Galatians 6
For freedom Christ has set us
free.
When you think about freedom,
what do you think of?
Here’s what stock photos
thinks of freedom.
Do you all know what stock
photos are?
They are generic
professional
photos advertisers
and marketing people use in
their work.
If you google in one word and
click “images”
you’ll get a mess of stock
photos
that fit your particular word.
Sometimes this can give you
a
little window into
 |
| FREEDOM: Something to do with holding your arms up in the air alone. |
what the national image of a
particular word.
When I click in freedom,
I
get a lot of pictures like this:
A lot of pictures like this.
In the gospel according to
stock photos,
Freedom is apparently about
putting your arms up like this.
It’s also about being alone
and loving it.
Not worrying about another
person or thing.
Free from chains,
responsibility, free from other people all together.
Mind you,
I have no problem
with being alone.
Doing things alone, being
alone.
I like being alone. I relish it.
Alone is a great thing, it’s
part of a healthy life.
But when we hear that Christ
has made us free,
we shouldn’t confuse Christ’s
freedom
with the rugged
individualistic freedom.
Like Paul told us last week,
we are freed in our
relationship with God
in order to serve one another.
 |
| WORSHIP: Something to do with holding your hands up in the air alone. |
Coincidentally, or not coincidentally,
If you do the same thing with
the stock photos
and look up WORSHIP,
this is what you’ll find:
Now, I don’t think it’s a
coincidence,
because I think this is what
American individualism
has done to worship too.
This is what the law does to
the gospel.
My status before God becomes
the sum of
MY faith, MY love, MY
dedication to Jesus.
MY ability to put God first
in MY life..
But the gospel of Jesus is
not about ME, it’s about us.
Just a little review, the law
was given to us,
and it was good, it gave us
guidance,
a way to live together in
harmony.
As Paul said in Chapter 3,
the law was just a disciplinarian
a guardian, a baby sitter:
24 Therefore
the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came,
There was nothing wrong with
the law per say.
But human sinfulness being
what it is,
we took the law, we take the
laws and instead of just it for
keeping us safe and living
life together harmoniously,
we made our whole
relationship with God
based on whether we followed
the law or not.
This led to competition,
condemnation, judgment and division.
Our relationship with God
became a
competition that none of us
could ever live up to.
And this doesn’t just go for
Jewish law,
this goes for all laws in religion
and life
which we believe determine
how we rate in God’s eyes.
Richard Rohr Calls it the
“Performance Principle”
or our own “private salvation
plan”
and that’s exactly what it
is. Private.
By nature, having a
relationship with God based on the law is law is isolating.
When we are busy climbing
up those ladders
our focus is how we’re
doing on it.
God is full of grace only
when we do right or we repent.
And we use solitary words
in our description
I believe. I’m saved.
Jesus Christ is MY
PERSONAL Lord and Savior.
Our focus is ourselves,
how are we doing up that
ladder?
Where are we, how have we
improved.
And other people become barometers for comparison.
How are they doing with
that ladder climbing?
Are they better than me?
Should I idolize them?
Are they worse than me?
Should I condemn them?
And much of Christian religion
has gone on this road
and still goes on this
road.
Even those that claim to
believe in God’s grace.
There is still often an
element of judgment,
and a worship of success.
It’s human nature.
It does it in these overt
ways, and in more subtle ways.
One way that I see
Christian Churches go in this direction
is the 7 ways sermons.
These were some I found
from various preachers:
7 Ways to Love your
Mother, 5 Ways To De-stress, 7 ways to please God.
And a lot of this
information is sound advice.
But it’s not about the quality
of the advice given.
This is self-help
Christianity.
You can do this. You can
do seven steps. You can do it!
It’s not about God it’s
about us.
And the insinuation is
that our relationship
with God is based on our
ability to do them.
It becomes another ladder
to climb up.
But what if I miss a step.
What if I can’t do those steps?
What if someone else I
know doesn’t follow those ways?
And In chapter 3, Paul
says that Christ crucifixion took that away.
Jesus failed the 7 ways of
religion,
the 5 steps to be a better
Messiah
The holy one became cursed
and condemned,
so that the cursed and
condemned could become holy.
And the people that have
heard this gospel and received
believe in this wonderful
gift now have the opportunity
to live a different way:
We live for each other,
we come to the bottom of
that ladder and care for the unloved.
As Paul writes in this
last part of the letter we read.
This is from the Message
by Eugene Peterson:
Live
creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin,
forgivingly
restore them, saving your critical comments for yourself.
You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out.
Stoop
down and reach out to those who are oppressed.
Share
their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law.
If
you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
The Message
or as we hear it in the NRSV
2 Bear
one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Share other’s worries, bear one another’s
burdens.
This is the mark of the community of
Christ.
It’s not an individual thing.
Salvation is not a solitary thing,
It’s not just for one person to reach the
top of the ladder.
Salvation is not a personal thing, it’s a
group thing.
Since no one is going up that ladder any
more,
all we have left to do is care for everyone
stuck at the bottom.
Bear one another’s burdens. Lift each
other.
And share the freedom that we have found in
Christ.
When we do just that, we have fulfilled
all that the law was supposed to do in the
first place.
This is the gospel’s picture of freedom.
This is worship.
This is how the law of Christ is fulfilled.
Now, you think this kind of
thing would be easy,
not controversial, everyone
would love it.
Helping other people,
standing with each other and the oppressed.
But it’s not. The grip of the
law is strong on us.
We relish in our own egos our
own accomplishments.
Treating everyone as an equal
throws off our equilibrium.
And some people fight hard
against that.
And bearing one another’s
burdens means
standing with the cursed and
the oppressed.
The immigrant and refugee,
the despised and the condemned
even standing with our
enemies at times.
And then we’re accused of
coddling, encouraging bad behavior.
and the way of Jesus is
followed,
it necessarily creates
tension with the world.
it challenges the powers of
this world,
it disrupts the status quo. It
becomes political.
People are offended and
opposed.
Because that ladder has
created so many systems
and now God is saying that
they are irrelevant.
Freedom can be disorienting.
Freedom can feel like a
punishment.
The world doesn’t necessarily
want this kind of freedom.
So the world resists it.
Just like those Foolish
Galatians.
They were freed by the gospel
from their oppressed position
in the Roman Empire,
and slavery to Roman law.
And then they traded in that
freedom they got from the gospel
for slavery to another kind
of law
and started to demand that,
in order to be a Christian,
all the men had to be
circumcised.
They went back to their
comfort zone.
The hierarchy of inside and
outside.
Which is what angered Paul
and drove him to write this letter.
And, I wish I could say that
the Galatians listened to Paul’s letter.
But the chances are they
didn’t.
Or they probably went like the
rest of the church,
and they took away the
requirement of circumcision
and built another ladder with
of all sorts of other requirements
in order to earn God’s love
and forgiveness.
But we thank God that Paul
wrote this letter for us,
and for every generation. So
we can keep understanding
what the gospel of Jesus has
done for us.
And we can know what true
freedom is:
the freedom that we get
through the love of God and Jesus.
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