"You Reap What You Sow" (Galatians 6:1-10)

"You Reap What You Sow" (Galatians 6:1-10)Preached by Sam Locke on 7/14/19 at St. Peter's United Church of Christ (Carmel, IN)

Audio File

Bear One Another’s Burdens

6 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4 All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. 5 For all must carry their own loads.

6 Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.

7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. 10 So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

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You reap what you sow. It is so pleasing to say sometimes, isn’t it? So pleasing we’ve come up with dozens of ways to say it beyond this biblical gardening metaphor. I told you so. You’ll get what you get and you won’t throw a fit ....You reap what you sow.

When we say “you reap what you sow” it is almost always directed at someone else. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it used in any other way. We use it for someone who didn’t live up to our expectations. We use it on people who make mistakes we surely wouldn’t have made ourselves. We use it on people down on their luck. Welp, you reap what you sow. With this quick little phrase we can close the door on conversation, stop caring, and justify it all with being biblically correct Christians. Except we aren’t biblically correct. This verse is always used to describe someone else. And that’s our problem. This passage is meant to be introspective. More simply, this isn’t meant to be about someone else. Paul is talking to you. YOU reap what YOU sow. Nothing about this passage suggests it should ever be used in a sentence to someone else. It is a phrase we should think about internally as we plan on how to spend our time and money. It is a phrase we should think about as we define our values, as individuals and the church.

When read with a little bit of context before and after, did the problem with our standard interpretation stand out to you? Verse 2 … bear one another’s burdens. Verse 3 … if you think you are something, you are deceiving yourself. Classic Paul self-hatred, but a lot of truth to be heard. Verse 9 … let us not grow weary in doing what is right and Verse 10 … whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all.

Introspective. This is about YOU. Not someone else. Let’s examine why.

This being a Pauline letter, we have to examine three critical things: in what context was this written in the first place, Paul’s writing style generally, and the use of metaphor specifically. 

Remember, this is a letter. Letters are written to specific groups of people at a specific time, for a specific reason. Paul wrote this letter as guidance to the church in Galatia on who gets to be a Christian and on what has to be done to be considered one. More specifically, you might be surprised to learn, this letter is primarily about circumcision. That’s right, circumcision. Changing the appearance of male genitalia. Not your typical Bible story. The church in Galatia is getting caught up in the details of the law. Many gentiles are wanting to join the Church but, like we often still do, we try to build barriers. Gentiles, remember, are people who weren’t ethnically or religiously Jewish, so there was no reason for them to have been circumcised. The Christian church at this time is still widely seen as an offshoot of Judaism, so most of its members were Jewish by heritage. They were circumcised and they thought new members should look like them, they thought they should assimilate into the existing culture. Paul is calling them out, saying their hot take is nonsense. 

Intentionally or unintentionally, we still put these barriers in place sometimes - as the church and as a society. You are welcome, so long as you speak English and have papers. You are welcome, so long as you subscribe to he & she pronouns. You are welcome if you are an addict, so long as you aren’t currently an addict. You are welcome, so long as you’ve paid society back for your crime. You are welcome if you are grieving, so long as you aren't grieving right now. You are welcome, so long as you vote the right way. You are welcome, so long as you get mad about the same things I get mad about. You get the idea. We are trying to be better than that here at St. Peter’s and we should celebrate that and also recognize that there is always room to be better, always room to be even more radically welcoming.

Paul is arguing that a gentile need not be circumcised to become a Christian, but his point is much larger: we don’t do this thing called Christianity to merely follow the law as it has been written for hundreds of thousands of years. The mere existence of the church was  for radically upending thousands of years of tradition, why would we work so hard to build that tradition back in? 

Our particular brand of Christianity today illustrates this even more clearly. Both the United Church of Christ and my Presbyterian denomination are grounded in what is called reformed theology. The name says it all - the church is called to reform itself and the world around us, always. Change is good. We should celebrate change, not resist it.  When the law keeps us from fulfilling the promise of Christ, we are called to change it. We believe that we are members of the Christian community by virtue of God’s grace and our faith - nothing else stands in the way. Not even a law. 

In the case of our scripture this morning, that’s circumcision. In the case of Christianity today, it could be any of the barriers I already mentioned and more. Paul is asking us to examine the question - do we have this barrier in place because it is necessary to share Christ’s love with the world, or is it in place to sustain our own power and comfort. Paul’s answer to the Galatians was clear: it is almost always about power and comfort and our answer today is sadly the same. We are reaping what we’ve sown as the church - exclusion and inequity. Only when we fix that in ourselves do we have any hope of reforming the world around us.

The second part of our examination of any Pauline text centers around language. As usual with Pauline letters, mixed into the self-righteousness, we get beautiful language about our faith and why God has chosen us to be part of it. The tone of the letter is one of promise and hope … why then, would we think it appropriate to dramatically change course and be catty for this one verse … you reap what you sow.

See how that sounds mixed in with other language from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia:

“But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” But you reap what you sow.

Doesn’t quite fit, does it?

And then perhaps the most famous verse from Galatians:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise who all reap what they sow.”

Doesn’t fit. Sounds pretty odd placed within the larger tone of this message.

The entire body of this work suggests the building up of community, there is no room at all for endorsing self-righteousness. Drop it, Paul says, we are all in this together now.

Finally, we are left with the problem of metaphor. Metaphors are ripe for misinterpretation. Anytime we use language that hints at what we are saying instead of just saying it, we tread in dangerous territory.

The metaphor of reaping what we sow brings up images of gardening for most of us. If you plant corn, you will reap corn. If you plant a thorn bush, you will get thorns. You get what you’ve planned for. But that isn’t how gardening works - we don’t reap what we sow. Done successfully, we reap way MORE than we sow. If you plant a strawberry seed, you not only get strawberries but also the ability to plant many more strawberries if you wanted to. Planting a tree brings apples, and also the ability to plant thousands of apple trees. Thorns, then, don’t just produce thorns but rather lots of toxicity and pain. And the effects multiply from generation to generation of plants. The second generation can produce millions of trees, and then billions, and so on. It really is rather miraculous.

In this sense, Paul is giving us a warning. WE reap what WE sow. If I only work half as hard as I can, my kids aren’t going to work half as hard, they may only work half as hard as that. If I give $100 to help the community around me, when I can easily afford $200, the next generation is more likely to just give $50. WE reap what WE sow. Positive and negative. There is a much larger and far-reaching impact than we can even imagine. I think we struggle with this dynamic a lot here at St. Peter’s - are we living up to our full potential? Not just in giving but in all manners of supporting the body of Christ. That’s a lot of pressure, to be sure. But Paul thought the church was up for it then and I think we are up for it now.

You reap what you sow. This is about change from within, changing ourselves. It reminds me of a poem from Mary Oliver, who just passed away this year. Words that have been especially helpful to me in my personal spiritual growth. A poem called the journey:

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Determined to do the only thing you could do - determined to save the only life you could save. Mary Oliver doesn’t tell us who that life is, but I’ve interpreted it to mean our own lives. There is only one person for whom we can control what is sowed, that is ourselves. We get to decide what gets planted, are we choosing the things God would have us choose?

Are we planting the seeds of public transit systems here in the suburbs that allow the workers supporting our lifestyles to get here safely and economically. Are we planting seeds that lead to growing a clean community, free from pollution and other substances that harm God’s children? Are we planting the seeds that lead to an education system as strong for everyone as it is here in Carmel?

God’s love tells us the harvest will be plentiful for everyone, no matter what. So may we do what it takes to make the reaping the most enjoyable and the most impactful, planting the best things together so we can all enjoy the harvest of God’s promise together. Amen.