I grew up with a dog named Bismark. He was a Weimaraner. That breed is known for its keen hunting abilities, steely-gray coat, and piercing green eyes. My father got him from a farm outside of the city. And Bismark, as a puppy, had a floppy ear. The original owners thought he somehow injured himself running around all that flat Indiana land. Even when he came to live with us, he kept running, so much so that my father spent many a morning running after Bismark, who got a taste of freedom whenever our garage door would go up in the morning. My father would finally give up chasing him and just resolve to see him whenever he returned. And return he did. Bismark always came back. But there was something about that running that he was slow to outgrow.

People say that when a stray dog approaches you, you should just stay where you are. Don’t run away; don’t try to threaten the dog. If you stay in one place, you won’t be a threat to the dog. The dog won’t go into “Hey, let’s play chase” mode, or worse, “You are attacking me, so I will get to you before you get to me.” I apologize in advance if anyone has ever been bitten. That can be so traumatic, especially if you did try to stay where you were. But usually, to run away only begins this game of “Come and get me,” and to swat or give ’em your best “Ahhh” only invites attack. The problem with this staying-where-you-are business is that it is rarely done. In the heat of the moment, so many react and run flailing their hands screaming in one direction, while others react and run swinging their arms toward the other.

When presented with any threat, not just dogs, so many of us fly away or fight our way, when really there is another way.

Just in the three verses between verse 12 and verse 15, Paul is showing the people at the church at Galatia this other way. In Galatia the threat is a teaching that claims that real followers of Christ must be circumcised. That’s right, folks, that literal cutting away of flesh that makes many men and even women wince. According to that teaching, circumcision was not just something for every man, but something that “real” believers were “supposed” to do. Paul faced that teaching head on and called it false teaching. According to Paul, those “so-called” teachers refused to believe that there was something real and true and righteous about faith.

What was just as troubling to Paul was that he had already gone over all of this with the people at Galatia. It’s not like those other teachers who were pushing circumcision on every man were the first teachers the people at Galatia had heard. No, Paul had been with them, and moreover, Paul loved them. And yet they still were listening to this false gospel, really no gospel at all. So he wrote them this letter, and throughout it, Paul was trying to make himself credible, express his love for this people, and re-teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ that really brings liberty.

“With liberty and justice for all.” So many of us used to recite that every day in school. It’s a great statement. It brings to mind monuments like the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty. Those symbols have a lot of meaning, but to think of liberty only in terms of what we can see with our eyes is only scratching the surface. We’re really talking about freedom here. Freedom is still connected with lots of imagery, but it’s a little more difficult to pin down. It’s what the forefathers of this country wanted. It’s what slaves risked their lives to gain. It’s what immigrants journeyed to this country for. It’s what people still come to this county for, whether they find it here or not. There is no substitute for being free. And yet so many people become free but still don’t have freedom. To be free is one thing, but living in freedom is another.

One of the reasons recidivism rates are so high, meaning the rate of return for inmates into the corrections system, is that when so many of our brothers and sisters are released from prison, they don’t know what to do. They are free but aren’t sure how to be free. Maya Angelou beautifully said, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” but when that cage door flies open, what is a bird to do?

Someone told me recently that they have a bird’s nest outside in one of the corners of their house. And if you’ve ever seen a mother bird over a nest, you know that it takes some time for her to nurture and protect and remain with those baby birds. But sooner or later, they are going to have to leave the nest. Many bird species have an innate sense to fly. They fly because that is how they were made. For instance, hummingbirds instinctively know how to fly. It’s in them to do it. They are, by nature, flyers. So when they leave the nest, they know exactly what to do.

Paul’s vision of freedom is just that. Being free is in the people at Galatians because of Christ. “You were called because of freedom,” he says. But that freedom often gets squelched because of selfish desires. The Christ that Paul preaches is not a prison guard keeping people bound to his rules. Neither is Jesus a cage in which people find metal barricades restricting their movement. Rather, Jesus, for Paul, is the greatest of all, a great servant that is inviting us all to be servants with Him. But not servants to ourselve; servants to one another. Hmmm…

Let’s really think about this. To be a servant is to subject, literally to lower one’s self, to another. To forgo one’s own wishes for those of another. To spend one’s life and energy on someone else. It is through love that we are even able to serve, says Paul. It must take love because what Paul is proposing here is drastically different from what the people at Galatia would have known. It was “go for what you know”; if not, go for the good of the Roman Empire. The message of the culture, but also the inclination and tendency of so many hearts and minds, was to do just the opposite of what Paul is talking about here. This is something that many of us face today. What’s love got to do with it?

That’s what Tina Turner says. What’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love, but a second-hand emotion? What’s love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when, a heart can be broken? I hear you, Tina. Really, Paul? It seems like serving one another in love is just making someone susceptible to being hurt, to being taken advantage of, to being unappreciated, run over, left behind. And yet in response to Tina’s question, here Paul says love has everything to do with it.

Love’s got everything to do with it. It sums up the whole law, Paul says. The very thing those false teachers were trying to live behind, like bars—the law—is the very thing that Paul is proposing here: love. It is the very thing that Jesus did, what Jesus accomplished, what Jesus brought to life. It was through love that He was sent. It was for love that He died. And it was because of love that He rose again. Here is a lovely invitation in Galatians to live in that love. And that, my friends, is freedom. Not freedom that is put on display or taught like some formula, but the type of living that is already living in us by faith. The type of living that keeps us from running and stops us from fighting. It is love that remains.

For sure, the choice is ours, although it is really not a choice at all. Paul asks, “Why go back to being a slave?” Because if love is not moving us to serve one another at the expense of what we ourselves want, then, in the end, there can be nothing but destruction. It’s like tearing one another apart. Consuming, eating, devouring—all of these words—have this violent tone, Paul warns them. Let us hear that warning this morning as well. It’s as if without serving one another through love, we would eventually rip one another to shreds. Everyone going after what they want, living by their fleshly desires, is worse than bondage. It’s disintegration. It’s to be swallowed up. It’s to be chewed up and spit out.

This world will do that—hew us up and spit us out. It’s like litter on the side of the road. It’s appalling, really. Someone ate something like a bag of chips or used something like a cigarette and just threw it onto the sidewalk or out of their car window onto the road. There was no regard for the others who would come behind them and use that same sidewalk or same road, now trashed by empty containers.

At least with composting, the earth gets something in return. Composting, as many of you know, is just returning stuff to the soil, like banana peels and grass clippings. At least that soil will be healthier when we are long gone, as opposed to a landfill, the ultimate illustration of the wastefulness that happens when we pursue only our own interests. It’s like we are building a trash heap when we do what we want to do, with no care or concern for anyone else. When our priorities and our actions are only serving ourselves, there is no extension, no continuation, no life beyond what we ourselves do. You can’t grow fruit out of a landfill. But you can grow fruit out of dirt enriched with compost.

Really, I’m not just speaking literally here. After Paul tells the Galatians what it looks like to follow one’s own fleshy desires and give in to the sinful flesh, he then lists for them the fruits of the Spirit. And as opposed to all of those works of the flesh, not the body, but all of those ways that we are prone to look out for number one, to fight those who themselves are looking out for themselves, to want what someone else has, to look to some substance or some behavior to get what we want, there is this soft, beautiful, colorful fruit that naturally promotes sharing. Joy makes itself known. It’s hard to hide kindness. Gentleness is felt by those who come in contact with it. All of it must be shared.

Here is the freedom that we all can have. It just wouldn’t make sense to go back. When we encounter one another, there is an opportunity not to run away, as if we needed an escape from one another, and there is an opportunity not to fight one another because we feel threatened. Rather, there in the space between you and me is a chance to be free. To be free to love one another like our very lives depended on it. And it does, because if we do not love one another, by faith, and if we do not put our own selfish desires aside, we accept the inevitable outcome that we will be eaten up, consumed by our own appetites and devoured by the selfish desires of others.

There is more to this life than to fight or take flight. There is the opportunity to be free. And we are not left alone to do it. We are called to run the race, not run away. And we run with each other. Jesus, love itself and servant to all, leads us. The Holy Spirit grows in us ways and wishes that go against our own selfishness. God grants us that awesome irreplaceable gift of love. And that love, when put into action for someone else, is freedom.