Saint Paul writes to the Christians in Galatia, who regularly gather to worship Jesus and to be encouraged by Holy Scripture and to pray; . . . Saint Paul writes to the people of the Church in Galatia,

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Those are immensely important words which Saint Paul has written.  But they have been given to us with such little fanfare that it is easy to overlook them.  So, let’s stop; . . . let’s stop and take a look at what Saint Paul is getting at when he tells us that “for freedom Christ has set us free.”

    The “setting free” part is easy enough.  Saint Paul means, by this, that by the atoning Passion of Jesus; by His redeeming Death, by His saving Resurrection, and by His glorifying Ascension . . . Christ Jesus has set us free from slavery to sin.  . . . Jesus has set us free from slavery to sin so that we might be free -- so that we might enjoy one of the chief virtues of the Lord God Almighty having created us in His Image:  freedom.  By creating each of us in His Image, the Lord God Almighty has given each of us the freedom to be one’s self . . . absolutely . . . and perfectly.

    Christ Jesus, Son of the Living God, went to all the effort He did to free us because of the thing we call “Original Sin.”  Original Sin is the loss of absolute knowing.  Absolute knowledge has been obscured by a cloud of intermediate knowledge.  So, Original Sin deprives us of a knowledge of God -- we cannot see Him Who is the Absolute Good -- because knowledge of innumerable intermediate goods and their opposites (which we call evil) obscure our perceiving of the Perfect Good.  And because we do not know God perfectly . . . we cannot know who we are absolutely, nor can we become ourselves perfectly.  Original Sin is slavery to appetites for intermediate goods, and it is slavery to fear of intermediate evils; . . . Original Sin is slavery to our desires and to our fears.

    But in Christ Jesus we have been freed from all that in order that we might possess the perfect freedom of sons and daughters of God by adoption and grace.  And the first grace we have is in knowing Jesus.  . . . We know Jesus as grace reveals Him to us in Holy Scripture, . . . and as He reveals Himself to us in the Sacrament of His most precious Body and Blood.  . . . Moreover, we have, in Baptism, been given the Spirit of adoption; we have each been given the Holy Spirit to be the strength and anchor of our Faith, . . . so that we might have grace to believe in Jesus and defeat sin.  Jesus is our perfect knowledge of the Father, and He is the Image of our absolute identity:  Jesus is the perfecter and perfection of our Faith.

    But the thing Paul wants the Galatians (and us) to pay attention to . . . is that neither the Rite of Baptism nor the Rite of Holy Communion preclude continued repentance and faithful discipleship.  You can’t do anything you want or live any lifestyle that pleases you because you think the Lord God Almighty has “affirmed your personhood” at the Baptismal Font or at the Altar.  That sort of behavior is called taking the Name of the Lord in vain, . . . which is a sin!  This is because the freedom which Christ has won for us has not freed us from the consequence of Original Sin.  It is still possible to be blinded, confused, and seduced by the clamor of all the intermediate goods which are less than God, and of all the intermediate evils which deceive us by their imagined power.  It is still possible to forget God and to use your freedom in Christ to become enslaved to sin.  And so, Saint Paul urges the Church to “stand fast [in Christ Jesus], and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”  Which slavery Saint Paul enumerates for our instruction.  The slavery of Original Sin, which Paul here calls “the desires of the flesh”; . . . the slavery of Original Sin falls into three distinct categories:  corporeal slavery, . . . spiritual slavery, . . . and moral slavery.

    Corporeal slavery is enslavement to bodily lusts.  Saint Paul describes this bodily restlessness as “fornication, impurity, and licentiousness.”  It is the defilement of mind and soul by means of one’s body, confusedly searching for absolute joy and peace through satisfaction of bodily appetites and curiosities.  This sort of gluttony is a kind of spiritual cannibalism, because it can result in people  using one another without self-commitment in order to attain a purely selfish goal.

    The second kind of slavery -- spiritual slavery -- is the attempt to manipulate reality by giving one’s self over to spiritual powers that are perceived as a source of strength.  Saint Paul speaks of such things as being “idolatry and sorcery”.  When you read your horoscope you submit your self to sorcery -- to spiritual slavery.  You do a like thing when you knock on wood for luck or employ other such superstitious rituals and talismans.  The inordinate trust in the power of money is a kind of idolatry that is insidious.  Gambling and the choosing of numbers to be used in lotteries to get money is a kind of devilish idolatry which worships an illusion, and it is gradually claiming more and more of the spiritual resources of American society.  And yet, gambling, lotteries, and raffles are treated as if they were harmless amusements.  They are not.  They involve pursuit of an imagined power which many individuals suppose to be greater than the ineffable might of the One True and Living God.

    The final kind of slavery is moral slavery.  Moral slavery is the consequence of corporeal and spiritual slavery.  And Saint Paul characterizes it as being dark and violent:  “enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.”  Moral slavery is the consequence of giving one’s self over to self-preoccupation and to fear.  It robs the individual, and, hence, human society, of vision and energy, because it spends itself in vicious thoughts, violent acts, and dissipated living.  This is why Paul introduces the whole subject of slavery to the flesh by saying, “if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another.”

    Freedom in Christ, on the other hand, is quite a different thing.  Saint Paul observes that “those who belong to Christ Jesus [are free because they] have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” . . . and live the life breathed into us by God’s Holy Spirit; the fruit of which is love, joy, and peace.  Freedom in Christ is love because, loving God by our tenderness toward Christ, we are met by God’s own ineffable love.  And knowing the absolute love of God conveys peace which surpasses human understanding and joy which is beyond human knowing.

    But these three absolute graces which satisfy all human longings, . . . the graces of love, joy, and peace; these three graces are the consequence of a life and mind and soul disciplined by the freedom which Christ has won for us:  the freedom to become the Image of our heavenly Father which we were created to be . . . by submitting ourselves to God’s love and joy and peace as these graces are revealed to us in Jesus.  And so, Saint Paul enumerates for us, today, the virtues which discipline the flesh in order to attain to a life that is truly free in Christ.  These virtues consist of, first, patience (a discipline fortified by prayer); next are kindness and goodness (disciplines fortified by lovingly and reverently meditating upon God the Father and God the Son as they are revealed in Holy Scripture); thirdly there is faithfulness (a discipline fortified by the Sacrament of the Altar); finally, there is gentleness and self-control (disciplines which are the consequence of and follow the others by the grace of the Holy Spirit).

    Do you see the contrast which Saint Paul sets before us in the Epistle appointed for today?  The freedom of the flesh is no freedom at all; but slavery to elemental spirits and fleshly desires.  It arises out of self-preoccupation and fear, . . . and its consequence is dissolution, violence, and death.  On the other hand, submission to God in Christ Jesus is no submission at all, . . . but attainment to the things we yearn for most.  It arises out of love and reverence for our God, . . . and its consequence is the unity and cohesion of love, joy, and peace . . . which give life because they are the Life of God.  Consequently,

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.