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Letters Thirteenth Sunday
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The Catholic Telegraph
June 29, 2001The Lectionary continues its semi-continuous series of readings from Galatians. In chapters three and four Paul has been speaking to the Galatians about the relationship between faith and freedom, about how commitment to Christ liberates them from the demands of observing the law of the Old Testament. Now, in chapter 5, he offers them practical advice about Christian living. (A section of practical moral guidance toward the end of Paul’s letters is one of their standard components.)
This Sunday’s live letter begins with a bridge verse that unites the two portions of the letter and then goes on to offer general moral principles. In the verses that follow this Sunday reading, he will give a list of behaviors unacceptable for a Christian believer, followed by another list of virtuous outcomes of life in the Spirit.
First, then, the general statement that ties what he has been saying with what is now to come: Christ has freed us, he says, so that we could be free, but we have to be careful not to fall back into slavery. Paul sees submission to the observance of the Jewish law as slavery. In verses 2-12, which the Lectionary omits, he points out one more time that an attempt to win justification through observance of the law, specifically through circumcision, is not compatible with life in Christ.
Now come the general moral principles. The first is that our having been freed by Christ does not mean that any and all kinds of behavior are acceptable. Rather, our freedom in Christ calls us to a new kind of service, the service of one another in love. Paul suggests that freedom involves a new kind of law, that of loving our neighbor as ourselves. If the Galatians keep on fighting with one another instead of loving one another, they will end up destroying themselves.
The second moral principle is that our freedom in Christ does not liberate us from all temptation. "The desires of the flesh," i.e., the inclinations of our previous, unredeemed self, are still alive in us and we have to oppose those desires with the power that comes to us through the Spirit of Christ in us. Living in Christ is not a matter of following our human inclinations wherever they might lead us.
Finally, a one liner that repeats what Paul has said so often in this letter: you are not subject to the (Jewish) law if you have accepted Christ and His Spirit.
This passage uses several terms that occur frequently in Paul’s writings, and it’s important that we be aware of their meaning for him and his readers.
"Freedom" refers to the state of being a citizen, of belonging, of having civil and social rights. Its opposite is slavery. When Paul speaks of freedom, he is using it more or less as a synonym for justification, redemption, salvation, sanctification. It is a state by which we are at home in the household of God, no longer subject to somebody else’s rules and regulations (the slavery of the law) that determined our behavior without really being able to establish us as full and free members of the family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (It is not that Paul sees the Jewish law as simply bad, but as making demands on us that we could not fulfill because of our sinful nature and as calling for observances like circumcision that were simply not redemptive.)
Paul also speaks of "the flesh." We tend to think of the flesh as having something to do with sexual sins. For Paul the term has a wider meaning. It signifies our humanity insofar as it is still unredeemed. It suggests our inborn self-interested hostility toward God, our unhealthy self-reliance and selfishness. The flesh gives rise to the sorts of things that Paul lists in verses 19 to 21 (not included in our liturgical reading, but worth reading over and thinking about).
"The Spirit," on the other hand, is our new self in Christ, constituted by the presence of the Holy Spirit and governed by the Spirit’s power and action in us. It is the Spirit that gives new dimensions of spirituality to our lives, new capacities for relating to the world and to other people, new potential for eternal life with and in Christ. Some of the outcomes of being in the Spirit are catalogued in verses 22 and 23, all of which are connected with love and care for our neighbor.
Paul’s main theme in Galatians was one that does not seem particularly important and urgent for us: the Christian believer’s deliverance from the demands of the Mosaic law. Yet in the process of dealing with this now irrelevant problem, he teaches about matters that are of crucial personal importance for each of us. He tells us about the implications of faith and freedom. He reminds us of our own limitations, even after we have been redeemed by Christ. He invites us to be attentive to the implications of our life in Christ. Best of all, he reassures us of the presence and the action of the Spirit in our lives.
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Conversation Questions
Where do I experience freedom in my life?
Are there elements of slavery in my life?
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