In the excerpt from Paul’s letter to the Galatians which we heard today, Paul talks about the freedom the new Christians in Galatia (part of present-day Turkey) have received in Christ.Through their belief in Jesus as the Messiah and subsequent baptism, they have been liberated for a new kind of abundant life.Primarily through the work of the Spirit, these new Christians have the ability to live into a new relationship of love with God and their neighbors.
I grew up in southern California, land of the car, beautiful beaches and movie stars, and a place where there is a lot of emphasis on external appearances. It is also the land of “thin.”You can wear a bathing suit year round, and in the summer many people wear their bathing suit nonstop, including to the grocery store.
When I was in high school, there were some things going on in my family that troubled me.For whatever reasons, I thought that if I was thin and popular and had good grades and excelled in sports and other activities, I could make my parents happy.I was also overwhelmed by all the choices I needed to make.I dealt with this by trying to control my weight.In my junior year of high school I dropped from 140 pounds to 99 pounds, limiting myself to an apple at lunch.My good friend Lisa who unfortunately had bought into the same world view was also trying to control the pressures she faced by starving herself. We were surrounded by people who thought our behavior was normal.A typical late high school afternoon for us – after classes were done -- included going to tennis practice, running a couple of miles, and then going to soccer practice.We were nuts.
I continued this behavior my first year of college, worried about what was called “the freshman 15,” the pattern of women gaining at least 15 pounds their first year of college.I not only attended a two hour soccer practice each afternoon, I swam for an hour each night.This was one way I responded to all the new and different pressures I faced as I lived away from home for the first time.Living in fear of gaining weight was all-consuming.
The sad fact about all of this was not only did it harm my physical well being, it took a toll on my spirit.My enslavement to having a body not normal for most women, consumed most of my time and energy.I was not focused outward on my neighbor, but inward on myself.Slavery to whatever addiction or compulsion drives and motivates us -- anorexia, alcoholism, gambling, having the best stuff on the block, computer games, perfection, you name it – keeps us from loving God and our neighbor – and experiencing God’s love in return.Many of the things that actually enslave us are not bad in and of themselves.Take money, for example.Money has a neutral value, it is how we use it that forms or deforms us.North African Christian St. Augustine called this use of things perfectly good in and of themselves for harmful ends “disordered loves.”When our love for things or ideals not of God replaces our love for God and our passionate concern for God’s people and world, we are in trouble.
In his letter to the Galatians Paul has some powerful things to say about freedom.The freedom of which he speaks is not what we think of when we hear the word “freedom” in 21st century America.In America, as sociologist Robert Bellah points out in The Good Society, freedom has come to be understood as freedom “from.”It is freedom gained when we protect ourselves from institutions and people.Since the Second World War, and especially in the 50s, Americans began to understand freedom as the freedom to pursue and acquire material goods and property unhindered by others.He traces this to the growth of the middle class and consumerism, the growth of suburbs and privacy, and the simultaneous decline in trust and relationships.
Sociologist Robert Putnam has traced similar trends in his powerful book Bowling Alone.Putnam is interested in what he calls “social capital,” the relationships between people that end up enhancing the quality of life of the wider community.Putnam, is also interested in what he calls “social bridging,” the opportunity Americans have had to form friendships with people from different backgrounds through organizations like bowling leagues, the PTA and church.He traces a startling decline in social capital and social bridging in America, beginning in the 1970s.As more and more Americans lived in the suburbs, drove further to work, worked longer hours, tried to keep up with the Joneses, and more recently lived daily with job insecurity, they were less and less likely to participate in the communities in which they lived.Americans have increasingly, for a variety of reasons, focused almost exclusively on themselves and their families at the expense of the surrounding community – especially those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.We have become enslaved to a way of life that is destroying our country and our souls.
And yet in our reading from Galatians, Paul encourages us to follow another path.The freedom of a Christian is not a freedom from others, but a freedom for others.In Christ, through the Spirit, we can be freed from our anxiety, compulsions, and whatever consumes us, so that we can live for God and for others.This freedom to love others is possible because in Christ God accepts us unconditionally as we are.The gift of freedom is not to be taken or used lightly.It is not just for us.Rather, as Paul exhorted the Galatians, “through love become slaves to one another.For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
One of the most exciting roles the church can play in this rapidly-changing post-Christian era, to me at least, is that of public companion.I believe that we, the body of Christ at St. Matthew’s, are called to play an important and public role in the life of our community, in collaboration with a variety of people and organizations.We are called to love our neighbors, known and unknown, by working together with others of different perspectives and faiths for the common good.
The urgency of this project in our country is apparent: the decline of social capital and social bridging, the decline in civility, the decline of funds for the public good including education, the further division of people into like-thinking groups formed primarily to protect their private interests without any thought about the well being of others, and intellectually, ethically and morally thin debates about really important public policy issues.
The church – meaning us – has such an important role to play at this moment in history.And I think that St. Matthew’s, more than any church I’ve ever been a part of, has the DNA, passion and orientation to go deeper in building bridges in and working for the good of our community – building the trust and friendships, and partnering with our elected officials and civil society organizations working.So many of you are already working for the common good in your jobs and volunteer commitments, and I thank you profoundly for that work and commitment.This church has so generously and consistently worked over the years on behalf of those in need of food, shelter and friendship in the Cities and in Uganda.
The conversation about the future God is bringing forth now needs to go outside our doors.In the coming months our Vestry and other church leaders will be engaging in conversation with our neighbors – university students, governing officials, local organizations working for different facets of the public good – in a desire to include them and their important thoughts and perspectives, in our ongoing wondering conversation.
When I was enslaved to being thin, food became an enemy rather than a gift.The food that is central to the life of our community and its hospitality, can be a challenge to those not free to enjoy and share it.I did not encounter the Eucharist until I graduated from college, and wonder if I could have understood and be fed by it as long as I could not understand bread and wine as free gifts, transformed into the body and blood of Christ, given for the sake of the world.For what we do here each week is not private, but public.Our worship, including the reading of scriptures, prayers, the sermon and the Eucharist is not just for us, but also for the world.For, if we are willing, God will continue to use us to love our neighbors and thus transform our neighborhoods.As our challenging Gospel from Luke reminds us, our homeless God, who did not even have a place to lay his head, gave everything for us, and for the sake of the world. Amen.
