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The Rev. Frank
Logue
Most of you know that my wife and daughter and I are just back this Tuesday from 21 days in Italy and France. During that trip, as on other trips abroad, we wanted to fit in, adapting to the local culture best we could. But we kept being spotted as tourists from roughly a mile away. This changed during our stay. All we had to do was drive out into the countryside and take off our clothes. That’s a true story, but I’ll come back to it. First, we need to consider why it was that everyone knew we were tourists and not only tourists, but they started speaking English to us right away. So we were tourists who were lost in the local culture and needed to be spoken to only in their own language. It wasn’t how we were dressed alone. Globalization has meant that Italy’s own United Colors of Benetton is readily available here as our American Eagle or Abercrombie & Fitch are available there. Based on clothes alone, we could have been from most any country in the developed world. It had to first and foremost be our bags. Victoria carried a touristy sort of shoulder bag and I carried a little daypack that has been to four continents with me. Griffin alone would have passed muster with a purse with which an Italian girl would have been happy. There was primarily the fact that Griffin, to a degree, and me especially were taking a lot of pictures. Characteristic tourist behavior if ever I saw it. And on top of that, from Saint Peter’s Square to the old Roman Forum and the Coliseum, we were in the heart of Roman tourist country. All of this explains how we could later be taken as Italians, by three Italian families in a row. A week into our trip, we had learned a little Italian. Very little, but we had gotten accustomed to the rhythm of the language and could understand a good bit more than we could say, especially with some context. We took a day trip to Saturnia. It’s a natural hot spring in southern Tuscany. And while it is on the maps, it’s not in most guidebooks. There is no train station anywhere nearby and no bus load of tourists would ever wind its way to the little spot, a couple of hundred yards down a dirt road off a minor country lane. We drove our rented Alfa Romeo 159 with its “I” for Italy on the European Union license plate. And when we got there, we had to do what everyone else did there and change into and later out of our swim clothes in the backseat of the car. So we were in a place with only Italians, driving an Italian car and behaving like Italians. As we were changing to leave, a man rolled down his window and explained that the side of the road on which we were parked was a towing zone. There were perhaps as many as ten cars parked there, but they had been ticketing people the day before. When he rolled down the window, he spoke to us in Italian. Then after I explained in Italian that we only understood a little of the language and we spoke English, he explained the situation in English as best he could. Before we left, two more drivers explained the situation to us, but by now we had enough information and language to answer only in Italian. They drove on seeming to assume they had helped another Italian family avoid a parking ticket. Now this was success. There would be other successes. Like going into a store and getting what you need purchased without resorting to English. Or calling the Real Estate agent to arrange moving up our check out time for our apartment rental by an hour and only speaking Italian. These took studying the phrase book we bought and committing some phrases to short-term memory. We weren’t learning Italian in a meaningful way, but we were communicating. We also had failures. Times when we tried to blend in and blew it. Once in a restaurant, Victoria and I had ordered beers, and got small ones. The beer that came wasn’t enough to wash down lunch, but we got by on some water. So at another restaurant our last night in Todi, Italy, we ordered our draft beers grande instead of piccolo and the waitress brought out these embarrassingly large liter mugs labeled with the logo of the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Well at least we came across as alcoholic Germans instead of ugly Americans. The big beers looked about as appropriate on our tables as if we had asked them to place a whole hog with an apple in its mouth on a table in a vegetarian restaurant. People tried not to be noticed noticing. But we clearly amused our fellow diners. It’s OK. I don’t mind providing a little amusement at my own expense. I bring all this up, because it shows our struggles to accommodate to the local culture. Sometimes we got it right. Sometimes we were hopelessly wrong. But always we were trying to fit in. We were in Rome and we wanted to do as the Romans do. And later in Tuscany, we wanted to act more Tuscan and so on. For us, this is the way to get the most out of a trip, to learn more of the culture and adapt as best one can. I don’t want to apologize for this and will try to adapt to other cultures on future trips. But I do want to point out that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is contrary to scripture. I know that Saint Paul, who wrote the letter to the Galatians from which we read this morning was very concerned that many who converted to Christianity had not transformed their lives and were still well accommodated to the culture of Rome. Paul often wrote in ways to get the congregations he founded to do more to adapt to the culture of the Kingdom of God. This is particularly true in letters like the ones to the church in Corinth. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul had a slightly different problem to deal with. There had been false teaching promoted in a church he founded that said in order to be a follower of Christ, one had to take on the full Law of Moses and become a Law observant Jew. This would have meant being circumcised and following the diet restrictions and other commands in order to be a Christian. So the other teaching said in effect, to be a follower of Jesus you had to wholly transform your life to the culture of Judaism. In our passage today, Paul is countering that saying that Christ set us free from bondage to the law, which he thinks of as a type of slavery. Paul wants those who follow Jesus to see that they are free from following a long list of rules as a way to get right with God. Paul was clear elsewhere in the letter to the Galatians that no to do list of laws can be a precondition to coming into a relationship with God through His Son Jesus. Everything that needs to happen has already been accomplished by Jesus through the cross. All we have to do is accept God into our hearts and lives. It is an act of faith alone that puts us right with God. So Paul was allergic to talk of circumcision being necessary. For to Paul, if a boy or man had to be circumcised in order to come into a relationship with God, then everything was about that action and not the faith. With that case made, Paul then pushes ahead in our reading for today. What he wants the Galatian Christians to understand, is just because they have been set free from the law, doesn’t mean they should do whatever they want to do and call that Christianity. He writes, For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For Paul, freedom from the law meant no more long list of rules. Instead we now just act in ways that show love for our neighbor, knowing that there is no law against doing the right thing by someone. This is not “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” This is “When in the kingdom of God, do as a child of God does.” And in case you wanted specifics, Paul provides them with a list of sins little preached on in an Episcopal Church. Paul sees faith adapted too much to the culture of the place and not enough to the Kingdom of God is of the flesh. Then he names the works of the flesh, which he sees as obvious, “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and things like these.” It’s a list designed to hit the highlights while hitting a lot of the congregation between the eyes. Maybe drinking and carousing or fornication and licentiousness aren’t problems for you, but you have trouble with anger or jealousy and so. If you are caught up in this junk and call it Christian, Paul says you are fooling yourself as this isn’t how people behave in the Kingdom of God. Paul then offers the way of living that is what people are to do when in the Kingdom of God and it all flows from loving your neighbor. This list is the fruit of the Spirit and they are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Paul says that there is “no law against such things.” Paul is dealing with a group enmeshed in the ways of the Roman world. Now they are breaking free from that to get enmeshed in the Jewish system of purity Jesus came to fulfill and complete. Instead Paul offers another way forward, accommodating yourself to the culture of the Kingdom of God. And there is no rule against this in any culture of the world. This is how we move from “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” to “When in the Kingdom of God do as a child of God does” to the final stage of “When in Rome, do as a child of God does.” Sometimes behaving like a child of God will have you acting peculiar—doing odd things like actually noticing the poor and needy and doing something about their needs. Or speaking to someone at work who is an outcast to others. Sometimes children of God do peculiar things, so you won’t always blend in. Not at school, not at work, not even at church. Not always. But we are not called to blend in. We are called to be faithful in showing love of neighbor, even in places where that is going to make us stand out. And the self test for whether you are acting Roman or like a child of God is to either compare Paul’s two lists—the list of sins and the list of fruits of the spirit and see where you stand. Or you could just ask whether what you are doing shows that you love your neighbor as yourself, because that’s what a child of God does no matter where he or she may be. Amen.
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