Carrying, Bearing, Planting
Galatians 6:1-16
My brothers and sisters, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.
Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads.
Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.
Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.
See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
Sermon
Some of us in the room like to be right. If I had to guess, I suspect that most of us here prefer to win rather than lose; to be winners rather than “losers.”
As children, our brains are generally hardwired to seek the approval of authority figures — children lie, not because they’re malevolent, but because they want to tell adults the “right” things. Then as students, we feel inordinate pressure to give the right answers on tests and homework. And as we reach older adulthood, we often confront our self-expectations, comparing our expectations for retirement or a financial legacy to the realities of an increasingly hostile economy.
Sometimes, being “right” is a matter of life and death. I want nurses, doctors, lawyers, and construction workers to get it right. But more often than not, our desire for “rightness” becomes a destructive impulse of our humanity.
If I had to guess, we all know that person who’d sooner flip over the monopoly board than lose. And sometimes that person ends up being the church.
In its two-millenia history, the church has a long track record of stumbling into and out of this supercharged desire to be correct. It has been a gift sometimes—like when councils gathered to write the Nicene creed, or when a small minority of Christians stood in opposition to apartheid—but we know it hasn’t always been a gift. It’s also caused the church to commit grievous sins. For example, an obsession with “rightness” had led to violence on the British Isles for nearly five hundred years. Protestants attacked Catholics; Catholics attacked protestants.
Fortunately, in addition to that history which informs us today, we have the words of the Apostle Paul. Today, he writes to the church of Galatia about these very same obsessions: the obsession to be right, and its close bedfellow: the thirst for power over others.
Paul writes quite a bit in this letter and elsewhere about a faction in the church. As we discover in today’s text, this faction seeks to “compel [all disciples] to be circumcised.” Their motivations are anything but pure; they are motivated by their compulsion to “boast about [the] flesh.” To boast and become obsessed with the superficialities, the details, rather than God’s work in the world.
One of my pastoral care professors in seminary often referred to this kind of drama, where our thirst for being right starts asphyxiating us. She said: “it’s always the flower guild.” She suggested that there was always drama in the flower guild. And far too often, that drama is motivated by our obsession with being “right,” and our thirst for power or control.
Paul tells the Galatians that they have a flower guild in their midst. This circumcision faction is not really concerned about observance of Jewish law; instead, they were self-motivated. They wanted numbers — they wanted to say their church community was bigger and better than everyone else. They wanted to claim this church was “holier than thou.”
“Paul writes to the church of Galatia about these very same obsessions: the obsession to be right, and its close bedfellow: the obsession to gain power over others.”
So… if we work backwards from here, the earlier verses might be a little easier to understand. Paul says “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” In this otherworldly kingdom of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the law was not through ordinary means; it was now through bearing one another’s burdens.
Oddly enough, Paul says this shortly thereafter: “For all must carry their own loads.” Paul isn’t contradicting himself; he’s making a distinction for the people of Galatia. This is essentially a rebuke of the flower guild! Stop messing with each other’s business; stop trying to fix other people’s lives; knock off the discord you hold with others. You love your neighbor; you care for your siblings in Christ. And you put an end to your obsession with being right, and cease the power grabs over others. “All must carry their own loads.” Instead, “bear one another’s burdens.”
Paul is reframing our mentality toward others. We no longer add burdens to others to carry, and we stop giving others our own problems. Instead, we shoulder the burden with others, no longer adding to their load, but supporting them as they walk through the joy and pain of living. Not standing on top of them; supporting them from below.
…
In a church of about 150 members, we probably have about 300 different opinions on how to lead and steer it.
Alongside that, we know that we’re more than a congregation; we’re a church with real assets, buildings, privileges, and opportunities — all tied together by this church institution that has bylaws and elections and employees.
Part of the fun of ministry is that on top of this church institution and these 300-and-counting opinions, is that most of us are convinced we’re right. And so, Presbyterians said, “let’s make governance a dialogue, where we constantly change and reform, rather than giving any single person a monarchy.” They decided to make “mutual forbearance,” one of our foundations, which is a funny way to say that we don’t have to all be right. If we are sound in faith and practice, we don’t have to find the one right opinion in a haystack of different opinions, and no single person gets to call the shots. We don’t have to trample each other in a power play; diversity of opinion is a gift to governance, not a threat.
Like Galatia, the goal isn’t to eliminate theological diversity or to coerce everyone into uniformity of opinion. Conflict is a healthy part of living as a community. Paul gives us some sound advice: carry our own loads. The Session is elected to govern. I am installed to teach, care, and equip each of you for ministry. Deacons are elected to provide for the material and spiritual welfare of the community. Our staff are hired to fulfill particular responsibilities. Each of us has a path set before us, and a small slice of the kingdom of God to steward.
This is how we “work for the good of all.” Not by doing everything independently. Not by making decisions unilaterally. Not by white-knuckling our own particular ways of doing things. By carrying our own loads, whether great or small, and by supporting from below, not on top. The flower guild attends to flowers. Not money, or pastoral care, or operational savvy. By the beauty and significance and ministry of flowers.
This is where we get the word “sustain” from. It is to support from below, to lift up, to buttress one another, so to speak.
“If we are sound in faith and practice, we don’t have to find the one ‘right’ opinion in a haystack of different opinion... We don’t have to trample each other in a power play; diversity of opinion is a gift to governance, not a threat.”
In the final three sentences of today’s passage, Paul makes a final, interesting shift.
He writes that in being united to Jesus Christ, “the world has been crucified to me and I to the world… a new creation is everything.”
There are lots of meaningful, important, interesting things happening in these final three verses, but the most relevant is this: the decay of the current world—its war, and violence, and domination, and exploitation, and abuse—across all this decay, we have been crucified to it.
All of those things—evil, sin, hatred, a cosmos of pain—they have been separated from us through the cross of Jesus Christ. The finality of death has consumed all of that decay, and the clutches of sin upon us. And through Jesus Christ, we are resurrected into not just second life, but into a new creation. A different, unfamiliar, extraordinary creation.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, as a congregation, and as a church, we no longer play by the same rules. In a world where mega-corporations pump opioids into Appalachia, in a world where our neighbors have to camp in the Newton cemetery and the dugouts of Memorial Park, and in a world where everyone is speaking, but nobody is heard, we no longer play by those rules. It has been crucified to us in the cross of Jesus Christ.
When we are truly living as the church—and let go of lifeless institutions—we become a people who stop speaking, and listen. Paradoxically, we become a people who speak when no one else is. We build bridges with every person and organization in Newton, not because it’s politically savvy or financial advantageous, but because it is what we are called to do as people of faith. We advocate for affordable housing. We feed our neighbors at lunch and when they are at home. We care. We bear the burdens of others, even when it’s not financially sound.
…
We live in this new creation, where we don’t have to be right. Though our obsession with rightness is in our DNA, and we’ll likely continue wrestling with it, we walk a more excellent way. We plant the seeds of ministry for tomorrow; we plow a field that’s ready for our children; and we make decisions today based on God’s calls to justice, mercy, and love.
Today, in our diversity of opinion, our particular ministries, and our commitment to Jesus Christ, we plant the seeds of an apple tree. Not despite a world on fire, and a globe rife with enmity, but because of what we know: the world is passing away; and only a new creation, and a new way of life, and an everlasting hope will remain. Let us carry this load, bearing one another in love.
