Dear Faith Family,
Concluding his famed letter of faith's apparent triumph over law, Paul exhorts those "called to freedom" to:
Make a careful exploration of who you are
and the work you have been given,
and then sink yourself into that.
Don’t be impressed with yourself.
Don’t compare yourself with others.
Each of you must take responsibility for doing
the creative best you can with your own life.
(Galatians 6:4-5)
Perhaps ironically, Chaz began our series on the first ten words of what would come to be known as "the law," echoing Paul's exhortation to the free in Christ,
"True freedom is becoming who we are
and living within the bounds of our existence.
It is creative, vital, and abundant precisely
because it submits to the claims of love and liberty...
not finding the boundaries [i.e., responsibilities]
of reality and relationship burdensome."
How do freedom and "commandments" co-exist? How can I be (become) myself if I am bound? These are the questions every maturing child asks. I know mine are right now! The resolution, as Chaz mentioned a couple of Sundays back and Paul described to the faith family of Galatia, is recognizing that what binds us is the love that comes before "the law" and continues long after the law has served its formative function. Realizing that we are indeed "hemmed in, behind and before," as the Psalmist attests, is meant to expand our world, not shrink it (139:5-6).
"Love," says G.K. Chesterton, "is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind." The more we know and live in the bonds of Love that acted to free us and leads us to the promise of freedom's fullness, the more clearly we are able to see ourselves in relation to others (including God). Bound in love, we are able to distinguish where we stop and where the other starts and so free to be responsible for ourselves and to others without the anxiety of over-mingling or avoiding. And people claimed by such love and liberty are truly "blessed to be a blessing" (Gen. 12:2).
So, as we move together through the 'natural law' of the "Ten Words," may we do so with the expectation that we are moving towards more freedom, to becoming our true selves: ones bound by love in liberty, whose every day existence in work and rest and relationship and responsibility is a non-anxious transformative presence for the good. Probably not what you imagine when you first think of "The Ten Commandments," but perhaps the vision our heavenly Father imagines for us, His freed and ever-maturing children!
For today, take a moment to rest in your bound existence, hemmed in before and behind by the love of God. Take a deep breath and see that you are someone wholly known and wondrously formed for life now and forever.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully set apart.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well...
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me...
(Psalm 139:13-14, 16)
Love you, faith family! God bless.