Wednesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 12, 2022

Galatians 5:18-25

Brothers and sisters: If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.

“If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”  Having concluded his arguments to the Galatian Christians not to follow the insistence of visiting Jewish Christians to become circumcised and follow the Jewish Law while believing in the redemption of Jesus Christ, St. Paul moves on to their present conduct.  As former Gentiles living within a strong Gentile culture, they had participated in what was, for them, normal pagan practices, such a idolatry, going to prostitutes, and pursuing wealth.  He speaks of these now as “works of the flesh”, which are opposed to the “works of the spirit”.  The works of the spirit lead the believer in Christ away from the Jewish Law and also lead them away from Gentile custom.  “Now the works of the flesh are obvious.”  That is, anyone can recognize certain works and practices as belonging to the “flesh”.  Jesus himself contrasted the “flesh” with the “spirit”, and the “world” with the Kingdom (which amounts to the same thing).  The flesh and the world represent unredeemed humanity, fallen human nature, and the propensity of the human person to choose evil over good.  The spirit and the Kingdom represent the life of grace and the destiny of the just in heaven.  For Paul, growing up as a Jew, it was clear what works were evil, and which he would understand as of the flesh or of the world when he became a Christian.  The Galatians might not have found this so obvious, although the ethical writings of the Greek philosophers could have helped with their understanding.  “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.”  We should note that four or five (the word translated here as “idolatry” could also be translated as “adultery”) are sins against chastity, or, what we today call “sexual sins”.  English words such as “immorality” are used here to denote sins on the utmost shame which Paul considered too disgusting even to name.  Idolatry and sorcery are sins against faith and constitute appeals to the demonic world.  Other sins, such as hatred, envy, and rivalry, come under the heading of interior sins which do not necessarily include exterior manifestations.  We might call them “victimless sins”, but sin always harms the sinner and so the action remains a sin even if the object of the sin lives far away and is not directly harmed.  It is also directed against God, the Creator and lover of all.  Defacing ourselves through sin mars and warps the image of God in which he created us.  Drinking bouts and orgies were perfectly acceptable at the time throughout the Graeco-Roman world.  A pagan would have been amazed that anyone would question these practices.  “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”  Paul has taught them of the evil of the things he had listed, but he feels compelled to remind them of this.  Old habits die hard, and “a dog returns to its vomit” (2 Peter 2, 22).  

“In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  Paul does not list works of the spirit as he listed the works of the flesh, but gives the fruits that result from these works.  These lead to life, while the works of the flesh have as their fruit hatred, rage, and despair.  These are dead ends that lead to death.  “Against such there is no law.”  That is, the Jewish Law, which the Galatians had fancied, forbade the wicked practices as sinful, and the moral code of this Law, fulfilled by the teachings of Jesus, continues for believers in him.  Thus, whether they circumcise themselves and adopt the whole of the Old Law or remain in the New, they cannot practice those things which once they had.  On the other hand, there is no law against the works of the spirit — for that which was not outlawed in the Gentile world, was seen as a public or private good — and their fruits extremely desirable.  “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.”  Those who belong to Christ crucify their flesh through baptism into his Death and Resurrection, and they do so on a daily basis by rejecting them, putting them to the Death of the Cross on which Christ became sin for us in order to destroy it.  “If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.”  If we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, Paul is telling the Galatians, and we receive the graces from the Holy Spirit to be joined to him, then let us follow the Law of Christ which we know through the Spirit and which the Spirit enables us to follow.