Richard Davenport
June 22, 2025 – Proper 7
Galatians 3:23-4:7
When you’re a kid, it’s probably the day of the year you look forward to the most. I’d say it’s bigger than your birthday, bigger even than Christmas…the last day of school. Your birthday is certainly a special day, as is Christmas. Presents, obviously, but also time with friends and family, getting to do things you wouldn’t normally be able to do together and getting to share it with those you love is certainly nice, but nothing really compares with that sense of freedom you feel when the school bell rings for the last time.
You aren’t thinking about how you just finished that grade in school. You aren’t thinking about your teachers or your school projects or anything else that. All you can think of is freedom. No more alarm going off in the morning, yelling at you to get up and get ready for school. You probably still have some restrictions and there are still things you’ll need to do, but school no longer dominates your schedule.
What do you do now? Well, just about anything you want. You can play as much as you want. You can hang out with friends. You can lounge around and do whatever you like. You might get that on the odd holiday or snow day that pops up throughout the year, but now you have a whole summer of playing and lounging to look forward to. It won’t be just one short day and then back to business as usual.
When you’re younger, the only thing that can really compare with the knowledge that summer is coming is that distant awareness that someday you’ll get out of high school, or maybe college, and you’ll never have to go back to school ever again. The realities of adult life aren’t quite there and it seems as though graduation is the doorway to an endless summer and the freedom that comes with it.
Those of us who have grown up, having gone through the rigor of school and have graduated into the world of adult life know that things change when you leave school, but it certainly doesn’t mean the kind of freedom kids would like to think it means. You may not be putting everything you learned in school to use in whatever vocation you have in life, but you probably use at least some of it. The K-12 system is designed to give you a broad foundation for whatever you might choose to do in life. You won’t end up really good at anything. You won’t be specialized, but at this point you probably don’t have a firm idea of what you want to do with your life anyway. If you go on to college, even a bachelor’s degree continues this idea of setting a foundation. You take a lot of core classes, English, math, science, and so forth, while starting to incorporate the classes that represent your major.
Still, all of that goes into who you are and what you do with your life. You may not have ever been good at math, English, or some other subjects, but that doesn’t mean what you learned just disappears. You take what school has given you and learn and grow with it. You also take everything your parents have taught you about what sort of person you should be and how you should live. All of this gets stirred together to make you into the adult you eventually become.
Growing, maturing, learning, it’s what we’re supposed to do. Someone who doesn’t do those things is rightly treated like a child. Children aren’t supposed to be mature yet, but someone who is supposed to be mature and who doesn’t act like it has something wrong with them.
In his letter to the church in Galatia, St. Paul refers back to the Law of Moses. St. Paul usually meets with the local Jews in town first. It’s the easiest place to start, since they’re the ones who should already be looking forward to the savior. They’re the ones who know all of the Old Testament prophecies and everything else that points the way to the coming messiah. Jews don’t have a great history of actually following the Law, but most of the Jews St. Paul encounters seem to know what it says and are doing what they can to follow it.
It ends up being a debate that comes up a few times in his travels. At one point he even has to confront St. Peter about this very question. “What is the purpose of the Law?” When God gives the Law to the Israelites initially, one of the reasons gives for why they are to follow it is that they are supposed to look and act differently than the nations and people around them. A foreigner who travels to Israel should be able to see, not just by their language, their art, their culture, but by the very way they act toward others and toward God, that there is something unique about them. Is there something fundamentally wrong with wearing clothes made of a cotton-polyester blend? No. Is there something inherently special about shellfish or animals with cloven feet that they can’t be eaten? No, not really. Hindus will say cows and rats are holy and must not be harmed. But, the only things that are labelled holy in Israel are those things God has specifically claimed for himself.
When St. Paul brings the Gospel to these people and shares with them the story of Christ’s death and resurrection, many come to faith. They repent of their sins and receive God’s promised forgiveness. With the Gospel also comes the knowledge that they no longer have to follow the Law. They are no longer Jews waiting for the messiah, they are Christians who know that he has come.
What does life look like now? As Peter finds out after a little bit, it means getting to eat whatever you want. Sin and guilt offerings at the temple are meaningless. The various holy days are no longer mandated. Presumably you can wear any combination of fabrics your heart desires.
We face the same question too. You are saved by grace through faith, not by your own works. Jesus took that on. He offered the perfect sacrifice. Your sins have been washed away. That’s all done now. Where the Old Testament Jewish men were brought into the promise given to Abraham through circumcision, now all people are brought into the promise given by Christ through baptism. The old rules and laws no longer apply, so what does our life look like now?
Freedom! Summer vacation! Graduation! All of that is gone now. You are able to live according to your own rules and follow whatever plan you want. You are the master of your own destiny. You are the captain of your own ship, capable of sailing to whatever distant shores are calling you. Right?
A quick read of St. Paul’s letter here might suggest he’s saying the Law is useless now, but that’s not quite what he says. The law does show us the extent of our sins. Like a child trying to master a difficult subject, every moment of confusion, every failure, every time the subject isn’t perfectly clear is proof you aren’t perfect. While missing a question here or there on a math or history test may mean a bad grade, here it means death.
As much as we might hate the consequences of the law, it is still invaluable. Without it there to remind us of how much we need God’s grace, we’d never bother seeking it. The Law reminds us that we really aren’t ok, that our sin is slowly killing us, and without God’s grace, we will all be lost.
But that isn’t the Law’s only purpose. It also serves as a guardian and guide. It helps us to learn right from wrong. It helps us to live a life that is not only pleasing to God, but is good for us. By following the Law, we see God’s will for the world in action. We see how the order God provides in his creation allows everything to work the way it’s supposed to. Here, too, the Law is good for us, helping us to live in the manner God designed.
St. Paul speaks of the Law as a caretaker, a mentor, a guardian. It took care of us and helped us to grow. It taught us important things and directed us to seek God’s grace. We who are here have received that grace. Your sins have been forgiven. There is no sin to condemn you as long as you remain in that grace. God’s grace and mercy never runs out. Every time you sin, you can come back to him and be forgiven, be made clean and pure again.
Just like a school kid looking forward to summer vacation, the freedom offered in God’s grace may make you think the Law serves no purpose. It was just there to be a bother, an inconvenience, until you could be free of it and go on to live your life the way you wanted. Now the rules don’t apply to you anymore. All of those commandments, the regulations, the ordinances that he lays out only mattered when you were young, but you aren’t anymore and you can do what you want as an adult. That’s how the thinking goes, at any rate. I’m forgiven. I’m free. The rules no longer apply. I can throw off the Law and never think about it again.
If the only purpose of the Law was to show you your sin, you might be able to make a case for that, but even there we need reminders of our sin and we need to be reminded of God’s grace. Still, just being forgiven doesn’t mean everything in our lives suddenly works the way it’s supposed to. Just as school set the foundation for future learning, the Law prepares us for life in God’s creation. The Law may not condemn us anymore, but it was there to help us and give us what we would need to live as God’s people.
The season of Pentecost is that time of year when all of the major events of Christ’s life are done. We look forward to his return, knowing it could be at any moment. As St. Paul says, we are living in the last days. Still, we live in this world and we need to know how to do so in the manner God intends. This time in the Pentecost season is when we turn our attention most especially to the present and following the commands that God has given and living in eager expectation of the future. We are commanded to make disciples, a directive we can’t ignore simply because we are forgiven. What’s more, we continue to rejoice in God’s law, not because it condemns us, but because it has shown us how to live. We put God’s law into action. We’ve heard his commands as he taught them to us, now as mature Christians, we allow them to guide us.
Christ’s death has given us our inheritance, eternal life. The Law is no longer something to be feared, but it is also not something to be ignored. Since Christ has taken away the Law’s power to condemn, since he has taken away the unreachable goal of proving our own righteousness, we are now free to live as God intended, to live the way the Law shows us. We give thanks for the Ten Commandments and the other commands God gives because they help to guide us as we receive his love and mercy and as we pass it on to those the Law still condemns. Bless us, Lord, with your law, that it may help us grow into the people you have created us to be.