St Mary’s Pinchbeck and St Laurence’s Surfleet
Murray Harvey
It seems that Paul normally dictated his letters to a scribe. In Chapter Six of his letter to the Galatians, however, he asks for the pen and writes down in large characters the final words of the letter himself.
Some people think he wrote in a large, awkward hand because of some physical disability or inadequacy of writing. Whether this is the case or not, we can assume that because he took the pen himself it means he was passionate about the message he wanted to get across to these struggling Christians.
I always keep this first-ever Christmas card I got from Chelsea a few years ago after her first few months at school: The words I LOVE YOU DAD are written in the large awkwardly formed letters of a four year old. It was quite an achievement though. So I assume that message was one she really wanted to get across and that she really meant it.
In the same way these final, awkwardly written words from St Paul, deserve our full attention as well.
These are the themes/phrases of the last few verses of the letter: Don’t be concerned to impress others … give up everything for Christ’s sake … for new life in Christ is everything that matters.
These words speak directly to us and they remind us whose approval we desire most.
Paul is trying to advise these struggling and confused Christians in Galatia about what is, or should be, important to them. What really identifies them as Christians? If this new life in Christ is everything that matters, how then will it be evident in their life together?
In the film The Mission, Novice Jesuit missionary Rodrigo Mendoza is travelling to an isolated village community in South America in the 17th Century.
In the absence of transport or even roads, the missionaries have to travel on foot, scrambling up ravines and waterfalls to reach the mountain people.
There is a dramatic and powerful scene where Mendoza, making penance for his former sins, carries a sack of heavy metals on his back whilst climbing a steep waterfall. Repeatedly he slips and has to re-climb the rockface. Eventually he is so weak because of this that he cannot climb any further. He is offered help but refuses: it’s his load to bear. His sins created it, his penance to carry it.
Eventually the other priest takes a knife and cuts the sack away. The burden falls away, disappearing into the abyss.
You may have seen the film, The Mission. A very powerful film. This scene was the one that had the most impact on me.
I could relate to the heaviness of Mendoza’s sack.
We all have burdens to carry; past sins and feelings of
guilt. Sometimes they feel like tremendously heavy loads that we carry about on
our backs.
St Paul addresses this very issue in his letter to the Galatians.
When we look at chapter 6 it seems that Paul is giving contradictory advice about burdens.
NRSV: v5 All must carry their own loads.
In other words, as is logical, we each have our own lives to live and the burden of responsibility for our lives and for past mistakes is our own.
The NEB puts it more helpfully: v4&5 Each man should examine his own conduct for himself … for everyone has his own proper burden to bear.
We live in a world where we have certain rights, but with those rights come certain responsibilities. So it’s no surprise that Paul should be telling his readers that they were each to be responsible, as you and I are, for our own actions.
But importantly Paul is saying that we are to judge how well we are living up to these responsibilities, not against how we compare to our neighbours, but against our own progress:
We can measure our achievement, writes Paul, by comparing ourselves with ourselves, and not with anyone else (NEB 6:4). Thus we can avoid pride and envy and can proceed with a realistic view of our own progress.
So our Jesuit friend Mendoza, was perhaps doing the right thing – scaling up the waterfall in South America with a heavy pack on his back. He knew his responsibilities and his failures and was carrying the burden of his own past mistakes. If he’d compared himself to others in his group he might not have judged himself so harshly. However this might have underestimated the seriousness of his past actions.
But Paul writes something else that might make us stop and think.
(NRSV v2) Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. The NEB reads here (v2) Help one another to carry these heavy loads and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.
Paul is being apparently contradictory here. We are to bear our own burden but also to share one another’s burdens. It’s getting towards the end of Paul’s letter to the Galatians – perhaps all their problems are proving too much for him and he’s getting confused. Perhaps he’s going batty. Our Jesuit friend carrying his own heavy sack doesn’t know whether to hang on to it, or put it down.
But not really. Because Paul uses a different Greek word in each case.
The load we are to bear ourselves really relates to the ordinary responsibilities of daily life.
The burdens we are to share are to be shared by Christians with one another in fellowship.
So Paul, in this closing chapter of his letter, is
telling the Galatians the right way to use their Christian freedom.
Christian freedom doesn’t excuse them from taking
responsibility for their own actions – bearing the responsibility of daily
life.
Christian freedom does imply however the sharing of the load – relieving individual Christians of any one burden that is too much to bear.
So Mendoza’s Jesuit friend was right to take out his knife and cut free the sack of heavy metal – sending it plummeting into the ravine – after all, the burden, as well as being individually borne had implications for the community. It was a load that they all had to leave behind them if they were to move on in God’s service.
So the Christian life is to be characterised by independence: a taking of individual responsibility and not comparing ourselves to others; but comparing ourselves to our own progress.
But it’s also to be characterised by inter-dependence. A sharing of burdens that are too great for any one person to carry.
In understanding this passage we must remember that Paul is constantly trying to describe the Christian life over against that of the non-Christian.
Those who choose to live according to the shifting values of the secular world will find themselves isolated from the fellowship of the Christian community where the burdens of life are shared.
But of course it’s not easy. You and I live life in the world, not out of it. So we offer to help bear the burdens of those around us who might not have a Christian commitment. What do we do to help lift people’s burdens of sin, guilt and failure? These efforts are not always understood or well received. It goes against our private, individualistic culture and is looked upon with suspicion.
But in the end we have to persevere because, as St Paul says, it is not any physical markings that identify us as Christians but it is this love that we show that testifies to the God that we serve.
So you might like to think of one person in church or in your circle of friends or colleagues who is carrying a particular burden. What can you do this week to help that person? Ask God to help you demonstrate his love and grace.
Yet sharing burdens in this way is a risky business: so we do need God’s help. The priest who leaned across to unburden Mendoza of his heavy sack could easily have gone plummeting into the ravine himself.
The person giving the support is vulnerable: vulnerable to burn-out and vulnerable to being overcome by the burden along with the person.
The famous Captain William Kidd was employed by the English Government to root out piracy in the 1700s. Kidd ended up being himself tried and hanged for piracy in the end. You might think this is an odd example to use, but I think it demonstrates rather dramatically how, in working so closely with sin, one can be sucked in to the very sin that we are trying to confront.
How well do we support one another (especially those who have a pastoral care responsibility in our church) who have vulnerable ministries?
The message of Galatians is that our identity as Christians is most clearly demonstrated in our relationships with others – especially those around us who need care and support: love, the outward observance of some law, is the visible and practical measure of our commitment to Christ.
So in the light of what Paul is saying to the Galatian
Christian all those years ago, how does our identity as Christians stand up?
Have we allowed outward observance or the opinions of
others to weaken our commitment to Christ?
May we pray that God will help us care more about his approval than that of others. May we remember that in all we do, new life in Christ is everything that matters.
I don’t know about you but I’ve learnt a lot over the past few weeks when we have been following this sermon series on Galatians. It’s been a valuable experience. I hope you might want to join one of the housegroups because they’re also studying Galatians with the help of a study booklet called Galatians: Why God Accepts Us.
In the end, like all of scripture, Galatians is not some obscure piece of literature with no relevance to our life today. Paul is addressing a group of Christians who are struggling. Like us, they hadn’t got it all together: they had tremendous challenges in their time that they were grappling with, and his advice to them is also advice to us.
So I hope you will take time to explore this book further through a housegroup.
Prayer
God of the covenant, in our baptism you called us to proclaim the coming of your kingdom: give us courage as you gave it to the apostles that we may faithfully witness to your love and peace in every circumstance of life; in the name of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.
(Collect for Trinity V from A Prayer Book for
Australia)