Galatians 5:1, 13-15 (NRSV)
Read Galatians 5:1, 13-15 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 5For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Verse 13For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. Verse 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Verse 15If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
Devotion
Back to the mantle (or yoke) again. Paul seems to understand the limit of human imagination. By tradition, we assume a yoke can mean only one thing: ownership, slavery, being bound to the plow. But Paul invites us to broaden our imagination. We are invited to imagine that we are no longer bound by the former things. Binding takes a new shape in Christ. We are now bound to one another—even slaves to one another. Not in submission or abuse. Rather we are bound by love, impelled by a desire to tend to the well-being of the other. Would we dare say that by leaning into our baptismal identity, love for the neighbor could in the ideal become a compulsion, something we cannot imagine NOT doing? And there is a caution, that this is not a love that consumes or subsumes the other. It is love for the sake of the other, not for our own sake.
Prayer
Loving God, if love is of you, love gives life and gives it abundantly. What a joy it is to be invited into the binding freedom of uplifting the neighbor. Bless us in our efforts. Amen.