Bearing One Another's Burdens

Galatians 6:1-16

Today is our final look at Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches. Throughout his letter, Paul has developed the theme of freedom; freedom from the law of Moses, freedom to be forgiven by God in Christ, freedom to become who God created us to be. When he has spoken of the law, it’s the Law of Christ; that is, Love. This morning we conclude with the final chapter of Galatians, chapter six, verses 1-16. Listen for and hear the Word of God.

In this concluding chapter, Paul addresses what freedom in Christ looks like in community. He is telling the Galatians how to structure their community life and wrestle with what true community is. Paul states that they are each responsible for one another. There is a mutual responsibility among community members to take care of others as well as themselves.

If you have ever played a team sport or played a musical instrument in a band or ensemble or sung in a choral group, you know what it takes to be a member of a team or group. At their best, team members exercise the freedom to care for one another, build one another, share mutual responsibility, build trust with one another and work together for a common goal. If any part of the team, band or group doesn’t show up; doesn’t practice their part; doesn’t exercise the freedom to be a part of something bigger than themselves, the team becomes just another group of individuals blowing aimlessly in the wind.

You’ve probably heard all the clichés: “There is no “I” in team. “None of us is as smart as all of us”. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” “Many hands make light work.” The late baseball great Casey Stengel once said about teamwork, “It’s easy to get good players. Getting’ em to play together, that’s the hard part.”

What does it mean for you and me to be teammates; to be responsible for each other? What do effective Christian teammates do, and how do they keep from getting burned out while they're doing it? Paul offers the Galatians and us an instructional guide on how the Christian life can change the world:

I.

As teammates in Christ, we are able to recognize what's wrong. If we are wired into the Holy Spirit, we seem to inherently know something is wrong in the life of another person or a community, detecting "transgression" as well as pain (v. 1). Such ability can certainly lead to judgmental, self-righteous indignation, which causes a lot of outsiders to refer to us as believers in Christ with a hint of disdain and contempt.

Paul isn't suggesting here that the Galatian simply point out the wrong in their neighbors; instead, they are to do so while simultaneously pointing out what's wrong in themselves. It's not with a spirit of vindictiveness or accusation that we point out the wrong we see, but do so with a "spirit of gentleness." We know that we aren't blameless, either, so when we see the sin of others we also recognize our own sin. Indeed, Paul says that we need to "test our own work" before we can scrutinize the work of others (v. 4). We shouldn't be "tempted" to think that others are worse sinners than we are; rather we know that everyone, including us, needs to be "restored" to a right relationship with God and others. We as teammates in Christ are thus humble and gentle observers of human brokenness and work to make the broken whole (v. 1).

II.

As teammates in Christ, we are called to bear one another’s burdens. We get an idea of what Paul means by this term back in 5:13-15, where Paul urges the Galatians to "become slaves to one another" through love (v. 13). In fact, says Paul, the whole Jewish law is summed up in one of its commandments: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is the same law that Jesus sums up in the Gospels -- a rendering of the Jewish "shema" from Deuteronomy 6, along with a law from Leviticus 19:18. We love God with everything we are, and then, because we love God, we love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). The law of Christ is the law of love, and love does not place obligations on others. Instead, we help to alleviate the struggles of others by "bearing one another's burdens" (Galatians 6:2).

In his book Iacocca, Lee Iacocca once asked legendary football coach Vince Lombardi what it took to make a winning team.

“There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game. Then you come to the third ingredient: If you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guys and saying to himself: “If I don’t block that man, Paul is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job well in order that he can do his.”

“The difference between mediocrity and greatness,” Lombardi said, “is the feeling these guys have for each other.” On an effective team, in a healthy church, each Christian learns to care for others. As we take seriously Jesus’ command to love one another, we contribute to a willing team.

So, how do we "bear the burdens" of others without becoming weighed down and crushed ourselves? How can we be a good, effective teammate in Christ? Some of the people we know in our church and in our community have a lot of burdens -- economic, emotional, spiritual burdens, just to name a few -- and taking them on can be exhausting.

The phrase that's often used these days to capture that problem is "compassion fatigue." According to the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, caregivers can become so overwhelmed that the stress of caring for someone can lead to the caregiver having his or her own health and emotional problems, engaging in substance abuse to mask feelings, and failing to perform basic self-care. Compassion fatigue is especially prevalent in helping professionals like medical personnel, law enforcement and clergy, but anyone who is carrying the burden of another can suffer from it.

On the surface, then, it seems like Paul is replacing one obligation with another that can affect the body as much as, if not more than, circumcision or any of the other requirements of the Jewish law. Paul seems to recognize this because he has to remind the Galatian Christians to "not become weary in doing good" (v. 9 NIV). How are we going to pull that off?

A life that relies solely on our own efforts isn't going to amount to much. Paul uses the word "flesh" to describe a life that is devoid of any ability to do good on its own -- a life that leads to "corruption" of not only the soul but the body as well (v. 8). In 5:20-21, Paul lists a bunch of symptoms of trying to live life in the flesh, many of which can be the result of compassion fatigue as much as outright sinfulness.

III.

Paul's solution to the life of the flesh isn't simply a prescription to do more, or be more religious, or fire up the willpower to do better. Rather, Paul proposes a completely different kind of life that is lived in the Spirit: a life that isn't dependent on the meager reserves of our own resources and abilities, but a life that is animated, dominated and motivated by the Holy Spirit. The life of the Spirit gives us a wealth of reserves from which we can begin to do good all day every day.

We can learn a lot about teamwork and living together in community from watching geese in flight. For one thing, people who share a common direction and a sense of community get where they are going more quickly and easily because they rely on the strength of one another. Second, people with as much sense as a goose will stay in formation and accept help when it is needed and will also offer help when others need it. Third, geese instinctively share the task of leadership and do not resent the leader. Fourth, when a goose is sick, wounded or shot down, two others drop out of formation to follow it down to earth to protect it. They remain with the wounded bird until it is well or dies. Relying on one another, willing to give and receive help, sharing leadership and sticking together can happen when we live in the Spirit.

When we live our lives in the Spirit, we begin to bear the "fruit" of that life in the Spirit in 5:22-23 -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control. These are the necessary resources we need to restore hope, forgive people, bear burdens, and do good. These resources only emerge from nurturing a relationship with God on a daily basis, remembering that we cannot change the world unless we ourselves are being changed by the Spirit through prayer, studying the Word with the help of good teachers (6:6), and other internal work through which the Spirit plants and brings forth fruit.

And once that fruit is in us, it will begin to create seeds of its own that can be spread. If we are broadcasting these resources, like a sower broadcasts seed, then we will reap a bountiful harvest of good that characterizes the eternal life and purposes of God (6:8). We do well because God is willing and doing good for the world: a good that, in the end, will reap a harvest of redemption for the whole creation (6:9).

IV.

Sometimes it seems like the task is overwhelming, but we're not called to fix everything at once. We are called to action to do good and what is right. We begin by being Christ-like with our neighbors, not by knocking on their doors and showing them how amazing we are, but by offering a hand of help to those who need it. We offer a word of grace in a world that seems to only offer condemnation and ridicule. We bring a wealth of good spiritual fruit rather than throwing rotten fruit at others. The life of faith is all about representing the law of Christ one day at a time.