Galatians 5:13-25 and Excerpts from the Gospel of Thomas
June 29, 2025
By Nicole M. Lamarche
who have wondered if the Church Fathers got some things wrong and left some things out. It turns out we aren’t the only ones who read the gospels and saw Jesus as a teacher of higher consciousness, a path to perennial wisdom, rather than someone God killed to spare us all from hell. It turns out many of us are ready for something else and it turns out that something was there all along. And I think of this as the great rebalancing, the great undoing in some ways. It’s some of what the patriarchal power structures of the first century and of now gave to us as a means of control. So just like the scientists finding hope in what not long ago was dismissed or unknown, we are lucky to be alive in an era when religion realized how little it knew.
At least our flavor! I do think we are blessed to be alive for this moment that changes everything. Which means we are compelled to question our answers, reread every Christian text with fresh eyes, knowing what we know now. Over this month, we have explored how Christianity looks different by including the Divine Feminine and what was there from the start. And last week we talked about power with instead of power over and we read part of that letter that we got more of today. We talked about how they practiced together a new kind of social order, knowing the Empire ranked them on their worth and actually still does now, but each time we gather in Jesus name, we get to create a little heaven here because social distinctions fall away, as we live out a radical reordering, where God is in everyone and for everyone. We talked about how the very thing Jesus was challenging at its core, was the hierarchy of worthiness manufactured by men. When we gather there is no ladder. No pyramid; it’s a circle. (Love that our sanctuary reflects that!) When we gather together we live that out, Jesus’ vision, that equalizing vision that he held for the world. We are not subjects to any Empire.
And today we continue looking at that same letter in the final part of this series. This writing to the early church in Galatia and is kind of funny. It’s Paul’s list of no-nos, which you might now know that this means it was happening. Which is why he lists them out. Paul seems a bit frantic here.
He gives a big list of no-nos, telling them that the kin-dom of God won’t be available to them if they carry on like they are and he tells them to focus on actions. Instead of drunkenness, how about gentleness? It has the vibe of a college dorm monitor. It seeks to modify behaviors and in some ways, it sort of demonizes anything related to the flesh. As if he is yelling, it’s all just sin! Everything you do! We can feel the frustration. One commentator wrote, “Paul's letter to the Galatian churches is one long, angry, passionate…” piece.
But the part to focus on… and remember at this point it’s still Jewish Christians, proselytes, it’s early enough on that they haven’t separated, now that they aren’t Judaism, but they aren’t sure what they are and it’s a wildly mix of different people. I think the thing to focus on is that Paul redefines freedom and what that means for those who have gathered around the teachings of Jesus. What are they free to do? Who are they free to be? Paul posits that perhaps there is a connection between love and freedom. And perhaps sin is what happens when we use our freedom to do something other than what is good for us and others. And as we learned from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, there is no ultimate reality to sin, it is the word used to describe anything that separates us from God who is called the good. Similar to our text for today, as Rob Fringer writes about the passage in Galatians, “It is not the dos and don’ts that separate us from God, it is the absence of love. What if we thought of sin this way—as the absence of love or as anti-love?”
Perhaps freedom is relational? Because in the same lines that he talks about freedom and being enslaved to passions, he says that the whole law can be summed up with love: love your neighbor as yourself.
Many who claim Jesus as their main teacher get lost in the weeds of the dos and don’ts because that is easier than internal transformation and radical inclusion, watering it down to a management system for sins, forgetting that in the context of the time, this letter is really capturing an ancient argument. But because not all of the Christian writings were included in our Bible, we only get one tiny fragment of the bigger discussions being had and the teachings that were shared. As we heard from the Gospel of Thomas, an early Christian writing that wasn’t included, the spiritual path that Jesus lays out is about connection and integration, being free from whatever stops us from living from our hearts. I am convinced it is a higher level teaching. You will notice it is not narrative and most of the ones not included are “different.” I am convinced these writings were like Jesus 201. And so I read this text to be more about managing the shadow cast from our ego, it makes sense, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female…” I think part of what it is getting at it in its First Century way, when we free ourselves from the illusion of separation, both inside and from each other, when we free ourselves from the illusions of the categories humans created, even of gender, when we stop dividing and separating from God who is the good internally and externally, we shall experience something that can be described as heaven. With more of the pieces put together and looking at more of the early Christian writings, we can see more clearly and ask better questions. How do we remain free from what separates us from all of the parts of ourselves, from the truths of ourselves? How do we remain free s from anything separates us from God who is love? How do we see freedom as relational? What does my freedom mean to yours? We shift to doing the work inside instead of trying to change everything and everyone else.
It is clear to me that the early Christian community was super diverse and looked differently in each of the places it started to form. And I am convinced that this band of believers committed to a higher way, did include everybody. I am convinced that part of why the Jesus movement grew was that it was one of the few places where everyone could be included and belong. You might remember that everything changed in the year 313, that was when Constantine said Christianity was no longer illegal with the Edict of Milan. And I bet there was an impulse to manage this holy chaos a bit.
Freedom isn’t always predictable or easily manageable.
So then what Paul wrote could easily be misinterpreted, turned into a list of things to avoid as religious crowd control, when really he was reminding them that not every choice connects us to one another and to God, not every thing we do will lead to good things, not all of our choices build belonging. Some actions are simply anti-love, separating us from our true selves and from others. It is a reminder that there is a relationship between love and freedom. I am also convinced that part of what made Christianity grow was the fact that everyone belonged. In part because the category of gender wasn’t really recognized once you got to the second level teaching, the higher level work, less public teaching. The male is not male and the female is not female. I am convinced this is what this really means is that none of that matters on the Jesus path. Those are categories that quickly fall away. Another equalizer that changes everything. Everyone, every body has access to the sacred thing. Everyone, every body has a gift to uncover and bring to the group. Everyone, every body belongs. I believe that’s what drew people to him.
Just like the scientists, we are lucky to be alive in an era when religion realized how little we knew! Well in some ways we are learning what we knew before we knew it. The Jesus movement was one where anyone willing to live at higher level was welcome. Everyone belongs! May we continue to live into this in deeper ways!
Communal Reflection
How can we individually and collectively live into our call to more fully being a place and a people where everyone belongs?
Everyone belongs. Thanks be to God! May it be so. Amen.