This blog provides a meditation on the Eiscopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Golden Dawn thugs threaten to throw immigrants out of Greek hospitals

thug speaking n Athens

Galatians 5:1-15Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

5 What the Messiah has freed us for is freedom! Therefore, stand firm, and don’t let yourselves be burdened with a yoke of slavery. ² Mark my words — I, Sha’ul, tell you that if you undergo circumcision the Messiah will be of no advantage to you at all! ³ Again, I warn you: any man who undergoes circumcision is obligated to observe the entire Torah! ⁴ You who are trying to be declared righteous by God through legalism have severed yourselves from the Messiah! You have fallen away from God’s grace! ⁵ For it is by the power of the Spirit, who works in us because we trust and are faithful, that we confidently expect our hope of attaining righteousness to be fulfilled. ⁶ When we are united with the Messiah Yeshua, neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters; what matters is trust expressing itself through love.

⁷ You were running the race well; who has stopped you from following the truth? ⁸ Whatever means of persuasion he used was not from the One who calls you. ⁹ “It takes only a little yeast to leaven the whole batch of dough.” ¹⁰ I am confident that since you are united with the Lord, you will take no other view; and I am confident that the one who has been disturbing you, whoever he may be, will have to bear his punishment.

¹¹ And as for me, brothers, if I am still preaching that circumcision is necessary, why am I still being persecuted? If that were the case, my preaching about the execution-stake would cause no offense whatever. ¹² I wish the people who are bothering you would go the whole way and castrate themselves!

¹³ For, brothers, you were called to be free. Only do not let that freedom become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Instead, serve one another in love. ¹⁴ For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence: “Love your neighbor as yourself”;^{a] 15} but if you go on snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other!

B’rit-milah: circumcision

This Jewish translation, which I’ve amended slightly, reminds us that Paul was a Jew (Paul is just the Gentile name nearest to the Hebrew Sha’ul); that Jesus Christ is Jeshua Messiah; and that the cross wasn’t worn round the neck or placed on an altar, but was a deliberately brutal Roman punishment for jihadis. It’s good to be reminded that Christianity was scandalous before it became boring.

The same is true of St. Paul. Here we find his most notorious peice of angry rhetoric-literally he says,” if these people are so keen on snipping why don’t they just go the whole hog and cut it off altogether?” We can see that this vulgar riposte to legalistic teachers might be quite effective. The next time a Galatian was faced with one of these teachers, he’d be sureptitiously thinking, “Why doesn’t he cut it off altogether?”

The key sentence is, “Neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters:what matters is trust expressing itself through love.” You could put any “religious” requirement in place of circumcision – child baptism or adult baptism; catholic or protestant; pro-life or pro-choice; for gays  or anti-gay-none of these matter in themselves, Paul says: all that matters is trust in God expressed in love for neighbour. I happen to think that those who are anti-gay are wrong but I have to argue this on the basis of trust expressed by love and not on the basis of my own culture. That is also a requirement for those who think I’m wrong.

Notice that although Paul dismisses the Torah as being able to make a person right, he’s happy enough to see it as a guide for those who are being made right by the love of Christ and free by the power of the spirit. If they want to keep their freedom the wisdom of the Torah, especially in its command of neighbourly love, will help them. We might sum this up by saying that while for Paul the Torah is a bad master when it usurps the place of God, it  can be a good servant to those who trust God’s love. Every good parent knows this is true: their child is made right by her confidence in their love, but can be kept right by their moral wisdom.

16 Then some Pharisees and Teachers of the Torah came to trap Yeshua by asking him to show them a miraculous sign from Heaven. ² But his response was, “When it is evening, you say, ‘Fair weather ahead,’ because the sky is red; ³ and in the morning you say, ‘Storm today!’ because the sky is red and overcast. You know how to read the appearance of the sky, but you can’t read the signs of the times! ⁴ A wicked and adulterous generation is asking for a sign? It will certainly not be given a sign — except the sign of Yonah!” With that he left them and went off.

⁵ The disciples, in crossing to the other side of the lake, had forgotten to bring any bread. ⁶ So when Yeshua said to them, “Watch out! Guard yourselves against the yeast of the harisees and teachers of theTorah,” ⁷ they thought he said it because they hadn’t brought bread. ⁸ But Yeshua, aware of this, said, “Such little trust you have! Why are you talking with each other about not having bread? ⁹ Don’t you understand yet? Don’t you remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you filled? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets you filled? ¹¹ How can you possibly think I was talking to you about bread? Guard yourselves from the yeast of the Pharisees and teachers” ¹² Then they understood — they were to guard themselves not from yeast for bread but from the teaching of the Pharisees and teachers of Torah.

Feeding and healing: a Centre in Athens for the poor

Jesus is impatient with hostile religious leaders who demand a miracle. All they need is common sense. They can interpret the weather well enough, why can’t they see the coming of the kingdom as clearly? The sign of Yonah (Jonah) is his message of repentance to the city of Nineveh. Jesus reminds his disciples of the twelve baskets (which symbolise his capacity to feed the twelve tribes of Israel) and the seven baskets (which symbolise his capacity to feed the traditional seven nations of gentiles). He is the one who feeds by his healing and teaching. But if the yeast of legalists is allowed into the bread-mix it will no longer be the sustaining food of Jesus. Even a little wrong teaching can destroy the good news of God’s loving kingdom. In his complete refusal of legalistic  religion, Jesus is at one with his disciple Paul.

Today’s readings challenge the Christian churches to clear away from their practice of faith every vestige of obligatory hocus-pocus.