At the time, when you didn’t know God, you were enslaved by things that aren’t gods by nature. But now, after knowing God (or rather, being known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless world system? Do you want to be slaves to it again? You observe religious days and months and seasons and years. I’m afraid for you! Perhaps my hard work for you has been for nothing. I beg you to be like me, brothers and sisters, because I have become like you! You haven’t wronged me. You know that I first preached the gospel to you because of an illness. Though my poor health burdened you, you didn’t look down on me or reject me, but you welcomed me as if I were an angel from God, or as if I were Christ Jesus! Where then is the great attitude that you had? I swear that, if possible, you would have dug out your eyes and given them to me. So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? They are so concerned about you, though not with good intentions. Rather, they want to shut you out so that you would run after them. However, it’s always good to have people concerned about you with good intentions, and not just when I’m there with you. My little children, I’m going through labor pains again until Christ is formed in you. But I wish I could be with you now and change how I sound, because I’m at a loss about you. (Galatians 4:8-20, CEB)
Here Paul is telling the Galatians that they seem to have forgotten what he taught them. When Paul was in Galatia, he was sick. He actually didn’t intend to be there but was not physically able to leave and they took care of him and he taught them about the gospel.
And now they are going back to things that aren’t God.
And as I read this passage I was struck with the line, “You observe religious days and months and seasons and years. I’m afraid for you!” I don’t really remember reading this before. Is Paul telling them not to celebrate religious days, months, and seasons? Yes, that is what he is saying and we usually read this as pagan religious days/months/seasons. But is that it?
When I read that sentence and the following this time, I thought about how sometimes in the church we are hung up on our days/months/seasons. Take now for instance. It is Advent. And the world around us has been celebrating Christmas for 25 or more days. (25 because that is how many days it has been since Thanksgiving.) And we say it’s not Christmas. The 12 days of Christmas start December 25 and go until January 5. Is that important, yes. Is it a reason to get huffy and tell people they can’t listen to Christmas music until December 25? Also yes, I mean no. Our seasons are important, but God and Paul would say we need to connect to the world and show them the gospel. We need to connect where we can and not force our religion, but share grace, mercy, and love and invite people to see they are loved by God.
So let us not focus on the seasons we celebrate, but on inviting people into an understanding of the baby we wait to come and the savior we wait to return and the love that is shown in both of those by a God who created and loves them.
Love Out Loud.
Loving People. Loving God.