For Freedom Christ Has Made Us Free - Galatians 4

Galatians 4

Paul, Paul, Paul

Sometimes Paul drives me crazy and this is one of those times.

Paul just got finished with telling us that in Christ there is no Slave or free

And then in this chapter, he goes on to use an extended metaphor which uses the fact

that the children of a slave woman are not as good as the children of free woman.

I usually talk about how things are the same

between people in those days and people in these days,

but thankfully, things like this tell us that things

have certainly changed over the years.

Talk of slaves and one child being better than another

just because of who they were born to really sounds terrible to us these days.

There are still many issues in our world,

but I think we are moving toward justice, understanding, peace, tolerance.

And I think part of the reason things are going in the

direction they’re going is because of Jesus

ministry and because of Paul’s letters and statements that he made like this.

Now the Church at times  has fought much of this progress  tooth and nail.

And it seems in this chapter and others that Paul contradicts himself.

But honestly, Paul was a revolutionary and I don’t know that he fully grasped

all the effects of what he was proposing for society and the world.

The Spirit was driving him to things and say things and he didn’t even

understand all the ramifications of what he was doing and saying,

but we’ve felt them generations later.

So even though Paul’s example of the child of a slave

verses the child of a free person is kind of rough today,

Paul has a point here that’s worth explaining.

He’s appealing again to the father of the Jewish people, Abraham.

Remember last week, we talked about how

Abraham was promised that he and his wife, Sara

would have a child and that child would

enable Abraham to be the father of many nations.

That story is in Genesis 17.

Before that story in Genesis 16,

we hear about Abram and Sarai (Abraham and Sara’s previous name)

before they received God’s promise.

They were desperate for a child, but were not having any luck,

so Sarai had an idea. SLIDE

She had a Egyptian Slave named Hagar,

Abram could have a child with her .

(Not that they asked Hagar if she wanted to do that.)

So they tried that out and this arrangement

produced a child named Ishmael.

But eventually as God had promised,

Sarah had a child and his name was Isaac.

But eventually, Sara got jealous of Hagar

and Ishmael and she had Abraham throw

Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert.

Abraham was sad,

but God told Abraham not to worry because he

would make a great nation of Ishmael too.

(I would worry more about food and water)

Now as Paul says, this story is a metaphor an allegory.

It’s usually used to explain how the different strains of

Semitic people came to be,

and the relation between the Jewish and Islamic faith.

Normally, based on this story, the Jews and Christians

are said to be the descendants of Isaac

and Muslims are descendants of Ishmael.

This story is often used to prove who is worthier than who

and that the conflicts between the two groups are ordained by God.

But Paul doesn’t really talk about blood lines.

He says that they represent two covenants:

Ishmael represents the earthly Jerusalem, the people of the law,

No matter what religion they are,

Jewish, Roman, or Christians  -- those who judge by the hand of the law.

And Isaac represents the people of the Jerusalem above, the children of the promise.

And Christ has made anyone who believes children of the promise.

He says that the Galatians were given freedom,

and made free by the gospel of Jesus.
And now they have a choice –

Slavery to the law, or freedom by faith.

For freedom, Christ has set us free.

So don’t return to the yoke of slavery.

And Paul believes,

if the Galatians believe they need to be circumcised

to receive God’s grace, they are choosing to be slaves again.

Which brings up a legitimate question,

why would the Galatians want to require circumcision?

why would they want to be circumcised as adults?

On the face of it, there doesn’t seem to be any pay-off or benefit.

Just a lot of pain. It would not meet with their self-interest.

For that answer, let’s go back to Roman society.

Remember we talked about the fact that

 Romans had a strict way for people to act in their society?

For people to justify themselves and earn their righteousness.

Follow the law and you move up (and the leaders of your group move up),

Don’t’ follow the law and you’re cursed.

And one of the laws to follow was to worship their gods

and their Caesar, the leader who was seen

as the savior of the world (familiar name)

and the human being who was so successful

that he had reached the status of god.

But Jews were the odd monotheistic ones out

and they only worshipped one God.

This led to centuries of conflicts and disagreements.

A lot of Romans scapegoating Jewish people,

because Romans saw the Jews

as the ones who were ruining everything.

But he Romans, did pride themselves on their tolerance of other religions

and eventually, after a lot of killing and realizing the Jews weren’t giving in on this,

 the Jews and the Romans came to an understanding.

Even if it was uneasy most of the time.

The Jews could do their weird monotheistic Yahweh One God of Israel thing,

And they would be identified by their circumcision.

(Because no reasonable Roman would ever want to do that!)

And the Jews would acquiesce to other habits of the Romans,

The Jewish leaders would kowtow to Roman authority and wishes,

they would put down rebellions, they would fight Rome’s enemies,

they would have their people pay considerable taxes to Rome.

And with this arrangement,

the Jewish leaders, like King Herod,

and the chief priests,

and the Pharisees like Saul (who became Paul)

got a lot of the perks and riches  and benefits

It worked.

You can probably see why a guy like Jesus wouldn’t really work

for Herod or the Chief priests and Pharisees

and their arrangement with the Roman Empire.

And even worse for them,

after the Jewish leaders and the Romans kill him,

They still have the Christians, who are worshipping one God

and not worshipping the other gods or the emperor,

AND they’re getting more gentile pagans to join

AND we can’t tell them from the rest of the people.

Because they’re not being circumcised

These followers of Jesus were messing everything up for the
powerful Jews who had successfully assimilated into Roman Society,

and who often sold out their own people for

a bit of power and comfort.

And wouldn’t it just be easier for a newly vanquished person

in Roman society – like the Galatians

to just get circumcised and fit in and slip by

with the same arrangement that the Jews had

instead of sticking out and upsetting the apple cart

and messing it up for the rest of us?

Then the Galatians could get in on some of those perks that the Romans liked to give.

Just get along. Behave. Assimilate into society

and everyone will be happy -- and maybe some will even get wealthy.

It was the Roman way.

But, this is Paul’s point, - that isn’t free.

The Galatians are cashing in the real prize for some Roman trinkets.

It’s gaining the world and losing your soul.

Christ made us free so that we could stay free.

Not so we could submit ourselves

to another set of constraints.

It’s like the Israelites telling Moses they want to go back

to slavery in Egypt so that they could get cucumbers, melon, and onions.

It’s trading in God’s big promises for a temporary comfort.

Can you think of  times when people are asked to do that?

Trade in big dreams for little comforts?

Maybe we’ve been tempted to do that too?

One more recent event in history reminds me of this.

Most of us know Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

It’s often considered one of King’s Greatest letters

and it was written while he was sitting in a jail cell,

like many of Paul’s letters were.

He was arrested for “an unlawful assembly”

It was written to Birmingham area clergy.

The white, Birmingham area clergy -

Bishops, rabbis, and pastors -

had written an open letter which was published

in the Birmingham newspaper four days earlier.

It was called “A Call For Unity”

These religious leaders had actually been on the side of civil rights

and hand done some work in the area of civil rights. They were the “good guys.”

But now that  Martin Luther King came to protest in Birmingham,

they were apparently feeling the heat of the conflict.

They wrote not to King directly, but basically to the city itself:

We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support

from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham.

When rights are consistently denied, 

a cause should be pressed

in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.

We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry

to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.

Basically, the white clergy wanted the protests and demonstrations to stop.

They wanted the black people of Birmingham who suffered some of the

worst laws of segregation of any city in the south to just go back and fit in

and take things up in the court like civilized people.

Just behave. Don’t make trouble for us or yourself.

Let’s just keep things like they are,

because things were getting uncomfortable.

Trade in the big dream for the temporary comfort.

These were the good guys too.

The ones who were for civil rights.

Martin Luther responded four days later,

with the longest,  most eloquent,  NO in the history of letters.

Here’s just  a snippet.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself,

and that is what has happened to the American Negro.

Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom,

and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.

 Could you see if Martin Luther King said yes to that request?

Could you see if he said,

"You’re right. I’m uncomfortable.

We’re all uncomfortable.  

Let’s stop the protests and demonstrations

and just keep it civilized.”

The civil Rights movement may never have happened,

and we might have been fighting government authorized apartheid

in this country into the 70’s or 80’s or even today.

But that’s not even the worst of it.

There’s a more sinister kind of slavery and segregation

the one that is internalized. The one that is self-imposed.

The one that says that this is the way it should be.

The self-imposed slavery that says that God has ordained and imposed

what is evident in the outside world.

That’s what Paul was so angry about.

That’s what the Galatians were in danger of.

It’s not about being circumcised,

It’s about believing that they needed to be circumcised,

believing  that they needed to earn God’s grace and love.

That they weren’t worthy.

Sometimes people are in jail cells.

Sometimes people live in societies that oppress them.

Sometimes people are not physically free.

And that is terrible.

But the real sadness is when we freely trade in our

integrity and our God-given identity and grace for a few comforts.

When we give up God’s kingdom for  a few Melons and onions.

That is the slavery that we impose on ourselves.

The jail cells that are the worst are not the ones outside.

The jails that are inside us are the ones that do the most damage to us.

When we think that this is all we deserve.

That what we see is all God wants for us.

SLIDE

Listen to this poem by Maya Angelou,

https://youtu.be/rZzOxWAxde0?t=18s

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

A free bird leaps on the back

Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange sun’s rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

For freedom, Christ has made us free.

Don’t trade that gift in for cucumbers or melons or fear.

God gave this gift to us,

let’s not throw it away.

Let us stay free.