Theme: A call for mutual and self examination

Passage: - Galatians 6:1-5

1. My friends, 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. 2. Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. 3. for if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbour’s work, will become a cause for pride. 5. For all must carry their own loads.

Introduction

How many times have we accepted correction? Have we even given ear to it? I’m sure, not many of here have paid heed when others try to correct us. For example when sir taught us Hebrew in our first year, he corrected us several times, I still can’t forget the days we used to write the translations on the board. But several times when he corrected us, we were either too lethargic or we have ignored the corrections. For which we still regret, oh God, I just wish I would have worked a little hard in Hebrew. The same goes to other faculty and friends in our community.

Reflection

The passage that I had chosen for my sermon today Galatians 6:1-5 is the final section of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. He gives to them advices, as to what it takes to live as a faith community and to walk in the Spirit. Let us first analyse the text and draw meaning from the text and then, reflect and relate it to our day to day life. In my reflection however, I have divided the passage into two parts for our easy understanding, the v1-2 which focuses on mutual correction of one another and the v3-5 which focuses on self examination.

In v1-2, Paul denotes the church as an extended family that is responsible for its members. He in these verses calls the members to bear one another’s burdens. He wants the members of the Galatian church to see themselves not as rivals competing with each other but rather as brothers and sisters, in supporting one and another as they would walk through unsafe times of spiritual struggle. Because they bear responsibility for one another, they cannot casually allow the other members of the family to go astray. They have an obligation to hold one another accountable to live as faithful followers of Jesus.  At the same time, the responsibility for correcting the wrong doings of members must be exercised with great gentleness and humility, so that the community’s discipline will reflect the character of the lord that the community serves.

The words, if anyone is detected in transgression, show that Paul intimidates the faith community that, it is to be taken in the realistic sense that humans are prone to do mistakes, but it is the responsibility of the members of the extended family to correct the errors of the fellow family member. Even though an assurance in 5:16 to live by faith here Paul knows that the believers will fall into misconduct. The church must therefore have guidelines for how to respond to such situations. They must cultivate the habit of mutual correction.

The words you who have received the spirit, refers to the members of the faith community. By referring to spiritual he means, to act for the mending of the community, the recovery of order and peace, it precisely is the opposite of ‘acts of the flesh’, which leads to conflict. Paul does not just stop there by just making it and imperative for the Galatians to follow but also says how the correction has to be done, and it has be done ‘gently’ in accordance with the fruit of the spirit 5:22-23. He goes on to sight that while correcting we are also tempted either to fall into the same wrong or could develop the sense of pride in correction which we see is quite prominent amongst us. This is the temptation that we are to be careful of not falling into.

If the Galatians are to take on the responsibility of correcting the fellow members in this way then, they will in fact be bearing one another’s burdens, as in the sense of bearing one another’s weaknesses; and helping the powerless and not just in pleasing ourselves. For we that, to live in the Spirit is to live in fellowship and in a relationship of interdependence. Of course, burden bearing expects to share the stresses and sorrows etc or even to become a slave to one another 5:13.

Any listener to this verse will ask why I should do this. And Paul is in no mood to leave that question unanswered. By doing this you fulfil the law of Christ. That law is that source of the obligation to carry the weight imposed by the wrongs of our fellow members of the community.

In v3-5 Paul addresses the individuals in the community and warns them against boasting, rather than comparing themselves with each other and boasting to each other, they should conduct a sober self-evaluation and keep their boasting to themselves. V4 is an advice that each person should test his or her own work rather than to that of the work of the neighbour. In the present time, we should keep our self-evaluation to ourselves. That is the meaning of the v4, which could be better paraphrased as ‘each one must test his/her own work, and then will be able to boast to the self and not to the neighbour. If correcting one’s brother or sister is actually a subtle device for self-exaggeration, that is comparing others unfavourably to one’s own high moral character, and then the practice of mutual correction will become an insidious form of spiritual ‘one-upmanship’.

This still leaves the problem of how to understand v5, which appears as a contradiction of v2. After telling the Galatians to carry one another’s burden, how can Paul turn around and write ‘for all must carry other own loads’. There could be various understandings how v2 and v5 fit together in a coherent manner. I find this interpretation as more fitting. We see that v2 is and imperative, calling the community as a whole to exercise mutual responsibility through gentle restoration, and the v5 is a call to individual accountability to evaluate and examine the actions of the self. When the two statements are placed in context, they are complementary than being contradictory. Paul is saying that we are all personally accountable to God, and that we are called to form communities in which we help one another through mutual correction.

Conclusion

Mutual Correction: as we saw in v1-2 we are to correct and allow correction from our friends in our context it is our professors and our classmates who form an extended family, a home away from home. Do we really help in correcting our friends or take revenge on that person, just because you asked me a question in my presentation I shall ask you when you present, is this, the kind of attitude we have or is it an attitude of bearing another’s burden, in helping him or her in positive and healthy criticisms? Yes my dear friends the text read to us today urges us to help our family member to excel in his or her works, and we ought to do it so gently with an attitude of bearing one another’s burdens. Do remember this especially as we travel to our final year next academic year and all of us will face our trial sermons. Let us be excellent critiques not for avenging what has happened to us but with an attitude to help of fellow family member excel in what he/she is doing.

Self Evaluation: as we see in v3-5 it is very necessary that we evaluate ourselves not in comparing ourselves with other and taking pride in it but in evaluating ourselves with utmost humility. In the process of correcting our fellow family members we are not to fall into the trap of committing the same mistake or take pride is saying I am right and he/she is wrong but it is when we evaluate ourselves that we understand that we also commit mistakes and are subject to correction. Today I too stand in front of you knowing that I have made my mistakes and am subject to corrections, in spite of the divine intervention. Well, I will accept your corrections, please do correct me, but do it so gently. For a saying goes this way, “do unto me how you would want me to do unto you”. Amen.

Valentine's Day: A call or command, either ways we ought to love. Based on Romans 13:8-10

Day for sharing love, Valentine's Day. And an apt passage to read for such a season, Romans 13:8-10. As I read the text I remembered an incident that happened in my life. On the 4th July 2007, on our way back from Sangam, a river near Mysore, along with my friends. My friend and I, skid, the bike twisted and turned, whirled and wobbled and then fell bruising my friend, and deeply cut over his eye, while I scrapped on the road with my arm below me and my leg, fractured. But there came an engineer who did not know me or any of my friends, who was on his way to his work, stopped, and helped us, and brought us back to Bangalore, dropped us at the hospital and left.

Does this strike our mind? Well, that person for sure was not a church goer, and certainly not a Christian, this man was a ‘stranger’, yet he did what was right at that time. How many of us think like that? How often do we end up judging people of what they did and who they are? How many of us have thought of helping the one we don’t know? I have three questions that we will be meditating on, derived from the passage.

What does love fulfil?

The Christian as in v8 is not allowed to be in debt, except for the debt that can never be paid back, the debt to love one another. The idea of ‘debt’ following the previous periscope concerning money will instigate us to think in the same line, however Paul, here does not refer to the money, but to indicate the Christian’s obligation to live by the spirit and not the flesh. The root regularly carries both literal and a metaphorical meaning in the early Christian writings. This love for the other has no obligation or no limit. We are to love not only those of the ‘family of God’ but also our co travellers in life as well, just like God’s love, which is extended to all. The same way we are called to love one and other like we love ourselves. Obviously love will take different forms depending on the recipient, but the decision to place the welfare of the other over that of our own may not be limited to those of like faith, as Paul adds, that whoever loves another, has fulfilled all that the law requires, for every law that enforced is based on the neighbour. Take for example the laws of various nations; we can clearly see that the every law is pertaining to a neighbour, well, in this case a citizen neighbour. The love that Paul writes to Romans is the love that transcends all boundaries, cultures and ethnicities and, a love that is never judgemental.

Here we must note that the love Paul mentions of is a love that is genuine. For instance, if you treat someone you thoroughly dislike as though in fact you cared very deeply for them, and if you try to think how it is to live inside their skin and walk in their shoes, then it may well happen that a genuine empathy arises from that real affection, which finally leads to an un-hypocritical love. The love Paul speaks of is tough, not simply in the sense of ‘tough love’ as applied to the difficult that of bringing up children, but a love with will. For if we reduce love to emotions, we lose not only the consistency of behaviour but also the very possibility of our moral discourse. The context hence, breaths life into what might be for him a nearly dead metaphor, giving a particular force to the command to love: ‘this is the debt owed to everyone that can never be discharged or paid back.

Whom should I love?

The answer to this question lies in the heart of the text that was read to us, just now, in v9. Loving one’s neighbour is itself, of course, a command from the Torah even though it is not a part of the Ten Commandments. Paul was not the first to see it as a summary of the whole law. The idea of being able to sum up Torah in a single phrase has a long history in Judaism of which Paul was no doubt aware of. The commandments found in Exodus 20:13-15, 17; and Levi 19:18; against adultery, murder, theft, covetousness, and whatever other commandments there maybe, are all summed up as in Matthew 22:28 “love your neighbour as yourself” as also in Galatians 5:14. As Jesus taught us in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37), the neighbor is not the one who is just next to you, he/she is not the one whom you know, but this neighbour is the one, who is not known to you, or in short, a neighbor is anyone we encounter in life, who needs our help. Love is the inevitable response of a heart that is truly touched by God. God’s love manifests’ itself through the loving acts of the children of God, wherever it is absent, and any claim to a family or a relationship without love is merely pretentious.

In our present day culture, the cult of self-esteem has advanced and moved up so high that it is hard to identify, if the act is really done out of love, or of and other selfish motifs. It is in this context, that it is very necessary for us as Christians to point out that Jesus’ words are not a command to love ones-self, but recognition of the fact that we ought to love others. It is in the expression of this love that we show to our neighbours, that we do love ourselves as well, for if we show hatred to them, we also show to them that we hate ourselves, which for sure, is not true. We don’t hate or show any kind of hatredness towards ourselves, do we? I’m sure not. Hence, we should love our neighbors as ourselves.

What does this Love do?

This love simply does ‘no wrong’. It should simply not suppose to mean that the full achievement of ‘love’ consists simply in doing no wrong, for there goes a saying, “to do no harm is the praise of a stone and not a man”. Rather love, on its way to higher and positive goals takes in this negative one in a single stride: if love seeks the highest good of the neighbor, it will certainly do no wrong to him/her. The love that Paul speaks of is the Agape love, which is more selfless and that which cannot be turned on the self. What is commanded is that, we are to have the same loving regard for the others, which we have instinctively, for ourselves. For love never wrongs another person. To actually wrong another person or to find fault, is not the sign of the true love, which is spoken of in this passage. For true love, does not decide to love, depending on the acts of the other person, but it instantly loves because of the love for the self. This passage takes its place along side Paul’s several earlier statements about the Torah, confirming a positive understanding and making it clear once again that the ethical obligation is not undermined but reaffirmed by a proper understanding of justification and Christian life.

I’m sure there might be a many of us who would like to empathize with people, and there can be a few who would go beyond just empathizing, but can I say that there are only a hand full of people who go that extra mile to love, and continue to do it without judging? It for sure isn't wrong to love, because love does no wrong to the self or to the other, hence fulfilling the law.

Now that we have understood that love fulfills all law, this Valentine's day let us all love our neighbors, the people travelling in our lives, as ourselves, and that love does no wrong at all, let us challenge ourselves, that be it Hindu or Muslim, a man or a woman, gay or lesbian, a transgender or a commercial sex worker, or anyone in this diverse world is, let us learn to accept, help, love and care for people, not by being judgmental on what they do or who they are, but simply because we are called and commanded to Love our neighbor. Amen.