Paul's Disturbing Idea

Galatians 3:15-29

Human beings are masters at finding ways to divide from one another.
It's really quite easy to do.
It's much easier than working together, for sure.


A simple recipe for division:


Make sure that you know that you're right and that you have a strong handle on what's wrong with the world and who's fault it is.


Then go about either trying to convince everyone about how right you are,
or condemn them for not seeing the real way things are.


And lump them into the group of people whose fault it is that the world is the way it is.


Go back to the beginning, read some authors and talk to some people who think like you and then go out again converting and condeming.


Repeat ad nauseum.

Belonging by Faith

Genesis 15:1-6
Galatians 3:6-14

The story we read this morning from Genesis
is about God's promise to Abraham that Abraham would have an heir.
Abraham would be a father and a grandfather.
And this promise seemed outlandish to Abraham who had become cynical that he would ever continue a legacy.
And he argues with God in his cynicism. We catch that in what we read.
But God repeats to Abraham the promise: “a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
You will have a family old man. You find it hard to believe but with God all things are possible.
And I love the way that Barbara Brown Taylor narrates what happens next.

"….God brought the old man outside,
which means that he was inside before that—in a tent, maybe,

Beginning and Continuing with the Spirit

Buechner on the Spirit
Galatians 3:1-5

I really do think at the risk of being overly simplistic,
at the root of how we go wrong as spiritual people
is when we let fear drive our decisions and our responses to what happens to us.
I know that is too simple. But it seems that a big driving destructive force in our lives is fear.
In contrast to fear throughout the scriptures we are given the examples and the teaching of faith and love.
And here in Galatians we read of Paul's frustration that the path of faith and love is being compromised by fear based decision making.
For Paul, the Galatians are changing horses in midstream.
They began their spiritual journey, awakened by love for God and by a realization of God's unconditional love for them.
And it was the faith in this reality, this new creation, which paved the way for the Spirit of love to fill them and move them towards a new way of being human.
But along come some teachers who instill fear and doubt about their qualifications for being considered true children of God.