Galatians 4:21-31

Galatians 4:21-31The Message (MSG)

Tell me now, you who have become so enamored with the law: Have you paid close attention to that law? Abraham, remember, had two sons: one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. The son of the slave woman was born by human connivance; the son of the free woman was born by God’s promise. This illustrates the very thing we are dealing with now. The two births represent two ways of being in relationship with God. One is from Mount Sinai in Arabia. It corresponds with what is now going on in Jerusalem—a slave life, producing slaves as offspring. This is the way of Hagar. In contrast to that, there is an invisible Jerusalem, a free Jerusalem, and she is our mother—this is the way of Sarah. Remember what Isaiah wrote:

Rejoice, barren woman who bears no children,
    shout and cry out, woman who has no birth pangs,
Because the children of the barren woman
    now surpass the children of the chosen woman.

Isn’t it clear, friends, that you, like Isaac, are children of promise? In the days of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless connivance (Ishmael) harassed the child who came—empowered by the Spirit—from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn’t it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: “Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son.” Isn’t that conclusive? We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Are you a child of the law, or a child of promise?

There is, as Paul tells us, a distinction.

Now this does not mean we have no use for the law. Laws are good and helpful things that give a society boundaries.

But laws also get broken. And manipulated. And used as weapons. And twisted. 

Law can be enslaving. 

Instead, we are people of a promise. A promise of Spirit and life.

A promise of freedom and truth.

A promise of love.

A promise born of God's ways rather than human beings' ways. 

God's promise of freedom is expansive and open to all.  It invites and shelters. It does not, like the law, exclude. Instead, it opens up and draws in.

Are we children of the promise?

We are.

So open your arms and invite the world into God's loving embrace!

God of promise, you have set us free! Praise your holy name! Amen!