Living by the Spirit or Living by the Law

I can't find my bulletin from yesterday so I am guessing that the Scripture was Galatians 5:1-26. I hope I am correct. I like the translation that Brian and Shannon use for scripture. It is contemporary and very understandable.

Today at Haywood Street there was a little extra craziness. The weather is hot and Asheville has gotten too much rain this year. Everyone was grateful for a dry day and a cool place to gather and eat. The meal was Native American fare, turkey, squash, cranberries, salad, hominy, apple bread, and grape cobbler with whipped cream. It was all yummy as usual. Unfortunately, one of the guests got sick during dinner. They had to call the paramedics. It was all well in the end, but it made for quite a concern.

There were less of us in the Clothes Closet than usual. Only Linda and Judy from Mars Hill, Gina, and a new companion named Jordan who is one of the youth from the area who want to participate in Haywood Street's mission. We missed Lora, Marie, and Phyllis.

There was great need for toilet paper and diapers. Those are supplies we can't get enough of. I can't imagine what living on the streets requires, but those two commodities are definitely in high demand.

I sat with Jordan at lunch and with a woman Presbyterian minister from Brevard who was there to "catch" the Spirit. The minister asked so many questions that I forgot to go relieve Judy so she could come and eat. Fortunately she came to eat without my taking her place, but she missed the service because of that. I am sorry.

The service was led by Shannon because Brian is in Oklahoma City attending a conference. She did a wonderful job in his absence.

The question she began with was whether it was necessary to be circumcised or not. It seems there was much being made in the church in Galatia over requiring the Gentiles to be circumcised like their Jewish brothers in order to be true Christians. Paul set it straight and quickly. It was of no matter. They were bogged down in a petty thing, a matter of the law. But if we go back and look at why the Jews were circumcised, we find that it was very important to them. It was a sign of the covenant they had through Abraham with God that they would be fruitful and inherit the earth. That sounds pretty big, though Shannon didn't go into that. Also we are talking about grown men who must undergo circumcism, not babies. That sounds pretty big, too. But Paul said it wasn't important. Paul is concerned for the Galatians because they are headed down the wrong track and are being divided over matters that had no real importance.

Hence Shannon asked, "Isn't the Law important?" What about tradition? What did Paul mean about following the Spirit? The congregation responded. I thought the response that I liked the best was that it was both simple and complex. It is. We are free through the Spirit to choose life with God, but the Law is still important. "Jesus came not to do away with the Law but to fulfill it," said Shannon. What does that mean? Someone else in the congregation quoted part of the Scripture from James that says you call My name and you cast out demons in My name and you pull at my robes, but you do not do the will of the Father and I will not save you. I like that verse because I have lots of Christian friends who talk a lot about God and yet do nothing for the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the widows, and the orphans. In James we find in the next verse to the one quoted, the work that those people who were calling out Jesus' name should have been doing. But we are not justified by works. We are justified by faith. They are both empty as Paul reminds us in Corinthians one without the other. Because if we are God's children and have faith, we have no choice but to choose to care for one another as if we were all one and to serve one another.

I am not sure we ever got to the heart of the matter yesterday. In my own experience I have been called by God sometimes to do things that I thought were against the Law, now not to hurt someone or to deny God, but to break the absoluteness of the Law. Yet, when I did as He told me to do and acted in love, it turned out to be in His will and the wrong was made very right. It is like Jesus gathering the wheat from the field and healing the sick on the Sabbath. Both of those were against the Law, but they were done in love and ended up bringing people into relationship with God, not putting them off. Shannon was trying to make that point. That relationship with the Spirit was the important thing. I'd add listening to the Spirit carefully with much discernment and then acting according to love. Rules were made to be broken, but love, agape love, was not. When weighing the two, Law and Love, acting in Love wins every time.

Another quote by C. S. Lewis, one of my absolute favorites:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves