The Two Sons - Sunday Gathering - 5 December 2021

Today’s passage is all about a group of people who want to “be under the law”. What it means by “the law” is the Jewish religious Law, called the Torah: a huge set of rules and regulations about how to do everything from cutting your hair to cleaning your house to harvesting your field. The question we need to think through before we dive into this passage is why. Why do they want to be under that law? And more generally, why would we, or people like us, ever be like that, wanting to take on a whole set of rules and regulations?

I mean surely it’s just obviously better to be free, right, not to live under lots and lots of rules, not to choose restrictions on our life? We’ve lived for nearly two years now under endless and ever-changing covid rules and wouldn’t you just love to be done with them, chuck these masks in the bin and be free? We all by nature want to be free. That’s natural and right.

So why does anyone ever take on laws, put themselves under rules? Well, a couple weeks back we talked about “the good” and one big reason to accept a bunch of rules, even if we’d rather be free, would be for our own good, or for others’ good. That’s the point of these covid rules and regulations - at least I hope it is! They’re for our good, for others’ good. We talked two weeks back about how we want these good outcomes, like less people dying and the sick being cared for and the earth not melting and all that - but these good things don’t just automatically flow out of our freedom ‘cause we’re messed up people - so there are rules to restrict us.

So that’s one reason you might take on rules - want to think more about that? Go find the recording and listen again! But that’s not the only reason. Today I want to focus on another big reason people might take on a set of rules and regulations - ‘cause I think it’s the main one in focus in today’s passage from the bible. Another reason you might take on a set of rules and regulations would be to belong - to be a part of a group, to find your place among them.

Let me give you an example: say you want to be a part of the surfer crowd. Now there aren’t published rules and regulations for this - no “surf-law” or anything - but there pretty much is an immutable set of laws you have to keep to really join that crowd: you’re going to need to learn to say “dude” every second word. Dude. You have to spend half of the day in a half zipped wetsuit, dude. You have to - and I mean you have to - own a camper van. dude. And, uh, you actually have to get in the freezing water in winter when it’s all windy and wild. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Most every group of people has a set of rules you have to keep to really be a part of it, to belong there - often unspoken rules, but rules none the less. Want to be a church planter? Your computer has to be a mac. Seriously, I’m like the only windows guy in the room at basically every church planter thing I’ve ever been to. And it’s not just how you accessorise, it’s how you speak, how you behave, what you do, what you most definitely do not do. Want to be a cool student? You have to go vegan or select a non-traditional sexuality. It’s the law! Want to fit in with the rugby crowd? Have to develop a taste for beer and curry - whether you like curry or not.

One of the key reasons, then, that you or anyone might take on a whole new set of rules and regulations, would be so you could join a group, be a part of it; to be accepted by them; to find belonging among them. And that, I think, is the big thing our writer has in view as we get into this next section of the short letter from the bible that we’re studying, the letter to the Galatians. The Galatians want “in” - they want to belong, to be accepted, to be a part of the family. That’s why they want to be under the law - under this Jewish religious law.

This passage has an encouragement for them - but also a serious warning. And it has encouragement and challenge for us too. Listen with me and we’ll read the next section from Galatians together. We’re in Galatians chapter 4 and starting at verse 21. Page 1171 in these blue bibles. Chapter 4 - big 4 - verse 21, small 21.

The passage might seem a bit mysterious at first but stick with me and we’re going to get our heads around it together today. Page 1171 and Ginger’s going to be reading for us this morning.

Galatians 4:21–31 NIV

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Right. What is going on here?! Two wives, two sons, two covenants, two Jerusalems, a quote from an Old Testament prophet (with two women in it), and two results. A lot of twos, right, and a lot of mystery. Let’s unpack this quickly.

Centre stage in what we read is the story of Abraham from back near the very beginning of the Bible. It’s in the book of Genesis and it’s a corker. Let me give you a super-fast catch up, an “in last week’s episode” kind of summary: God chooses Abraham and promises he’ll have a huge family with their own land to live in, and through them the whole world will be blessed. But there’s a problem: Abraham’s wife can’t have children. And they’re both getting seriously old. So after years and years, in an effort to make those promises come true rather than come to nothing, Abraham has a child with his slave woman Hagar. But then God shows up and says “actually I’m still going to keep my promise” and so he does: boom! The mega-old wife who couldn’t have kids has a child after all. There’s more to the story but that’s enough for now.

So the two sons we’re reading about here are Abraham’s sons and they come from these two women: the slave woman and the free. Verse 23 tells us

Galatians 4:23 NIV

His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

One comes about “according to the flesh” - or as the New Living Translation puts it: “in a human attempt to bring about the fulfilment of God’s promise” where the other comes about by God’s own hand as the result of God’s promise. Alright, nice story - but what’s this got to do with rules and belonging? Stick with me! Our writer is going to use this story to tell us about two ways to live, two ways to identity, two ways to belonging.

He says this story can be taken figuratively, it pictures something else. Literally, he says it’s an “allegory” - and for all the language nerds here, allegory is actually a Greek word made up of two parts: alla and agoreu-oh, agoreu-oh meanning “to speak”, and alla meaning of “other things”. It speaks of other things. Now just to be super-clear, he’s not saying it didn’t actually happen. He’s saying it also speaks of other things.

Ok, two wives, two sons, two ways they came about. What does that picture? Two covenants, he says. Two covenants. Now what’s a covenant? An agreement between two people where they promise under oath that they’ll do particular things. A marriage would be one example. In the bible, there’s a particular focus on covenants between God and his people. He’s telling us these two mothers, the slave and the freeborn, picture two different agreements between God and his people.

And then in verse 24-25 he tells us about one of them: it’s from Mount Sinai, and it corresponds to Jerusalem in his day. Now Mt Sinai is where Moses received the Jewish law from God on two stone tablets, and Jerusalem is the centre of the Jewish religion with the temple and all that - so it doesn’t take a genius to id this first covenant in a police lineup! This is what we’d call the Old Covenant or the Mosaic Covenant, the agreement between God and the Jewish people based on the Torah, the Jewish law.

Here’s the surprise, though: this first covenant results in a people who are slaves, he says here. That’s a bit ironic if you know the story of Moses because it’s all about how God took his people out of slavery and into freedom. Calling them slaves rather than free under the Mosaic Law, lining them up with the slave woman rather than the freeborn wife, Jewish people of his day would have choked on that.

Let’s press pause here for a moment, though, and think back to where we started. This passage is written to people who desperately want to be “under the law”, remember? They want to sign on the dotted line, agreeing to take on this whole Jewish law. And a key driver for that is wanting to be a part of the family, wanting to truly belong in his people. They were being told, and were feeling like, taking on these rules was the way in to the family, was the road to belonging.

Now God has promised that his family will include a countless multitude, people from every nation, tribe and tongue. God has promised that we can join his people, even become his children, no matter who we are or what we’ve done.

But just taking on the rules, picking up the behaviours, isn’t the way into the family. Like sticking out our pinkie when drinking tea and waving like the queen doesn’t make us royal. And although God’s promised something, every time we try to bring about God’s promises for him we make a terrible mess - just like when Abraham tried to keep God’s promise of a child for God it only ended with mess and pain: a slave child driven away from the family.

That’s what this allegory is showing us, this is what all these lines of connection are being drawn for: to help us see that when we try and keep God’s promises for him, when we start down this outside-in way of trying to belong in God’s family - starting with the rules, with playing the part - it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make us a child. It can only ever make us a slave, chasing after an impossible goal, trying to fit in, but doomed to failure.

But it’s worse than that: rather than bringing us into the family, giving us that sense of belonging as a part of God’s people, in the end it does the exact opposite and leads us away from the family. There’s a warning for us here from the sad end to the story of Abraham’s two sons: Gal 4:30

Galatians 4:30 (NIV)

“Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”

These words are found on the freeborn wife’s lips in the original story. There’s tension between the slave and the free child so she tells Abraham she wants the slave-born child gone. Why does our writer emphasise this command? I don’t think it’s primarily meant as an instruction to the Galatians the letter is written to, a command to throw anyone out who’s trying for that outside-in path to belonging. Think about it: She’s speaking to the father here but she’d have to be speaking to her child for that to line up in the allegory.

I think this is meant as a warning to the Galatians instead: this is where the path of the slave child will lead you. The truth is that trying to find belonging in the family of God on the basis of law - on the basis of something that starts with us rather than with God - ends up leading us away from the family of God rather than towards it. That’s true for any law we think we should keep to make us belong: this Jewish law, some other group’s set of rules and regulations, or even just my own personal list of do’s and don’t that I think would make me good enough to fit in.

Why? I think we see some keys in Jesus’ famous story of the prodigal son - perhaps you’re familiar with that?

The main focus of that story is the wayward son who wastes his inheritance on wild living - but finally comes back to the father, poor, humbled and ashamed, hoping only to be given food and shelter as a servant. Instead the father welcomes him with open arms, celebrating the return of his son - a picture of God’s extravagant grace.

What we don’t often pay so much attention to is the other son in that story, the one who didn’t go anywhere, didn’t waste anything, just kept working away. We could think he’s the good guy but we’d be wrong because this son burns with anger when his brother returns: “I’ve been slaving away here,” he tells his father, “but no party for me?”. He thinks his brother deserves a beating not a welcome.

That’s the poison of law, of just taking on rules: it makes us self-righteous, thinking we’ve earned it, we’re worth it; it makes us bitter, thinking others didn’t - so they shouldn’t be here - they should get what they deserve. We see ourselves as slaves and it leads away from the family rather than towards it: Jesus’ story of the prodigal ends with the angry brother outside the house, away from the family.

That’s what it can be like for us too when we’re chasing belonging through keeping rules: we feel this self-righteousness: I’ve earned my place; we feel this bitterness: they haven’t; sometimes it’s so strong we can feel like walking out on the family altogether because of it - we don’t even need to be sent away. That’s the poison of law.

[pause]

But there is an alternative. Two of everything in this passage, remember, so there are two covenants, two ways into the family, just like there are two women and two children: there’s another covenant and this one leads into freedom. See there’s another promise: not one child this time, but many, many children. That’s what this quotation is about squidged in the middle here.

It’s a quote from the ancient prophet Isaiah, coming hundreds of years before Jesus. It’s part of an amazing and exciting promise of things turning around - and when you first read around it in its original setting, this barren and desolate woman it speaks about is a picture of the Jews, rejected by God for their wrongs, in slavery in Babylon. And it looks like a promise of renewal for them: children for the barren woman - many children. Our writer is telling us this is what is happening with the birth and explosive growth of the church. God is keeping his promise: many new children in his family, born by the power of the Spirit. But born free into the family, not born a slave, needing to keep any law.

See, this quote is the beginning of Isaiah chapter 54. And immediately before that you’ll find a famous prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah chapter 53. We’ve been talking about God’s promises, and the mess that flows out of trying to keep them for him. Well neither we nor these Galatians need to keep these promises of God for him - he keeps them himself: Jesus, at the cross - and so he leads us into freedom.

Here’s what comes before this promise, what makes it possible for it to come true, written about Jesus:

Isaiah 53:5–6 NIV

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Do you want to belong in God’s family? We belong not because we’ve earned it, but because he’s earned it. Our belonging is his belonging. He freely shares it with us if we will only believe. We are children of God in him. Instead of us trying to reach up to him, to keep his promises, the wonderful truth is that in Jesus he has reached down to us and kept them all.

Galatians 4:31 NIV

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.