Theological Truth: The good news of God in Christ is that we are freed from enslavement to our own needs and freed up to serve others.
Come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.
If you’ve spent any time around a toddler, you’ve probably heard this sentence: “NO! I do it myself!” I remember the first time my daughter said it. We were running late for preschool. I was collecting all the items required for surviving the day away from home while she struggled to put on her coat. When I attempted to take it from her and help her with it, I was met with what became a familiar saying: “No! I do it myself!”
Children insisting on doing things for themselves is an appropriate and important developmental phase. We want our children to assert their independence and learn to take care of themselves. The ability to hold down a job, raise a family, and be a contributing member of society is a good thing! There are many things on most days that we do need to do by ourselves, but not everything. Sometimes we need others, and sometimes others need us. Salvation, for example, is not a “do-it-myself” project. If we get stuck in a perpetual “I do it myself” mindset, we are in jeopardy of rejecting the grace of God and the support of others. If we are so fiercely independent and expect the same of others, we risk serving our own needs and ignoring the needs of others. An “I do it myself” mindset can metastasize into a callous “I got mine. You get yours” worldview.
That is not the worldview that Paul has come to know in his new life in Christ. Last week, Rev. Cara talked about the worldview Paul shared with the Galatians. It’s a worldview where distinctions are exposed for the failed social constructs that they are. There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28). This is the new life we have in Christ Jesus, the new way of seeing the world. As Cara noted, “Here, in the church, we are clothed with Christ, and we go back out into the world and seek Christ in each other. Here, in the church, we are clothed and fed and loved by Jesus, and then we go back out there and clothe and feed and love [each other]. (https://www.trinitystaunton.org/wearing-christ-not-just-a-jesus-t-shirt/) In Christ, we move from “I do it myself,” to “what Christ has done for me, I now do for others.”
Paul knows that this new reality — this new way of living — isn’t an obligation, it’s a liberation. In today’s reading from Galatians, Paul offers this encouraging reminder, “For freedom, Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). This is the freedom that God has promised us. Zechariah sang about it in what we call the Song of Zechariah. Do you remember that story? The angel announced to Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son, the prophet of the Most High, and he should be named John (the Baptizer). Zechariah doubted and was struck dumb. Upon the birth of his son, when Zechariah acknowledges his name and regains the ability to speak, he praises God in what we call the Song of Zechariah. He blesses God for the freedom we’ve received: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free…This is the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship him without fear” (Lk. 1:68-79). For freedom Christ has set us free.
But what are we freed from…and more importantly, what are freed for?
Well, let’s start with what we’re NOT free to do. That’s where Paul starts: “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence” (5:13b). We are not free to satisfy our every desire. In fact, what is translated as “self-indulgence” is the Greek word “sarx” which occurs five more times in our passage in its more familiar and literal translation: “the flesh.” So which is it: self-indulgence or the flesh? And how is that instructive in our new life in Christ?
Brigitte Kahl, New Testament Professor at Union Theological Seminary, sheds some light on the connection between “the Flesh” and self-indulgence. I agree with her when she says that, “The term Flesh is…one of the most misunderstood words in Paul’s theological vocabulary …. Paul himself describes the works of the Flesh in his list of “vices” with a clear focus on enmities, feuds, jealousy, anger, selfishness, divisions, et cetera (5:20). He mentions deadly infighting (5:15) and self-centered rivalries and competitive behavior (5:26).” She’s right in pointing out that “the Flesh” is about much more than the misuse of our bodily desires. (https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-13-3/commentary-on-galatians-51-13-25-6)
To Prof. Kahl, “[the] Flesh means: Not the physical body and its lusts …Rather, [the] Flesh is the ego-driven impulse, the passions and desires (5:24) of relentless self-promotion and self-interest at the expense of or in disregard of the other/s (5:26).” Paul is reminding us that thanks to our new freedom in Christ we can put away our self-indulgent appetites and ways. In the love of God made known by and in and through Christ, we have all we need…more than we could’ve asked or imagined. This is our new liberated reality, so beware of submitting again to the yoke of slavery to “the Flesh” – that “do it myself” mentality of “relentless self-promotion and self-interest,” which absorbs our attention, exhausts our souls, and makes us oblivious to others. We are no longer “I do it myself” people. We have been freed from that hell.
We are now one in Christ. We are now people of the Spirit. Free from the hands of our enemies; free to worship God without fear; free to love our neighbors as we have been loved. Free to live in and with the Spirit – as individuals, but also as a congregation, as a community, as a country.
I think that’s why I find trips to Honduras and Grace House on the Mountain so gratifying. The same reason tithing is such a helpful spiritual discipline. Both are ways to practice living into this freedom we have in Christ; opportunities to resist using this freedom for self-indulgence. Most of all, they become occasions to experience the fruits of life in the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As we approach once more the celebration of our independence as a nation, I hope we will remember that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Having been freed from this “I do it myself” mentality, I hope we will resist the temptation to use our God-given freedoms for self-indulgence. Instead, may we live by the Spirit of Christ, loving our neighbor as our selves. This is the freedom for which Christ has set us free.
