"A New Creation is Everything"

Galatians 6:1-16

This morning we come to the end of the epistle to the Galatians in our summer preaching series. Most of the epistles were written to the early churches when they were having some sort of difficulty. For the Galatians, who were mainly Greeks who had converted to Christianity, the question was whether they had to become completely Jewish by carrying out Jewish dietary laws and by being circumcised, before they could actually become Christians.

This letter to the churches in Galatia is Paul’s answer to that question. Paul never rejects his Jewish heritage, but he has come to see a larger picture of what it means to be faithful to God. Paul teaches that Christ is the complete answer for all people, no matter what they believed before they began to trust in Christ.

Our text this morning is the conclusion of Paul’s discussion on life in Christ, and then a restatement of the fundamental claims he has made in this letter to the Galatians. Let us listen for how the Spirit might be speaking to the church today. Read Galatians.

The beginning verses of this text, at first, seem a bit disjointed. Paul seems to be throwing in all the ideas he might have missed – just to make sure! But if we look closely, they all speak about the mutual responsibility we have for each other within the Christian community. Restoring someone in a “spirit of gentleness” is important because we are all part of Christ’s body. Bearing one another’s burdens involves the understanding that we are all connected because we are all trying to follow Christ. And always, Paul includes something about working for the good of all and never growing weary in our work for Christ.

And isn’t it interesting that Paul includes both the “bearing of one another’s burdens” with “all must carry their own loads?”  They seem to balance each other in some way.

We might think about it in this way: When we gather at any time, there is a sense that some of the time, some of us are in a good place – things in our life are going well, so we do not need the care of others. But it also recognizes that there will be times when we are not OK, when we are on the verge of tears, or we have something in our lives that is very difficult to deal with – those are the times when others can carry us, in prayer, with a touch or hug, or even with a good casserole. Even if we do not know the particulars about each other’s lives, we are connected by our love for God and God’s love for us. As you read the prayer list, you may not know all the people listed, but you pray anyway. You bear one another’s burdens.

These past weeks our own community has been aware of what it means to bear other’s burdens. We have been concerned especially for the Hutchins family, and for the Carapetyans and Williams. These families have expressed to me how much they have appreciated your prayers, your love. Next week we may be helping to carry someone else in our hearts and prayers, and there may be times when we need to be carried. That is what it means to be in community – to be part of the family of God.

Paul writes that bearing one another’s burdens is fulfilling the law of Christ. Interesting that he would choose to use the word “law” in this letter where he has preached that we are free from the law. But, back in chapter 5, Paul says that the whole law is summed up in one commandment – you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

At the beginning of the service, we used the prayer of St Francis. This prayer expresses a desire that God help us to love, and to understand, and to give freely to our neighbors.

So the law of Christ is the law of love for others. The law of Christ is not like any other law. Jesus challenged authority and traditions and reversed many social orders. He taught that if any member of our family was interfering with love of God, that family ties should be broken. He taught that we should love our enemies and do good to those who use us. He insisted on care for the outcast, the sick, and the poor. Jesus challenged the ways we usually think about power – the one who would be great among you must be the servant of all.

And, Paul keeps pointing the church toward this law of Christ. Christ is the norm for our actions; Christ is the norm for who we are becoming.

In the final sentences of this letter, Paul returns to the primary reason for writing, and he tells them to take note because he is writing in his own handwriting and using very large letters. He does not want the church to miss this final thought.

As he returns to the problem of circumcision, he makes a truly revolutionary statement – for neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is everything.

It is hard for us to understand about the circumcision question in the same way they understood in the first century. Circumcision was commanded by God in Genesis 17. It was part of a covenant that set God’s people apart from the rest of the world. Even Paul, when he describes himself says he was circumcised on the eighth day.

I’ve been trying to think of what would be as radical for us. Maybe baptism or communion, maybe worship or mission – I guess anything in our tradition that we believe makes us belong to Christ.

So what if a modern day Paul wrote our church a letter and said that none of these things we hold dear are important – whether we do them of not. They are nothing! It’s hard to imagine. And yet this is what Paul writes to the early church.

But, Paul goes farther - a new creation is everything. A new creation! What could Paul mean?

A new creation is promised of by many prophets – Behold, I am doing a new thing - a new way in the wilderness, springs in the desert, a new heaven and new earth. A new creation where God will act decisively and all will be restored. 

And for Paul, that new creation is precisely what has happened in Christ. Every promise God has ever made is fulfilled in Christ. And, to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ is to be brought into this new reality. To follow Christ means to live in the midst of this old world, but to see with new eyes, and to love with a new heart. In following Christ, we can become more and more aware of our citizenship in this new reality, and of how we are being created and transformed more and more into Christ’s very image.

Paul Tillich writes this in a sermon on this text: “And now we ask again: What is this New Being? The New Being is not something that simply takes the place of the Old Being. But it is a renewal of the Old which has been corrupted, distorted, split, and almost destroyed. But not wholly destroyed. Salvation does not destroy creation; but it transforms the Old Creation into a New one. Therefore we speak of the New in terms of a re-newal: the threefold “re” namely, re-conciliation, re-union, re-surrection.”

At the beginning of Galatians, Paul writes of how the Gospel invaded his own life in a radical way, in fact it was so radical that he gave up everything about his former life that he thought was important. And throughout his writing, he urges disciples to set aside all those ways that we usually divide ourselves against one another. We are all one in Christ.

Paul urges us to help others in any way we can and to fulfill the law of Christ, but never without also looking to ourselves, always setting aside our pride.

And now finally, Paul describes the work of Christ as a whole new creation, a cosmic change. We are invited into this new creation. Christ calls us to follow, to commit ourselves again and again. May God grant us the grace to enter this new reality, to live into it, to let it grasp us completely. Amen.