Learning to love Paul by watching Paul love us! ~ Galatians 4:1-20

 

A standard trope I often hear as a pastor is “Jesus I like but Paul . . . well . . . not so much.” We’ve already talked a little bit about why. Even the Apostle Peter tells us that he’s hard to read at times and difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). Many of us have also been brutalized by his interpreters (I once had someone interpret my children sermon as a repudiation of Obamacare - yep!). He often speaks strongly – passionately – even a bit sarcastically, at times. But here’s the thing – he’s speaking strongly for us. We are the people who were being excluded. We are the people who were being alienated. If you are a non-Jew – you are here in no small part because this Jew thought you worth arguing about, pleading for, being grumpy, cantankerous, and obstreperous about. I’m not trying to make excuses for Paul. Sometimes he is unnecessarily harsh. It’s true. But it’s also true that Paul is a flesh and blood person – who is neither perfect nor exempt from the slow process of transformation. But even when he screws up, it’s for us. By the way, I can’t imagine someone taking some of my sermons and thinking that they should continue to be read for thousands of years even after I’m gone.

So today I would like to use Galatians 4:1-20 to help you fall in love with Paul by cluing you in on three important elements that Paul lovingly wants you tell you: Don’t be “under” anything. Be free; welcome to being a “son”; and choose to suffer like a mom.

Don’t be “under” anything. Be free.

Paul begins chapter four by further discussing our relationship to the law with two interlocking analogies: being bought out of slavery and the plight of a young child who is under the care of guardians until he comes of age to inherit all that is rightly his. Before Christ, in other words, we were underage but after Christ comes we are adult heirs. Paul represents that time of maturity – not so much as “personal history” for each of us but as “salvation history” for all of us, reflecting on the time before and after Jesus came. But the point is that he wants to liberate us from onerous and enslaving rules. And we can see that by exploring a keyword in the transition from slave to heir - the word “hypo” or “under.” What happens when we look closely at that word? A quick-survey:
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse . . . (3:10)
But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin . . . (3:22)
Before the coming of this faith [of Jesus], we were held in custody under the law . . . (3:23)
Now that this faith [of Jesus] has come, we are no longer under a guardian [the law]. (3:25)
[W]hen we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. (4:3)
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law . . . (4:4-5)
Tell me, you who want to be under the law . . . (4:21)
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (5:18)

For Paul, “under” is a significant preposition identifying negative realities of subjection, restriction, judgment, and slavery. And Jesus came to earth as God’s Son in the flesh, born like us, born under the law, to . . .  what? Enslave us again? Make us work harder? Make us feel bad? Ensure that God doesn’t kill us? No – “to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” Jesus purchases out of slavery so that we might be “under” no more.

The coming of Jesus, Paul says, unlocked the cage which intended to keep us safe but, in the end, kept us bound. Why would you want to stay there, he asks? You have been redeemed – that’s a fact of history and not merely a function of your choice. Paul wants you to stop for moment and recognize the liberated world that you are living in. Friends, listen to Paul who truly loves you and stop listening to the finger-wagging interpreters. Paul’s not mad at you. Paul doesn’t think ill of you. Paul doesn’t want you “under” anything. Paul is telling us that Jesus has opened the cage and wants you to be free.

 

A Radical Image: Welcome to being a “son.”

There is also an amazing gendered, cultural reality that the Apostle Paul is breaking open here, that is easily missed. But before the big reveal – let’s be sure to understand a big contrast that Paul is making – Jesus moves us out of slavery and into a family. Take a quick look at all of the familial and household language in Galatians:

All the brothers and sisters with me . . . (1:2)
Brothers and sisters (1:11; 3:15; 5:13; 6:18)
Son [Jesus] (1:16)
Son of God [Jesus] (2:20)
Inheritance (3:18)
“Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (3:29)
God sent out his Son (4:4)
Adopted as “sons” (4:5)
“God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” (4:6)
“So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child . . . God has also made you an heir.” (4:7)
Children of promise (4:28)
non-inheritance (5:21)
“the family of believers” (6:10)

As you can see, Paul’s kinship imagery that is so central to Galatians as a whole comes to a climax in chapter four. But this language, particularly the metaphor of adoption is more radical than many of us have realized, which is why reading the Bible can be difficult especially if you read it without acknowledging historical context. The phrase “adoption to sonship” [huiothesia], literally “son-placement”, has a rich legal and cultural history in the Roman world. It was designed to give a wealthy and powerful father a legal heir, normally in the event that he did not have biological male son. This ensured the continuation of his name and the assurance that all his possessions would be passed down. Such “son-placement” was not offered to poor, orphaned children, but only granted to adults who were found to be worthy and prestigious enough to maintain one’s line with dignity and honor. For example, it’s what Julius Caesar will do with Octavian, who becomes Gaius Julius Caesar. This practice, by the way, was not afforded to daughters but only to sons and only one, at that.

So given this legal and cultural reality. Listen to the Apostle Paul. He’s stating that each of us – all of the Galatians – all of the Gentiles – all of the women – all of the slaves – have become the prized son of the divine family, regardless of gender, class, or ethnicity. There are no “greater” or “lesser” children in God’s household; all of us are meant to belong, each of us is God’s favorite, each of us – all daughters included - are sons with full privileges.

Such an empowering image is not socially meaningless in a patriarchal world simply because it’s metaphorical (e.g. familial language in early Christianity and Roman charges of incest). The overt privileges of males in the Roman Empire has easily been substantiated by historians noting the regimes overt patriarchal nature as well as it’s unnaturally male population. One social historian estimated that there were 131 males to 100 females in the Roman Empire. Furthermore, a study of funerary inscriptions in one Roman city reveals that out of 600 families, only six had raised more than one daughter. Such statistics can only occur when there is some tampering with human life – women were socially, physically, spiritually – being put to death. In a letter from a Roman named Hilarion to his wife Alis, who was pregnant, he instructs her: “If you are delivered of a child [before I come home], it if is a boy keep it, if a girl discard it.” Historians have long noted the preponderance of women and slaves in early Christianity. And why not? Their champion – the Apostle Paul – declared them to all be members of one family – heirs – each of them prized “sons.”

Paul encourages us to suffer like a mom.

Paul ends our passage by getting real personal and expressing tender praise for the Galatians. He speaks of being sick and receiving amazing care at the hands of the Galatian church. He praises them with the astounding remark: “You welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself” (4:14). He contrasts them with the false teachers who while sharing an equal amount of zeal only do so to “alienate” or “exclude”; ἐκκλεῖσαι (ekkleisai) in Greek, which is very close to the Greek word for “church”; ἐκκλησία (ekklesia). Here Paul sets up the true test of a Christ-formed church. Will we be welcomers, even when it causes us pain, or law-abiding excluders? And the only way to truly welcome is to choose the way of faithful suffering – the way of the parent, particularly the “mom” who suffers through labor so that others might be born again. Paul valorizes the experience of women by using the metaphor of childbirth to explain that he will bear a terrible amount of pain so that they can be welcomed and welcoming like Jesus. Paul calls all of us to love those who perplex us, those who infuriate us, those who test our patience, who try our resolve – to love them like a mom. 

So – let’s recap. Out of love Paul tells all of us that we are free – no longer “under” anything that restricts, enslaves, or judges us. Out of love, Paul tells all of us – that each of us is an heir of God – chosen by God to receive God’s inheritance. Out of love, Paul reminds every one of us that we must be zealous in our welcome, refusing to exclude, and must suffer with each other like women do when they are in a labor so that Christ might be born in us. Friends, how can you not love that? That sounds like Jesus to me. Amen.