Proper 8, Year C | Galatians 5:1, 13-25
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
June 29, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1[1]
We’re in the midst of a few weeks of readings from Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. Historians place this as one of Paul’s earlier letters, and in it we get to see his full personality on display. Cutting straight to the point, as he also does, the main focus of Galatians is Paul’s opposition to what we would call cultural imperialism. Paul and his friends had helped found the Church in this Greco-Celtic area of what’s now central Turkey. After they left, other Judean Christians coming to the area began to unduly influence the local Christian practices, leading the Galatians to think that in order to truly honor God, they needed to adopt ethnically Jewish customs.
Chances are the visitors were well-meaning. However, having grown up under certain cultural traditions, they, like many of us today, had confused what it was to follow Jesus with the sorts of behaviors, practices, and ideologies that had informed their own development. The arguments likely went something like this: “You, know, Jesus was Jewish, and the way we’ve always done it is to gather for worship on Saturdays, not Sundays. If you switch your practice by just one day, that would make you a little more like him. And everyone knows you have to be like Jesus to follow Jesus, right?”
This sort of logic appears to have expanded to the point where the Galatians had become convinced that they needed to abandon their own perfectly acceptable cultural practices and start living like foreigners in their own land. Throughout the rest of the letter, Paul’s arguments focus around one of the most ancient Jewish traditions: male circumcision.[2]
Although common practice amongst Abrahamic communities, even to this day, circumcision appears to have been utterly foreign to the people of Galatia, and, I would expect, something of a barrier to conversion, at least for any men. Yet the Judean guests had convinced the Galatian Christians that this, too, was necessary to prove one’s commitment to Jesus and cement one’s standing within God’s covenant to Abraham.
Paul is having none of it. After a brief formal opening, he skips his standard litany of praise to God and jumps straight into his topic, declaring that the people are “deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and…turning to a different gospel,”[3] one he quickly describes as a perversion[4] and even something “accursed.”[5] He reminds them of his background in Judaism and goes on to recount his meetings in Jerusalem with Peter, James, and John, none of whom had demanded that the Greek Christians traveling with him be circumcised. He states, “They [the Apostles] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.”[6]
Wondering aloud if the Galatians have been bewitched, he asks, “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law”—a reference to the Mosaic customs the Galatians were being tricked into adopting—“or by [pledging yourselves to][7] what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”[8]
This is a reference to the ancient understanding of what a human is. “The flesh” is essentially the body as meat. It’s formed from dust and is, in and of itself, dead. That doesn’t make the body evil, but “the flesh,” so called, was understood to contain only the animalistic aspects of humanity. The breath (aka: spirit) draws from the Divine and animates the body. The combination of the two creates the “soul”—the unique individual and personality, or what we might call the “self.”
What Paul’s asking is how it’s possible for the Galatians to have embraced God’s living Breath only to turn to bodily mutilation as a way to truly please God. He informs them that Abraham had already been in covenant with God well before establishing the tradition of circumcision, quoting Genesis from several chapters before the institution of circumcision that “Abraham [pledged himself to] the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”[9]
We do need to address a couple of side notes here. Historically, Christians have fallen for the trap of denigrating “the law,” and all of Judaism with it, by labeling it as “salvation by works.” That’s a lie, a way of justifying our desire to feel superior to other people and religions. Paul advocates both in this letter and in his letter to the Romans for the importance of this codified set of Jewish customs, not because strictly observing them does anything to gain positive attention from God, but because they can help guide us along a pathway that leads toward God. Think of them as guardrails on a mountain road. They warn us of places others have noted serious risks or already fallen into trouble. Each driver, however, actively chooses whether or not to follow the postings, although the consequences of ignoring them may be severe, to say the least.
We also need to address the common Christian teaching that the books of Moses contain three distinct types of “law:” the Moral Law, Ceremonial Law, and Civil Law. This is also a lie, one Paul smashes by declaring, “if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.”[10] James echoes the same point when he says, “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.”[11]
According to New Testament authors, dividing formal Mosaic customs into three parts, with only some applicable to Christians, simply doesn’t work. If you want to “keep the law”—any of it, including the Ten Commandments—you’re free to do so. Just make sure you follow it in its entirety—observing the Sabbath, no shellfish or pork products, gathering at specific locations to offer burnt sacrifices certain times of year, men never again using the same chair a menstruating woman sat on, etc. Paul and James argue that when we try to pick and choose, we’ve set ourselves above “the law” and have, therefore, constructed a new, selfish, and, frankly, powerless law founded only on our own cravings.
This is important to remember when we come across Paul’s vice lists. Our tendency has been to interpret them as catalogs of specific sins that even Christians need to avoid in order to satisfy God. But that isn’t the point. Scholars note that Paul quotes those lists from contemporary cultural sources, and he does so to establish a contrast for those reading. In Romans, for example, he sets his audience up with a list of people and practices from other cultures that Romans already despise only to flip that sense of condemnation onto their own heads by showing them their behaviors of nursing grudges, envy, and rigid judgmentalism are just as bad, if not worse, than other peoples’ supposed evils.
In the case of Galatians, Paul is setting up a contrast between behavioral examples that can warn us when “the flesh”—again, the animalistic and essentially dead part of humanity—is leading the way. And for clarity’s sake, we need to put that vice list into modern language: Paul is pointing to “whatever is pornographic,[12] impurity,[13] molestation,[14] idolatry,[15] drug abuse,[16] hostilities,[17] discord,[18] extravagance,[19] unrestrained emotions,[20] electioneering,[21] insurrections,[22] sectarianisms,[23] envies,[24] continual drunkenness, revelry,[25] and things like these.”[26]
How much of that sounds familiar in ourselves and in our society? The presence of these things doesn’t mean God’s actively looking to cast anyone into Hell, but seeing them is a strong warning that something is desperately wrong and change is necessary if we want to return to a path toward life.
Likewise, the Fruit of the Spirit—the translation of which is still current—isn’t a checklist of what’s required in every Christian’s life at every moment of every day. These virtues naturally arise as signs that we’re heading in the right direction, indicators when we’re already following God, both as individuals and as a congregation. None of these are reasons for pride, but lacking one of these doesn’t condemn. Noting where we’re weak, however, can help us avoid stumbling down a route toward vice.
With the Fruit of the Spirit, Paul is reminding the Galatians what Christianity actually looks like. It isn’t found in certain customs and practices, no matter how traditional or morally supportive they may be. You won’t find it through scarring your body or avoiding certain foods or adopting strange behaviors. He emphasizes that Christianity can’t be codified or legislated beyond one simple statement, really: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[27]
And please don’t make “love” more complicated than it is. Each of us knows instinctively what’s good and respectful and compassionate, so when you find yourself needing to justify how the choice you’re making is “loving,” maybe take another look. That doesn’t mean we won’t run into unfamiliar situations and complicated decisions with differing options of what may be helpful or harmful, but most of the time a simple kindness check—“How would I feel if someone was doing this to me?”—will give you your answer on the spot.
Though we know what following Jesus looks like, no one can compartmentalize or dictate what it is to be Christian—if the Apostles weren’t able to in the 1st Century, we certainly can’t now! That’s because Jesus’ incarnation, teachings, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension aren’t enshrined in rules or customs or regional cultural manifestations. Christianity isn’t bound to specific practices or actions.[28] It isn’t found in lists of what you should or shouldn’t do or what you can and cannot think. Being a Christian is a core identity—an embodied reality as an Image and representative of our generous God. It’s a freedom found in living, in breathing and following God’s Breath and acting within Cosmic certainties built on “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”[29]
The Christian life is not found in rules and dogmas and blind self-certainty. Rather, it demands the flexibility and creativity necessary to respond to changing circumstances and events. Christianity is forged in freedom, but not the freedom to indulge our own passions and seek our individual interests at the expense of others. To be Christian is the freedom to conduct ourselves and interact with those around us apart from the instinctive desire for control and enforced conformity. It’s the opportunity given us to manifest God’s unmitigated presence, to become active reflections of our generous, loving, and life-giving Creator.
“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[2] Codified in Genesis 17:9-14
[3] Galatians 1:6
[4] Galatians 1:7
[5] Galatians 1:8, 9
[6] Galatians 2:10
[7] I’ve replaced the translators’ use of the word “believe” to clarify what that particular term actually means in modern English. | Throughout
[8] Galatians 3:2-3
[9] Genesis 15:6
[10] Galatians 5:2-3
[11] James 2:10
[12] Trad. “sexually immoral;” The term is broad, covering prostitution and fornication. For us it might line up better with the idea of “sexually explicit.”
[13] Possibly “incapable of cleansing”
[14] Or “lechery”
[15] Lit. “that which serves idols”
[16] Trad. “sorcery” | The term is rooted in pharmacology and use of drugs.
[17] Or “hatreds” or “enmities”
[18] Or “a quarrel” or “strife” or “rivalry” | The term is used as the name for a goddess of disorder and strife (ἔρις).
[19] Or “fierceness;” possibly “jealousy”
[20] Or “temper” or “passion” | The connotation leans toward “rage.”
[21] Or “conspiracies” or “factionalisms,” possibly “contentions.” However, the word has strong political connotations. | An expanded plural form (ἐριθεία) of the word translated “discord” above
[22] Or “repeated dissensions” or “instabilities”
[23] Or “side-takings” or “heresies” | The idea involves the seizing of a town through force.
[24] Or “malices” or “grudges”
[25] Or “carousing;” Lit. “festivals”
[26] Galatians 5:19-20 | my translation. Italicized words are implied by the Greek or added for appropriate English understanding.
[27] Galatians 5:14
[28] We do share common traditions throughout the Church, but those traditions are not the essence of what Christianity itself is.
[29] Galatians 5:22-23