WALK LIKE A GALATIAN: FREEDOM

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

What does the early church inGalatia

have in common with Harry Potter?

I'll tell you in a minute!

Before we get to that, though,

I think that when we hear a passage of scripture

like the one we read this morning,

we need to make sure

that we have a few of our definitions clear.

We who live in the United States

have a particular problem

whenever we hear the word "freedom"

mentioned in scripture.

That's because

we're so used to associating the word "freedom"

with the word "liberty."

We've been shaped for more than two hundred years

by the Bill of Rights.

So we think

that the "freedom" Paul writes about in Galatians

is the same thing as freedom to worship,

freedom of speech,

and freedom to vote.

When we hear Paul say

that "for freedom Christ has set us free,"

we think of it

as having yet one more thing

that we can determine FOR ourselves,

to BENEFIT ourselves.

But Paul didn't exactly have the United States in mind

when he wrote these words.

He wasn't talking about political freedom.

Nor was he thinking about our faith in Jesus

giving us the liberty to sleep late

or to eat whatever breakfast cereal we choose.

To really hear what he's saying,

we have to get our heads around

an entirely different meaning of the word "freedom."

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Let's look back at what we've been talking about

over the last couple of weeks.

You may remember

that the church in Galatia

was a new church development.

Paul had gotten the church started up,

and soon after that

he left to do the same thing

in other places across Europe and Asia.

He got the message in his conversion

that, for those who believe in Jesus,

all of the things about the old laws that divided us

just didn't matter anymore.

And that's what he taught the new church in Galatia.

But shortly after he left,

a group of Jewish Christians came to the church

and said that Paul had it all wrong.

It DID still matter, they thought,

that the so-called "clean" people

refused to eat with the unclean ones,

that the law of circumcision still had to be followed,

that men and women could not worship together

with any sense of equality.

And so this group tried to instill division

back into the church in Galatia.

Apparently, they did so in spades!

In today's reading,

Paul talks about how they are trying to "bite one another"

and "devour one another."

I'd call that division!

So Paul had to write the new church

to remind them of how it was supposed to be.

We needed those kinds of divisions and laws

before Jesus came, he said,

because we didn't know any better.

God helped us by giving us the law

so that we would know how to live as God's people.

But when Jesus arrived,

we could see it for ourselves.

We couldn't say any longer

that we didn't know better.

And since we could see it for ourselves now,

there was no longer a need for the law.

They were free from having to follow it

because in their baptism,

they could begin to see for themselves

what God would have them do.

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But like we talked about last week,

Paul's definition of freedom

is far less of a freedom FOR something

than it is a freedom TO something.

We think of freedom as having no obligations.

But this kind of freedom

implies a serious, mutual, and mandatory obligation.

Friends,

the kind of freedom that we're used to //

is the very kind of freedom

that Paul says will get us hooked into slavery:

the slavery of thinking that we don't have enough

and we need more of whatever advertisers tell us we need;

the slavery of thinking that "I" is more important than "we,"

the slavery of thinking that my choices are okay,

whatever they are,

and that my choices have no impact at all on anyone else.

That is slavery //

because it takes work to maintain those fictions.

And working to maintain them

will hold us captive.

Worse yet,

that kind of thinking is slavery to a false god,

which makes it idolatry.

If we think those are the kinds of things

that give us freedom and life,

we are barking up the wrong tree.

In these twelve or thirteen verses,

Paul uses the word "law" three times,

and the word "love" three times.

He talks about "freedom" or "free" four times.

But with the exception of the Spirit,

the thing that Paul talks about more than any of those

is "one another."

Basically, we're stuck with each other.

In our baptisms,

the dividing walls came down.

We're all equals.

We're also all related now

as brothers and sisters in Christ.

That means that if we're all one in community,

then no one gets left behind.

You've heard the story

about why it is that geese fly in V formation.

They say that flying together in formation

reduces the amount of wind resistance,

which makes it easier for all of them to fly.

When the lead goose gets tired,

he or she can drop back into the formation

and another goose will come forward to take the lead.

And if one goose gets sick or injured,

another will drop out of the formation

to stay with him.

Or as Paul would say,

"Do not use your freedom

as an opportunity for self-indulgence,

but through love become slaves to one another."

In other words,

fly in formation so that we all get there.

Use the freedom that God has given us in Christ

not to sleep an extra hour,

but to serve others in God's name.

Get up early to go to Church Under the Bridge.

Give up a good Saturday to help neighbors in Gainesville.

Work on a Habitat house right here in Bonham.

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On Thursday,

a carload of us went down to Dallas

to take a tour of the Stewpot at First Presbyterian.

The Stewpot was started over thirty years ago

with paper bowls and plastic spoons

and a bowl of soup for whoever needed it.

Today,

they've evolved into an impressive,

multi-faceted ministry

that helps people find work,

get copies of birth certificates or marriage licenses,

learn how to use a computer keyboard and surf the internet,

and so much more.

They even help the clients become self-sufficient

through the sale of community newspapers

or works of art that they themselves create.

That's impressive enough.

But the thing that amazes me the most

about what they do

is the loving hospitality they show

to each and every one of their clients.

It's about so much more

than just throwing a bowl of soup on the table.  

The meal that they now serve

is something that any of us would enjoy eating.

They have moved to serving lunch on real dishes

with real silverware.

And their drinks are served in real glasses

by real human beings

who wait on them at their table.

And while they eat,

they get to enjoy live piano music

played by one of their fellow clients

who gets paid for doing so.

It's not just about meeting a need.

It's about providing quality of life

where little had existed before.

The people who run the Stewpot know

that our freedom in Christ

binds us in joyful obligation to one another.

This is where Harry Potter comes in.

If you've read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,

you've heard the term "splinching."

Splinching is what happens

when you magically move from one place to another,

or as J.K. Rowling would say,

when you apparate,

but you're not totally focused on apparating

and you end up leaving a bit of your body behind

where you came from.

Minister of Magic Wilkie Twycross

defines it this way:

"Splinching, or the separation of random body parts,

occurs when the mind is insufficiently determined.

You must concentrate continually upon your destination,

and move, without haste,

but with deliberation."

When you don't do that,

you'll get to where you wanted to go,

but when you arrive you might be missing a hand or a foot,

or maybe even your head.

Paul would agree with Harry Potter

that splinching is the last thing that should happen

to the church,

whether in Galatia or Great Britain or Bonham.

The goal is for the body of Christ

to arrive all in one piece,

not biting at one another,

not splinching into Jews and Greeks,

slaves and free,

liberals and conservatives, male and female,

but rather all the geese in one formation,

relying on each other's strength,

taking turns taking the lead,

apparating in the new destination as a whole.

That is what our freedom is for.

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Towards the latter part of our reading,

Paul begins to list the fruit of the Spirit.

Notice that Paul talks about the plural "works of the flesh,"

but that he mentions only one "fruit" of the Spirit.

Even those wonderful things are of one piece:

love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

gentleness and self-control.

All one fruit.

Notice also

that each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit

cannot be practiced in isolation.

The one, whole and complete fruit of the Spirit

has to do with one another.

It's hard to love

without having something or someone else to love.

Usually it is those things outside of ourselves that bring us joy.

It takes two or more people to make peace.

And being generous all by yourself is next to impossible.

Just as it takes all those good gifts together

to make up one complete fruit of the Spirit,

so in the same way

it takes each and every one of us

to make up one body of Christ:

whole, unsplinched and complete.

The kind of freedom that Scripture desires for us

is neither independence from all other people

nor liberty to do whatever we wish.

The freedom of the Spirit

sets us in loving obligation to one another,

and to every child of God,

because of the freedom we have been given

in being called children of God.

Amen.