Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost. Holy Great-Martyr Artemius (360-363).
Galatians 6:11-18. Luke 16:19-31.
Read Galatians 6:11-18
We are social creatures, made for relationship; relationship is the emotional air we breathe. What we are prone to forgetting is that, first and foremost, we are created for relationship with God. Our tendency is to center relationship on ourselves and each other. Our human relationships are critical to our relationship with God (“He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20), but the immense value of human relationships is not independent – it derives from God. Today’s epistle reading shows the two directions in which we can go astray by not maintaining this distinction.
Fitting in is one of the strongest pulls we experience in life. Whether it is with one person or with a group, we desire the acceptance by others that opens the door of relationship to us. The extent to which our fitting in accords with truth and love will play out in our experience of health or ill health in the relationship.
Excluding others by pushing them away is the other error we can make in pursuit of relationship. Attempting to elevate ourselves instead of also extending relationship to others cuts relationship off from its divine source and intention.
St. Paul calls upon the Corinthians to not go astray by either avoiding “persecut(ion) for the cross of Christ” to fit in or excluding others by glorying in anything other than “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
The basis of all our relationships, with God and each other, is to be our self-sacrificial receiving and living of the self-sacrificial giving on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is to define what we are both pulled toward and repel in our relationships with God, ourselves, and others.