no more.  His views passed away and now he is just a blip on the early church radar and a chapter in the history books.

          So, what does this have to do with us?  Well, while we might not easily go in for the idea of a separate god called Demiurge, we often do have troubles with the behavior of God in the Old Testament.

          I chose the passage from Deuteronomy this morning because I personally find this to be one of the most offensive and hurtful things God does.  Moses has given the majority of his life to God and God’s people.  I often think of him as the first pastor, ferrying people though the desert of life into the realms of the Promised Land.  But because of a technicality, one moment in over 40 years of service, God withholds the Promised Land from Moses.  From the beginning Moses has said he didn’t want to lead the people, and the man has literally given everything for his faith.  For God to take him to the edge of all he has worked for, but not let him pass through, is the cruelest most unjust thing I can think of.  I do not understand God’s actions in this story and I hate it.

          So, like Marcion, I agree, the God of the Old Testament is often capricious and cruel.  But I’m not sure it’s a different God.  Instead, I think it might be a God who learns and grows.  A God who realizes that his approach doesn’t work well with humanity.  And so, a God who refines and changes things, making a new covenant through Jesus Christ.

          Marcion would have loved our second reading, which is from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia.  Here Paul argues that first we had the law, and then Christ came to free us from the law.  Baptized in Jesus, we become children of God, and so we are united in one community.  Where the law once would have divided us by gender, class, race, and title.  Now, we are all equal in one community, freed from the law, under the name of Jesus.  In Jesus Christ we find a new covenant which frees us from the law and from sin. 

          Is it two gods like Marcion thought?  Or is it one God learning new ways of relating to people?  Or is it people learning over time who God really is and what God really desires for us? 

          This is Trinity Sunday, which is another theory that is really hard to support using only the Biblical texts.  One God, in three persons, Father-Son-and Holy Spirit is definitely outside of Marcion’s realm of belief.  But it might not be outside of Paul’s.  While Paul doesn’t refer to the trinity directly, he certainly discusses the power of God in three separate forms, Father, Son, and Spirit.  Three gods?  One God?  It’s a lot to consider and wonder about.

          While Marcion’s theories died with the times, his question about God’s behavior remains as relevant as ever.  What are we to make of God’s unpredictable and unscrupulous decisions?  Is this a cruel God who creates a system of rules that the people God created with free will cannot possibly follow?  A God who lays a trap for us, so to speak?  Does Jesus come to show us the path to a different God?  A God of love?  Or is Jesus simply trying to get us to better understand who the God of the past is and what that God desires for us?

          I invite you to think about all these things this week, and if you are so inclined, let me know what you come up with.  And in the meantime, whenever someone mentions that they like the God of the New Testament better then the God of the Old Testament, you can tell them that they might be a Marcionite heretic.  Amen.