Trinity 14
Homecoming

Lori Andersen, a professional animal trainer, learned the hard way about the challenge of training a dog to break a bad habit. It seems that every time she hung her laundry out on the clothesline, her dog would yank it down. Drastic action was called for. The trainer put a white kitchen towel on the line and waited. Each time her dog pulled it off, she scolded her pet. After two weeks the towel was untouched. Then she hung out a large washload and left to do some errands. When she came home, her clean clothes were scattered all over the yard. On the line was the white kitchen towel.

It takes more to learn than simply teaching. There’s an old Chinese proverb, “Tell me; I'll forget. Show me; I may remember. But involve me and I'll understand.” Real true learning takes place when we get involved and do what we have learned. This is the essence of our epistle lesson for the day from Galatians 5:16. St. Paul writes, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the Spirit.” The word for “walk” in the New Testament Greek is peripateo. We derive the English word, peripatetic from it. It means to walk around. For St. Paul, walking the right path is at the heart of the Christian life. You might say that for the Apostle it’s all in the walk. I once heard an interview of the late, great actor Alec Guinness. He was one of my favorites. He starred in everything from Bridge Over the River Kwai to Star Wars, in which he was Obeonekinobe. In this interview he described an acting technique he learned as a young actor. It was simply that one had to find the walk of the part to be played. The rest would follow. Apparently, he built his entire acting career on mastering the walks of the parts he played.

In a similar way, St. Paul calls Christians to walk in the Holy Spirit. The phrase “in the Spirit” is a prepositional phrase in a particular case called the dative case. The type of dative is a dative of sphere, which means to walk in particular sphere. If we read the whole book of Galatians the sphere of the Holy Spirit is the Church. At the end of the apostle’s letter he once again uses the verb walk. This time it undoubtedly refers to the people of God. He says, “as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God” (6:16). The people referred to as the Israel of God is the Church in this context; it cannot be any other group. Walking in the Spirit is living into the life of the Church, the kingdom of God. This understanding of life in the Spirit as involvement in the life of the Church makes considerable sense when we recall that the Holy Spirit created the Church on the Day of Pentecost. The Church is therefore the sphere of the Spirit.

Qualitatively, this life in the sphere that the Holy Spirit creates, which is called the Church, is contrasted with the lifestyle of the flesh. St. Paul refers to it as all kinds of wrong behavior such as adultery, idolatry, witchcraft, anger, heresy, murder, drunkenness and so forth. The opposite to which St. Paul calls us and all followers of Christ is spelled out in the following verses of Galatians 5. The Apostle calls this life the “fruits of the Spirit.” Specifically it is a lifestyle of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faith, meekness and self control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

The difference between these two lifestyles is involvement in one sphere or the other. Broadly speaking, for St. Paul, one is the life of the world, the flesh. The other lifestyle is the life of the kingdom of God, the Church, the sphere which the Holy Spirit creates for us to walk in.  To put it another way, St. Paul very simply put tells us to get involved in this sphere of the Spirit that he calls the Church.

Here at Church of the Holy Communion we try to help you learn this lesson by giving you all kinds of opportunities to connect with this sphere. Today is what we call homecoming. At the reception after the service, we’ll have tables set up for all the various committees, organizations and functions in the life of the church. A lot of people think we do this just because we’re trying to get people to work. In one sense we are, and we definitely want every member to do his or her part in the life of this parish. But the fact is it goes much deeper. The deeper reason for you to participate in the life of the Church is what St. Paul is commanding us to do in his Epistle to the Galatians. It’s actually giving you an opportunity to live in the sphere of the Holy Spirit. It is calling you to walk in the Holy Spirit.

You see, it’s when you actually get involved and work in the church that you truly learn and understand what it is taught. As that old Chinese Proverb says, “Tell me; I'll forget. Show me; I may remember. But involve me and I'll understand.” So take advantage of the many opportunities to get involved. Yes, you’ll feel good. More importantly, you’ll be good. You will obey God. And for St. Paul, this is the life of grace. As the great Medieval writer Thomas a Kempis put it, “Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from Grace.” Turning it around, “Whoever obeys Christ enters the life of Grace. So get more involved and plunge deep into the life called by St. Paul the sphere of the Spirit, the life of Grace. Amen.