Galatians 3:23-29
Proper 7 (12) - Year C
Our expectations act as law. They rein us in. Self-censorship is always alive and well. We are well bounded by expectations of others and of ourselves. This is a protective function that serves a purpose—for awhile.
At some point an amazing grace of no longer needing the authority of law or custom, but taking authority beyond either becomes possible. This is where there are no laws against the amount of joy one can have or degree of patience one can demonstrate. There is no constraint regarding kindness or who can be welcomed. Some call this faith, some a gift of one religious leader or another, and some simply being human. By whatever name, to come to an experience where a new invitation to health is hearable is like a drink of cool, clean water to a parched life.
One way to follow the biblical storyline is to note experience after experience where expectations fail, where law fails. This is sort of a “Who’d a-thunk it!” approach to spirituality. When the unexpected happens and we are attentive enough to note it, a new person is set loose, a new people is released. To this day we are using categories to divide, not just to describe: My religious/spirit group and every other, those enslaved by systems and those benefiting from any given economic structure, those of one sexual orientation and those of any of the others. Discrimination abounds. This list is infinitely extendable to residents and aliens, one generation and all others, my privilege and your privileges, and on and on. New separations are continually cropping up.
Just as mono-culturing is dangerous for agriculture, mono-culturing is harmful to community. Sameness leads to weakness, blindness, and falling off a cliff. All manner of seeds and gifts are needed to be able to flourish. If you only belong here, you don’t belong anywhere. If you belong everywhere, you definitely belong here.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/06/galatians-323-29.html
There is a sense in which living under the external discipline of the law is easy. Things are either legal or not (or being judged or legislated to become legal or not). One can be a good citizen of the Land of Law relatively easily.
There is also a discipline of the faith, an internal discipline. In many ways the faith is a more difficult disciplinarian than the law. Children of G*D are not simply adjudicators of a developed and developing set of laws found to have been helpful, so far. Children of G*D are to identify and anticipate relationships beyond past and present — relationships based on Christ Jesus and the teaching of Holy Spirit of more difficult decisions than previously considered available to us.
A part of the difficulty is not just that of discernment but that of putting old decisions behind us. To live in between disciplinarians is to risk the consequences of offending the law to follow new relationships. This risks our body. To live between disciplinarians risks the consequences of offending the faith to follow old relationships. This risks our soul.
Choose your disciplinarian. Choose your mentor. Choose your risk.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
A note in the NISB says, "In Romans, a less dispassionate letter, Paul presents a more balanced view of the Law."
I wonder if the editor fell asleep there and meant "less passionate". This is one of the eternal issues with Law - editing it. It seems there is never enough clarity with legalisms because real life keeps getting in the way. Passions flare and our strict readings of the Law keep getting skewed by them, but unconsciously so because we would never willingly adhere to anything but their clear meaning. Of course, we do skew.
To clothe ourselves with Christ is to enter exactly into unstrict readings where who can tell who is Greek or Jew, free or slave, female or male? Here we will live in Promise Land oriented toward the future rather than Promised Land of claimed deeds.
So it is that Baptism leads us in strange ways to a choice of the Beloved Community or Distinguishable and Distinct Subgroupings. You may want to browse a sermon [missing url] based on a book [ We Were Baptized Too: Claiming God's Grace for Lesbians and Gays ] about how Baptism puts us in the middle of Life, not Law.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
Faith comes very close to freedom.
If faith were not free it would not be faith. Likewise with hope and love.
If faith did not lead to freedom it would not be faith. Likewise with forgiveness and grace.
There are times when we get so caught up in freedom that we lose the faith engine that drives it ever onward and more expansively. In today's world news, listen for the use of "freedom" and substitute the word "faith." See if the proposition declared still holds. If it does, ask what faith is being proposed and whose freedom is being sacrificed for this faith.
- - -
no longer
two wonderful words
no longer
this or that
no longer
you or me
no longer
chosen or unchosen
no longer
male or female
no longer
slave or free
no longer
leads to longer
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
Faithfulness is another name for Jesus. He was faithful in his journey with and appreciation of the presence of G*D.
Here is the NRSV version with transposed names.
Now before Jesus came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until Jesus would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until faithfulness came, so that we might be justified by Jesus. But now that Jesus has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in revealed faithfulness you are all children of God through Jesus. As many of you as were baptized into faithfulness have clothed yourselves with faithfulness. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in revealed faithfulness. And if you belong to faithfulness, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
On a quick reading, if you weren't one who had memorized this passage you might, at first reading, not note the transposition. When thinking of Jesus it is helpful to consider what you think he was faithful to. This is a more helpful way of engaging Jesus imagery than what has been said about Jesus or claimed for Jesus.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/06/galatians-323-29.html