June 26, 2016
Text: Galatians 5:1,13-25
Paul’s letter to the Galatians reads:
"For freedom Christ has set us free. Do not submit yourselves again to slavery.”
"For you were called for freedom. Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Serve one another in love. Live by the Spirit."
In the early part of the letter, Paul talks about circumcision. In the early church one of the tensions going on was between a group called the Judaizers, who were mainly Jewish Christians wanted to impose Jewish law and practices on Christians at that time, like circumcision. This is one of the earliest recorded tensions in the early Christian church. Paul condemned the Judaizers and this imposition. This became especially a problem when they wanted to evangelize the Gentiles, moving out of the Jewish area and going to the Gentiles to talk about Christ and the gospel.
Paul puts the emphasis on the Jerwish law as slavery, especially slavery to the practices of the flesh—eg. Drinking and sexual abuses—which were a common practice in many Pagan groups at the time. Christians especially condemned these practices. Paul says, do not be slaves to the flesh. Do not use your freedom for these excesses.
Freedom is a favorite word today in many places. I jump from our emphasis on to Paul’s emphasis on freedom from the slavery of the flesh. And this brings me to thoughts of the struggles that I am going through these days.
For I am faced with the thought and realities of growing old and the realities of the flesh and the aches and pains—the aching knees or lessening strength—of growing old along with the thought of what comes after.
We can look upon all of this with humor. I met a man the other day wearing a T-shirt that said: “I have reached the age where the happy-hour now means a nap.” It’s one way of looking at what I am going through and at what many of us in this community are going through. I comfort myself with that.
I comfort myself with prayer. A favorite is the prayer of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a prayer for the grace to age well:
When the signs of age begin to mark my body
(and still more when they touch my mind):
When the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off
Strikes me from without or is born within me:
When the painful moment comes
In which I suddenly awaken
To the fact that I am ill or growing old:
And above all at that last moment
When I feel I am losing hold of myself
And am absolutely passive within the hands
Of the great unknown forces that have formed me:
In all those dark moments, O God,
Grant that I may understand that it is You
(provided only my faith is strong enough)
Who are painfully parting the fibers of my being
In order to penetrate to the very marrow
Of my substance and bear me away within yourself.”
Being with you and having this community is also a source of comfort during these days. Being alone is one of the terrible fears of old age, and I have been living here in the US for more than twenty years, living alone—but now in this community, I am not alone.
It is here where I share the gifts of the Spirit, where we serve one another in love, in unconditional love, sharing the spirit.
I would like to end by sharing with you a poem by Franz Wright titled “The First Supper”
Death, heaven, bread, breath and the sea
here.
to scare me
But I too will be fed by
the other food
that I know nothing
of, the breath
the death
the sea of
it
Day
when the almond does not
blossom and the grasshopper drags itself along
But if You can make a star from nothing You can raise me up
So here I am, challenged by the resurrection.
It’s a challenge for me because we’ve never met someone who has come back from the dead. Yet it is the hope of something that is unknown.
Thank you.