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Letters Fourteenth Sunday
in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
July 6, 2001As Paul reaches the end of his letter to the Galatians, he takes the pen out of the hand of his stenographer and writes the last few lines personally (cf. 6.11). In extra-large letters he sums up what he has been saying to them in a series of more or less disconnected final comments. It’s almost as if he is raising his voice to them so that they will give appropriate attention to what he has to say.
He tells them that those who want them to sign on to Judaism by getting circumcised are really trying to avoid persecution. These Judaizers would have Christians appear as a sect of Judaism so that they could enjoy the special treatment that the Roman authorities had granted to the Jews. It may also be that the Judaizers wanted the Galatians to adopt Jewish practices so that they, the Judaizers, could boast about the converts that they had made.
We are now at the beginning of this Sunday’s liturgical reading. When it comes to boasting, Paul says, all I want to boast about is the cross of Christ. As a result of the faithful self-giving that Christ expressed on the cross, my association with the world, with sinfulness and selfishness, is now over. I have nothing more to do with the world nor the world with me. Being circumcised or not being circumcised are both irrelevant. What matters is the "new creation," i.e., our new life in the crucified and risen Christ.
He then calls down blessings on those who "follow this rule," i.e., who give primary importance to the outcomes of the death and resurrection of Christ. They constitute God’s new chosen people, "the Israel of God."
Then comes a personal observation. Just as slaves were sometimes identified by having their master’s name branded onto their bodies, so Paul can be identified by the marks of Christ on his body: the scars from the floggings and stonings he had suffered in the course of his apostolic ministry. People (including, one supposes, the Judaizers in Galatia) should not make any more trouble for him because, if they do, they will have to answer to his master, Christ.
At last comes a more or less bland and ordinary closing in which Paul prays for the grace of Christ for the spirit of those to whom he has written.
In this Sunday’s reading we see and hear Paul repeating the basic message of this letter as emphatically as he can: WHAT MATTERS IS NOT OBSERVANCE OF JEWISH RITUAL LAW BUT THE CROSS OF CHRIST.
The cross of Christ was the sign of Jesus’ human self-gift in love and faithfulness to His heavenly Father. Its significance did not consist primarily in the pain and suffering that accompanied Jesus’ death, but in the generosity and obedience that Jesus’ death expressed. Herein lay the ground work for a new relationship between God and humanity. Because God demonstrated His acceptance of Jesus’ gift of Himself on the cross by raising Him from the dead, and because that new life of the risen Christ continues forever, there now existed the possibility of a new life in Christ for all those who would accept Jesus in faith, a new life that would not be bounded by time and space, nor by specifically Jewish religious observances.
All other religious practices have now been rendered irrelevant or secondary by the primacy of the cross of Christ. It is the cross that matters. That’s what puts us in touch with the Father. That’s what gives importance to each and every one of us. That’s what gives us something to rely on.
Our importance in God’s sight does not depend on our being circumcised, on our being Jewish. Our importance in God’s sight consists in our being remade into the image of the crucified and risen Christ, in our bearing the ownership marks of Christ. We have nothing to claim as our own, nothing to boast about. Our only claim to worth and value consists in our connection with the crucified Jesus.
It’s easy to see how Paul could get so frustrated with the Galatians. He had taught them about the generosity of the Father through Jesus, about the free gift of the Spirit that came with their acceptance of and response to Christ. They seemed to think that what Paul had taught them was too good to be true. God couldn’t possibly be that generous. God had to be looking for something more from them. They were ready to bind themselves to all the countless details of Jewish observance in order to persuade themselves that they had earned God’s attention.
Paul practically shouts at them: "You can’t earn. You can’t deserve. All you can do is accept. If you want to try to earn and deserve, you will be selling yourselves back into slavery when God want to make you free. It makes much more sense simply to receive the new creation that God offers you. That’s how you become authentic members of God’s people. Yours truly, Paul."
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Conversation Questions
What signs of belonging to Christ do I bear?
How is the death of Jesus important for me?
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