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When my children were little, we read a lot, and I do mean a lot, of Curious George stories. William had his moment of months and months of Curious George at bedtime and as soon as he moved on to something else Alice started her moment with the little monkey. One of the classic Curious George stories I remember is Curious George and the Dump Truck. It started with George playing on the living room floor of the house where he lived with the man with the yellow. He heard a funny sound that sounded like “Quack”. He of course got curious and looked out the window to see a duck and then he heard several more “Quack’s”. It was a mother duck with five small ducklings in line behind her. Where were they waddling off to? George was curious and the next thing we know George is waddling right along in behind them, one of the family. They crossed streets and waddled their way to the big pond in the city park where children were flying kites and men were planting trees. And then…George saw something he had never seen before: a great big, huge dump truck. George forgot about the ducks and climbed into the cab of the truck. But he couldn’t see out so he stepped on some levers that made the truck dump its load of dirt into the pond; the dirt that the city workers were using for planting the trees and making flowerbeds. Oops! Then George heard the ducks again and it seemed they really enjoyed this new island in the city pond. The workers came and George felt really sorry, but they weren’t mad. They were making the park more enjoyable for people, but it seems George had made the park a better place for ducks. The ducks now had a happy home in the park too.
Curious George, something always seems to pique his curiosity and he follows it and somehow he always manages to make a mess of things, but in the end, everything works out. In the book, I like the illustration of George getting in step with the mother duck and her ducklings. He’s obviously squatting trying to do the duck walk. And he’s made his arms into little triangular wings. He’s just happily following along even through dangerous places like roads. In George’s world, if you’re curious about something, become like it. So, if you’re going to become a duck, act like a duck.
Looking at our reading from Galatians, this walk like a duck thing of Curious George’s is a fitting example. This is kind of what Paul means when he says “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Sometimes translations don’t quite capture the imagery of the Greek. That’s the case here. If I were to take a stab at it, I would say, “If we are alive in the Spirit, get in step, get in line with the Spirit just like Curious George did when he tried to be a duck.” But that would be adding to the text. But still, the message is simple. Since we have been given new life in Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit in and among us, then we must get in behind the Spirit and walk like the Holy Spirit wherever the Spirit leads.
This simple message was one the Galatians had a hard time grasping and we do too. When Paul first came to the area of Galatia, he was quite afflicted with some sort of eye ailment that was difficult to look at. They could have called him cursed by the gods and refused to take him in. But instead, they showed him compassion. They took Paul in, a stranger, and treated his ailment. They restored his health instead of shaming him. They didn’t know that in welcoming this particular stranger they were welcoming a new reality indwelt by a God who loved them and was intervening in their lives in a totally “ungodlike” way.
The Galatians were people who worshipped other gods through strange rituals and superstitions. Religion in the ancient world was very transactional: Do thus and such to the “T”, and this particular god will do thus and that if the god is in a good mood and it serves their narcissistic purposes. Personal interaction with the gods was unheard of. Interaction with the gods was through priests and rituals. That a god would love humans or even mingle his or her self with a human was preposterously ridiculous.
While he was healing, Paul began to tell them about how his God was utterly unlike those gods. He told them the Good News of the Son of God becoming human as Jesus the Jew of Nazareth and how Jesus was crucified and died and then God in the power of the Holy Spirit raised him from death. He told them of how in that act of incarnation, death, and resurrection God was destroying death and the disease of sin that affects the whole Creation and was setting in motion the healing and recreation of his broken and hurting Creation. Finally, to those who will give their allegiance to Jesus God is giving a taste of this new creation life by the gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit and by that gift God adopts us to be his own beloved children. Well, we don’t know the details, but apparently as Paul told this Good News to the Galatians the Holy Spirit came to them to dwell in them each and also among them giving them a taste of this new life in Christ that is characterised by a profoundly real experience of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This totally freed them from obligations to gods who could care less about them.
Unfortunately, after Paul moved on from the Galatian communities some strangers came to them who were associated with the Jesus people mainly located around Jerusalem where it all began. They taught that you weren’t a real follower of Jesus unless you become a Law-of-Moses-abiding Jew as Jesus was. They were demanding even that men get circumcised. The Galatians believed them and were beginning to take on the strenuous demands of following the Law of Moses. So, Paul angrily wrote to the Galatians “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law or by hearing the Good news.” Had they received this new life indwelt by the presence of God by observing rules and rituals in the way they used to worship their former gods. No, they had simply received it when the heard the Message. Paul said, “The Law is summed up in one commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as you love yourself” which they had so obviously done when they cared for Paul in his sickness. It was just so very foolish of them to fall under that burden of keeping the Law. God had made them his people, his own beloved children by giving them his very self, the Holy Spirit, as the result of what Jesus, the Son of God had done. Keeping the Law could in no way add anything to the new life they now had in the Spirit of Christ.
So, Paul tells them that since God had made them alive by and in the gift of the Holy Spirit, they needed to live according to the Spirit not the Law. The Spirit’s way is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Therefore, empowered, driven, compelled by the Spirit they must get in step with the Spirit and follow the Spirit implanted desires of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Like Curious George’s mother duck leading her ducklings to the happy place of the pond in the park, the Holy Spirit leads us through the normalcy of the events of daily life by prompting us to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.
All that said, in North American Christianity we tend to be like the Galatian Christians who were deceived to believe they had to keep laws and rules in order to be Christian. Rather than just accept God’s free gift of the Holy Spirit and let the new life of Christ flow through us, we have a simple belief in God practised in conducting moral duties. This devotion to duty keeps us from understanding that we are Holy Spirit-filled, love-filled communities of brothers and sisters in Christ who know themselves to be beloved children of God. We think there is more to being faithful than being prompted through life by that sense of Belovedness to act accordingly. We have eclipsed our sense of belovedness behind moral duty or just being good people so much so that talk of being made alive by the Spirit and being guided by the Spirit sounds weird to us if not scary.
So, if reality is that we are alive by and in the Spirit, how do we recognize this and get in step with it? Well, a prayer life is essential here. That goes without saying. As does the daily reading of Scripture and participation in Christian fellowship. But, those are things we can also get legalistic about and turn into duties as opposed to their being cherished acts of devotion in the context of a relationship of beloved people with their beloved God. We must search for this sense of mutual belovedness: mutual meaning God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for one another. When we take time for devotions (and may our devoted time grow to encapsulate all day) we need to approach it with the awareness that the Holy Spirit is present with us and knowing that prayer, Scripture reading, and Christian fellowship are the practice of a relationship with our God who is genuinely with us. I like the idea of sitting with an empty chair next to me to give a sense of place for God to be.
Here's something else. Something else that gets eclipsed behind duty is beauty. We don’t talk enough if at all about the role of beauty in our relationship to God. The Russian author Dostoyevsky once said, “Beauty will save the world.” I think he was on to something. Where beauty is, God is not far from it. On the seventh day of creation after calling his creation very good – or Beautiful – God rested, God reposed and enjoyed it. When we take time to repose and appreciate the beauty that is everywhere around us, it has the effect of giving us rest and with that rest comes joy and with joy comes a sense of adoration for something other than self. This is Creation’s song of praise to God. When we rightly locate ourselves in the worship that undergirds creation, the one whom creation adores will soon reveal his self – present but absent. When you find God or God finds you, be honest. You have nothing to fear. You are God’s Beloved child. God is for you. Amen.
