Tuesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 11, 2022

Galatians 5, 1-6

Brothers and sisters: For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. It is I, Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised that he is bound to observe the entire Law. You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Today’s First Reading begins with a repetition of the last verse of yesterday’s First Reading.  Including this verse here does not make much sense since it ends the latest section of St. Paul’s Letter: “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”  Jesus Christ sets the Jews free from death through sin and also from slavery to the practices of the Law which cannot slave, but which only signify the New Covenant made in the Blood of Jesus.  Paul says to the Galatians who had been convinced by Jewish Christian missionaries that they needed to become Jews if they really wanted to follow the Lord.  He means for the Galatians to understand that the Lord’s Death set them free from the necessity of becoming Jews.  And now that they were baptized, they were following the Lord.  “It is I, Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.”  Paul does everything here but pound his chest at them.  It is he, Paul, the former Jew — and a Pharisee at that — who says this to them.  Surely, if so,e advantage remained for them in being circumcised and accepting the Law, he would tell them.  “Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised that he is bound to observe the entire Law.”  Paul says, Choose to be a Jew or to be a Christian.  You cannot be both.  But if you choose to be a Jew, you must follow the whole Law, not just parts of it, and you cannot follow Christ then.  If you choose to be a Christian, then you follow Christ alone and reject the practices of the Jewish Law.  “You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”  By accepting circumcision and the rest of the Law, those Galatians who have done this have left Christ and the grace that alone saved them from hell.  “For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.”  The Jews do not believe in the Holy Spirit or in the value of faith and so cannot await “the hope of righteousness”, which is Jesus Christ, who will come at the end of the age.  “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”  With the coming of the Son of God into the world, mere biology or imitation of the Jewish practice of circumcision, which was supposed to make a person a member of God’s people, lost their meaning, which was merely that of a sign.  Now, belief in God leads to faith which brings grace — a share in the life of God for which we had no capacity as a result of Original Sin but for which we now do thanks to the Lord Jesus, who paid for our sin with his life and restored peace between us and God.  This faith comes by way of love, for first we know the Love of the Lord Jesus: “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4, 19); and through our love of Jesus comes our faith in him.  Love and faith have effective power, whereas circumcision does not.  It was a sign for baptism, but the time of signs is over.

Today’s Gospel Reading, from Luke 11, 37-41, shows us the Lord Jesus rejecting the practices of the Pharisees, particularly those that have to do with the ritual cleansing of cups and dishes before meals.  The Pharisees saw this rejection for what it was, the rejection of all similar Jewish practices which grace would render useless. 

For the people of this world, there is no God and no heaven to strive for.  There is only this world, this life.  And so they strive, as the Jews did, to find meaning and some kind of stability in things that seem to hold promises, but only of temporary goods.  In the case of the pagans, they grab at the latest medical advice, the latest diets, fads of all kinds, pop psychology, and out and out superstitions.  But for the Christian, this world holds no promise.  It too is a sign that will fade away when the reality of the new heavens and the new earth come.  John the Apostle was granted a vision of this: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth was gone: and the sea is now no more” (Revelation 21, 1).  That is what we live for, not the sign we have seen and recognized and from which we will soon, please God, be received into the arms of God.