Galatians 5:1, 13-25
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
This is the second in our This I Believe sermon series, inspired by Edward R. Murrow on the radio back in 1951 and NPR in more recent times. Today’s topic: This I believe—All are loved. It sounds obvious, like a bumper sticker from a beach store: Life is Good. A sweet pawprint “Who rescued who?” But, what if believing that all are loved is the most radical—and risky—claim we could make right now? In a world that’s divided and devouring itself, what if our freedom has everything to do with how we love our neighbors?
It’s radical because it declares that every person – regardless of politics, pronouns, past mistakes, or present mess – is already beloved by God. Before they change. Before they agree.
Before they behave. It unravels the whole system of earning and excluding and measuring worth.
It’s risky because it means we can’t write people off anymore. It means loving people we don’t like. Listening to people we’d rather avoid. It means seeing humanity in those the world teaches us to fear and even in those who have hurt us. It means laying down the illusion of being totally right in order to be spiritually free.
Enter the book of Galatians, where Paul responds to a fierce debate about what makes someone a real Christian. That’s not new to us. Some in Galatia—modern-day Turkey—argued that unless you followed certain laws, like keeping kosher and getting circumcised, you weren’t truly in. If Paul’s letter were in the newspaper, it could have a fiery headline like: The Gospel is being hijacked. I’m not staying quiet.
Stop Policing Belonging. You can’t earn faith just by having the right body.
But Paul decided to write his own headline, the one he learned from Jesus, the one that Christians should know by heart: Love your neighbor as yourself. Let’s hear Paul’s headline now in his own words—this is Galatians 5:1,13–25. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
This is the Word of the Lord.
O Lord, uphold me that I might uplift thee. Amen.
I’ve noticed we usually define freedom by what we’re free from—
Freedom from the government telling us what to do.
Freedom from stigma and society telling us who we are.
Freedom from inner torment, addiction, debt, or fear.
Or, more playfully, freedom from reply-all emails. Freedom from gas-powered leaf
blowers.
But one of the most powerful ideas in Christianity is this: Freedom is not just a list of what you get to be free from so you can just stand around and wait for heaven to come while doing whatever feels good to pass the time. Freedom has a purpose. It has a direction. Freedom is for something. Or to say it another way, freedom has never been the finish line. It has always been the starting line.
To use Paul’s metaphor, freedom is not the fruit itself. Freedom is fertilizer. It is the ground where fruit can grow. It’s the rich, messy soil where something beautiful can take root.
Christian freedom is for a fertile life.
It is for love of neighbor.
It is for cultivating the kind of Spirit-grown fruit that nourishes a hurting world: love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
So when Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” he’s not handing us a hammock
and saying “relax.” He’s handing us a shovel and saying “plant something.” And that means
don’t waste your freedom. Don’t hoard it. Don’t spray spiritual Round-Up over everything that looks difficult or different from you. Use it. Let it feed a life that blossoms into love.
Then comes Paul’s list of don’ts. Paul’s list of counterfeit freedoms. Paul’s list of things
that seem like freedom but they really just eat you up: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing. Sometimes I think we hear the first ones and heard the last ones but sort of zone out in the middle. In the middle are some doozies: Enmity, strife, dissensions, factions. If churches focused on those as much as we have historically focused on the other ones, I wonder what bumper stickers we’d start to see: “Kindness is orthodoxy. Honk if you need a lot of grace in your life. Or simply, ‘you’re probably right. I hadn’t considered that.’”
The fact is: When people are hungry for grace, they often chow down on these counterfeit
freedoms instead of doing the work to cultivate the fruits of the spirit. Thursday night, several of us were in Clifton for a spiritual growth retreat—talking, ironically as it turned out, about how to build community and deepen belonging at church. We had just finished eating some delicious snacks and talking about how people really learn about God’s love when a massive thunderstorm rolled through. Andrea Ham’s 65-pound dog tried to hide under a Geoff Marin’s arm. Lightning. Thunder. Wind. Trees fell everywhere, including five massive, healthy oak trees including one with a 12-foot root ball blocked the only road out. The power was out. The water was out. And it was really dark. We joked that we’d be having a slumber party at Andrea’s, but it wasn’t funny because our lives were waiting on the other side of those massive trees.
But you know what happened? Neighbors came out of their homes with chainsaws and
flashlights. People who didn’t necessarily know each other well. People who had every reason to stay inside and wait on VDOT. But who showed up and worked side by side to clear the road, to make a way out. On the long, winding drive home, it dawned on me – I love those neighbors. Not just because they throw a great chainsaw party—but because I saw Galatians 5 in action. It was people refusing to let fear or inconvenience win, and choosing instead to serve one another in love. I thanked God for those neighbors. Not because I’m supposed to love all people. Not as a theological concept. But because I realized, for the first time in a long time, just how much I needed them. I couldn’t get home without them. My freedom depended on their actions. Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” But he doesn’t leave it there. He says: don’t use your freedom for yourself – use it to serve one another in love. That’s where it becomes real. That night in Clifton reminded me: freedom in the way of Christ isn’t something we achieve alone and keep for ourselves. It’s something we receive from each other. It’s the chainsaw and the flashlights in the night. It’s the sweat and the showing up. It’s love in motion. Love without asterisks or conditions. Love in the dark and the storm. That is what the love of Jesus looks like.
So here is the headline for all of us on this week of July 4 th when there will be a lot of talk
about freedom. Love your neighbor as yourself. The neighbor who parks in front of our house every day, lets their dog bark too early and their music play too late. The neighbor who is queer and isn’t sure whether our church would welcome them or not. The neighbor who voted differently from us and assumptions between us grow as stubbornly as their bamboo grove. The neighbor who struggles to make rent but still brings in our trash bins. Who is 92 and forgets our name but remembers our kindness. Who just moved in with three kids and no furniture. Who teaches our kids despite low pay and louder complaints. Who delivers our mail in the pouring rain. Who sits in a prison cell, still hoping someone believes they’re more than their worst day. Who seeks asylum with blistered feet and no documents. Who lost everything in a flood or a war we only saw in headlines. Who labors unseen to grow our food, sew our clothes, code our software. Who might still be our enemy—and yet by the grace of Christ is still our neighbor.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”
Dorothy Day said, “I really only love God as much as the person I love least.”
It’s so hard, but it’s why we have the second part of the Jesus headline. Love yourself as you love those neighbors. That part of you that stinks at parking and forgets birthdays. That part that feels more fear than you care to admit. That part that’s tired of trying, that lets the dishes pile up and the texts go unanswered. That part that still grieves something no one else remembers. That longs to be touched, or left alone, or finally understood. That part of you with blistered feet and no map for this part of your life. That part of your body that won’t do what you want it to, that sits in the pew smiling while inside, it’s a flood or a war. That part you locked up years ago and that part that is newly free. The part of you that is still your enemy—and yet still, utterly beloved by Christ.
Jesus came into our stormy lives and turned the cross – an instrument of death – into a
way forward. He gave his life not so he could be free of us and enjoy the perks of heaven but so that we could finally be free to love one another and move on down the road. He removed giant logs of guilt, cut through the scraping branches of animosity between us, and rolled away all of the asterisks we put on love, so we finally face an open road. It’s not a finish line any more than that night road in Clifton was a great place to stop. It’s a start. And from here, we are called to set others free.
Amen.