Married less than a year and recently settled in Pittsburgh, PA, I was excited about hosting my parents for Thanksgiving in our new home. However, they would not arrive from Dayton, OH, until Friday. So, I invited friends over for Thanksgiving dinner that Thursday. My parents flew in the next day. I was thrilled to set the table with our wedding china and bring out all of my delicious Thanksgiving food from the day before. It still tasted so good! Except I’ll never forget my mother looking down at her plate and saying, “leftovers.”
Having had such a stable, predictable childhood, I had never heard of anyone celebrating Thanksgiving on any other day. I guess Mom and Dad assumed we’d wait until they arrived. It simply never occurred to me to wait until Friday to serve up the feast. While it was nice to host a Friendsgiving, I had missed the point of my family’s traditional Thanksgiving. I guess that’s what happens when our holidays and traditions and religions are so predictable that we get stuck in a rut. We could miss the point when we fail to accommodate others.
That’s sort of what St. Paul was trying to tell his congregation in Galatia. Some folks there were adding Old Testament rules to their New Testament faith—maybe even mixing some of their pagan rituals in with their newfound faith in Christ. It caused division in their congregation. Worse, they were so focused on these rules and rituals, they were in danger of missing the point. It was distracting them from the basic command of loving each other as Christ had loved them.
Paul said that Christ has set us free to live a free life and to use that freedom to serve one another in love. We don’t need to add fancy rituals or manufactured rules to live a simple life of loving service. The point is to love others as you love yourself. However, Paul did warn the Galatians against using their freedom in Christ as an excuse to do whatever they wanted; the book of Leviticus still has many common-sense guidelines for holy living.
Paul encourages the Galatians, and us, to use our freedom to serve one another in love. The point is to love others as you love yourself (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 5:43,19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31-33, Luke 10:27, Rom.13:9).
For reflection:
- Are there any unwritten rules among your family and friends? What rituals and rules bog you down?
- Why is it so difficult to apply the simple law of love to our everyday lives?
by Diana K. Otterbacher
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