5th Sunday of St. Luke
Scripture: Galatians 6:11-18
Nutshell
(1) Challenge
We all want peace in our lives: peace with our bosses, our co-workers, our neighbors, and with our family members.
(2) Sin
However, keeping the peace isn’t always so easy. When faced with the choice of keeping peace or having chaos erupt, we sometimes compromise our values. Sometimes, it just seems easier to go with the flow.
(3) What happens?
We’re supposed to be people of integrity so when we make such compromises, we feel guilty. We feel like we’ve let ourselves down as well as those who depend on us.
(4) Christ forges a new path
But by using the cross, Christ shows us that peace doesn’t come through compromise, but through disruption.
(5) Longing satisfied
Through the cross, death was disrupted and abolished. Things that used to divide us—such as ethnicity, class, and gender—no longer matter.
(6) Visible evidence
We’ve become one family—citizens with the saints having Christ as our foundation and cornerstone. Now, our diversity shows that the cross has triumphed.
(7) What shall I do?
So, when we feel the need to compromise our Christian faith to keep the peace, remember that the cross brought a far greater peace than what can be accomplished by setting our faith aside.
Full Text
(1) Challenge
Our lives can be chaotic. Not just busy chaotic, but a tense chaotic that disrupts our lives: a fight with our spouse, an argument with our boss, a dispute with a neighbor.
In an ideal world, we’d have peace: peace with our bosses, peace with our co-workers, peace with our neighbors, and peace with our family members.
(2) Sin
However, keeping the peace isn’t always so easy. When faced with the choice of keeping peace or having chaos erupt, we sometimes compromise our values. Sometimes, it just seems easier to go with the flow.
This is what happened to St. Peter. Let me explain.
After the resurrection, and after St. Paul converted to Christianity, there arose a dispute. Do Gentiles have to be circumcised and become Jews before they can become Christians? Or, could they skip all of that and simply become Christians? Good question!
The Apostles, including Paul and Peter, gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the matter. They unanimously agreed that Gentiles did not have to be circumcised in order to become Christians. All Christians were equal, and circumcision no longer mattered.
All was well and good until Peter decided to visit Antioch. There, he found that Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians ate separately, because the Law of Moses prevented circumcised people from eating with non-circumcised people.
Instead of reminding them what the apostles had decided in Jerusalem, Peter decided to go back on his word, and he ate only with the Jewish-Christians. Perhaps, he believed it was better to keep the peace in Antioch by compromising his values than to cause disruption to the community.
(3) What happens?
But, by compromising his values, Peter also distorted the gospel—the very gospel that proclaimed that all Christians, Jews and Gentiles, are one body in Christ.
It was as if Peter didn’t have a backbone to stand up for Christ. He went back on his word and put his integrity in jeopardy.
Being a Christian isn’t easy. We’re called to walk a particular path, one that often goes against the grain of the secular world. And it isn’t always easy for us. It may feel like we’re caught between a rock and a hard spot having to decided between the way of Christ, and possibly endure push back from the world, or compromise our values and keep the peace around us.
But, as Christians, we’re supposed to be people of integrity, so when we make such compromises, we feel guilty. We feel like we’ve let ourselves down as well as those who depend upon us. Maybe we even feel sick to our stomachs.
Perhaps, if only we weren’t afraid of disruption.
(4) Christ forges a new path
Today, in his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul reorients our understanding of peace.
By using the cross, Christ shows us that peace doesn’t come through compromise, but through disruption—disruption brought about by the cross.
Through the cross, death was disrupted and abolished. In fact, St. Paul tells us, we should boast if the world hates us because of it. We should boast in the cross of Jesus Christ.
The world may see the cross as a weapon to be used against shameful criminals, but, for us as Christians, we see it as the birthing of a new world. And just as birth pangs bring about disruption to a mother’s body, we rejoice in the disruption brought about by the cross.
(5) Longing satisfied
Now, because of New Creation brought about by the cross, things that used to divide us—such as ethnicity, class, and gender—no longer matter. They no longer divide us.
Now, Christ calls together those who are near and far.
St. Paul writes that we are, “… no longer strangers and sojourners, but are instead fellow citizens with the holy ones, and are members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19).
Because we are all united around the one Eucharistic bread, we eat together, and we have a peace that can only come from God.
Every time we commune from the one chalice, we are being built up in spirit into God’s dwelling place.
(6) Visible evidence
We’ve become one family—citizens with the saints having Christ as our foundation and cornerstone. Our diversity shows that the cross has triumphed.
There’s one icon that I love, and I think illustrates this point perfectly. That’s the icon of St. Christopher.
St. Christopher, whose name means “Christ-bearer,” lived in the 3rd-century. When his story is told, the account of him being a ferryman is usually recounted. It’s said that one night a child appeared to him and asked to be taken across the river. Christopher obliged, but as he carried the child, the child got heavier and heavier. When they reached the other side, the child told him that he had just carried all the sins of the world on his shoulders. To Christopher’s surprise, he had just carried Christ himself–literally becoming a “Christ-bearer.”
So, most of St. Christopher’s icons show him carrying the Christ child across a river. However, there’s another icon that intrigues me and, I think, shows the power of the gospel even better.
St. Christopher was said to be a man of great statue, unusual strength, and very handsome. In order to avoid temptation, he asked Christ to disfigure his face, which Christ did. As a result, some of St. Christopher’s icons show him with a dog head. But, I think there’s something more behind the dog head than just a story of temptation.
In Byzantine art, Barbarians are often shown as monsters or animals to emphasize their strangeness. And, because St. Christopher was a Canaanite, he was considered a foreigner by Greek speaking peoples. He was, symbolically, at the edge of the civilized world. To illustrate his foreignness, he’s painted with a dog head.
Yet, he’s a Christian, a saint. This shows that even Barbarians, strangers at the edge of world, are included in God’s family. They too are a part of New Creation. They too eat at the same table with us.
To have included a man with a dog head among our saints shows that the cross has truly brought about a new world of peace.
(7) What shall I do?
So, when we feel the need to compromise our Christian faith to keep the peace, we remember that the cross brought about a far greater peace than what can be accomplished by setting aside our faith.
We remember that the cross has given us a diverse family through time to show us how to remain true to our beliefs, even in the face of danger or martyrdom.
We remember that the cross has given us a family of saints to support us through prayer, giving us the strength we need in tough times.
Because the cross has disrupted our fallen world, we are given New Creation, and we know that there will be a lasting peace which will never be disrupted.
Amen.