The lectionary texts for this week are here. I’m reflecting on the gospel reading, and I used the Message translation to reflect on the passage from Galatians.
Last week we heard a chunk of the letter to the Galatians and a snippet from Luke’s account telling about what happened at the start of Jesus’ long and winding journey to Jerusalem.
This week we move on in both the letter and the journey. Paul is still laying out for the Galatians what it means to submit to the pressure of those teachers, who were insisting on the ritual practices of Judaism for Christian believers, and what it means to live free from the need to perform, perfect, please and pacify others.
Living into this kind of freedom is a slow process. How did you find it over the past week? Did you catch yourself being fuzzy to avoid conflict? Did you catch yourself pushing forward with focussed clarity and not noticing how much others are bending to get out of your way? If you didn’t, well, it could be that you totally forgot about it within a few hours, or it could be that you started to realise how hard it is to spot your own patterns that keep you from being free and from growing in love.
You may feel differently about this, but I find Paul’s letters to be overwhelmingly full of advice and instructions on how to live, how to behave and what to believe as well as what not to do or believe. It’s really difficult to take all of this on board, and we do tend to read large sections at once. In today’s reading, we are offered over a dozen different areas to work on, and last week’s assignment was hardly a simple task.
The format of the letter, and the way that we have mostly experienced being taught – which is that the teacher talks and the students listen, take notes and then answer questions in an exam – can easily give the impression that we are meant to hear Paul’s teaching, take it on board as best we can and then when we die our lives will be examined to see how well we did.
So, I hope you might be comforted to know that when Paul dictated this letter – well, most of it, although we heard in this segment that he also wrote in his own hand to give emphasis to the significance of what he is trying to communicate – anyway, the letter would have been carried by someone to the leaders of the church, however far away that was, and they would have read it at a gathering. The listeners would have questions – of course! They’d want to know what did that mean? Was Paul saying….? Who told him that…? What about when….? Or what if….?
And the person who had carried the letter would have helped explain its meaning.
We know from the two surviving letters we have to the church in Corinth that the church also wrote letters back to Paul – imagine being part of that letter writing evening! And we know that we actually have what seem most likely to be letters one and three merged with parts of letter number four. So, a letter like this one to the Galatians would have given the community resources for months of conversation, questions, reflections and practice. Which means that while it’s tempting to pull out more areas for us to attend to, I’m going to resist.
Instead, I want to draw your attention to the broad theme of the first few paragraphs, where the Message translation gives us a wonderful fresh perspective on the rather curt and staccato instructions we have here.
This is how Eugene Peterson gives a more human, slightly less urgent voice to Paul’s instructions:
Live creatively. Be creative with forgiveness and grace, be creative with compassion and humility. Be creative with the place you’ve been planted and the people in your ecosystem – be creative with the inner resources you have. And don’t concern yourself with comparing your creative best with others.
Because this general approach will also serve us as we consider the story from Luke of the 70 or 72 disciples being sent out to greet, eat, heal and thereby announce, reveal and embody that the kingdom of God has come near.
This familiar story can also sound overwhelming to our ears. Going out door knocking is just not a culturally appropriate mode of communication anymore. Neither is standing on street corners and singing songs or shouting warnings disguised as sermons.
Jesus’ instructions about travelling light and trusting in the providence of God have certainly led to some great stories of last minute miracles and roadside conversions, but like Paul’s letter, we do a disservice to the text if we interpret this sending out as a template for mission or the best way to live out faith.
Live creatively, Paul says, not following habitual patterns of unfreedom, not shackled by religious dictates. Live creatively with grace, find creative ways to offer compassion and to practice humility.
Travelling light may help with that – not clinging to anything and receiving all of life as a gift is definitely a creative response to the ups and downs of being human.
Trusting in God’s provision is certainly going to help you live creatively because so often God’s provision is not what we expect. Often God’s provision comes in sideways or backwards – it’s the unexpected shared laugh in the midst of things going to custard.
It’s the gentle stroke of a hand when you need comfort or the touch on the arm. It’s a meal delivered just after you move house and everything is in chaos. It’s the kind word, the caring question. When we see these things as God’s provision, we are living creatively with the particular life that is ours.
And when we see those things we do as acts of mercy, as grace and compassion and kindness, we are also changed. The kingdom of God comes forth in us and through us by our actions and our interactions with others.
Love, when we open ourselves to receive and to give, love transforms us. When we have loved another, we are never the same. Every loving encounter, every loving expression expands us just a little bit more. It may not be a measurable amount, and the patterns of unfreedom are ready to snap that opening back whenever love brings with it the pain of loss, betrayal or rejection. And it almost always brings at least one of those. But if we have courage to love, then love will change us and grow us – no door knocking required.
The history of our tradition bears witness to the multitudes of faithful Christians who have lived in ways that announce, reveal and embody the kingdom of God. No doubt you know people, there are people in this congregation whose lives announce, reveal and embody the grace, forgiveness, creativity, love and compassion of the kingdom. For sure that’s patchy – but you know what they say – practice makes progress.
So friends, let’s live creatively. Let’s live courageously.
Let love expand you a little this week and see if you can compassionately catch yourself in a pattern of unfreedom. And to help you, I’ve made a little card with a question for you to ask yourself, or your friend, or family member or life partner: When was the last time you felt free? You can answer this question in so many different ways, so ask it more than once, and listen for what freedom sounds like for others, and for yourself and then be creative!
