1.- The letter to the Galatians is the letter of the freedom. It clearly shows Paul´s religious process, his grace and his combat. Written perhaps in Ephesus about year 53, it is addressed to the communities of the roman province of Galatia. With many efforts, with pains of childbirth (Ga 4,19), Paul founds the communities of Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe and Perga (Acts 13,13-52; 14,1-25): Remember that I was sick when I first announced the Gospel to you (Ga 4,13). Later on, Paul goes through the regions of Galatia and Phrygia to strengthen the disciples (Acts 18,23)
2.- The motive of the letter is as follows. The apostle has received bad news. He then writes to the Galatians: I am surprised at how quickly you have abandoned God who called you according to the grace of Christ, and have gone to another gospel. In deed, there is no other gospel, but some people who are sowing confusion among you want toe change the Gospel of Christ (Ga 1,6-7). Who are those? Paul does note say it expressly. Nor it is necessary.
3.- The adversaries, Jews of a strict observance, try to undermine Paul´s authority. That us why, from the initial greetings, the apostle proclaims his mission: Paul, an apostle sent not by humans nor by human mediations, but by Christ Jesus an by God the Father… (Ga 1,1). And later on he adds: I want you to know, brothers, that the Gospel we preached to you is not a human message, nor did I received it or learn of it in human way, but through a revelation from Christ Jesus (1,11-12).
4.- Paul recalls the history of his conversion: You have heard if my previous way of life, when I belonged to the Jewish community; I furiously persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. For I was more devoted to the Jewish religion than many fellow Jews of my age, and I defended my ancestral traditions more fanatically. But you know that God called me out of his great love, he who had chosen me from my mother´s womb, and was pleased to reveal in me his Son, that I might make him known among the pagan nations. I did not seek human advice nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. I immediately went to Arabia, and from there I returned again to Damascus. Later on, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to meet Pete, and I stayed with him for fifteen days. But I did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord´s brother. I say all this before God; he knows that this is true. The churches of Christ in Judea did not know me personally; they had only heard of me: “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he tried to destroy”. And they praised God because of me. (Ga 1, 13-24; see Acts 9,26-30). When the young Pharisee meets Christ, he experiments a radical change: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Ga 2,20). Once I found Christ, all those things that I might have considered like profit, I reckoned like loss (Phil 3,8)
5.- Paul goes a step farther and he calls for the Jerusalem council, the council of the Christian freedom: After fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and Titus came with us. Following a revelation, I went to lay before them the Gospel I was preaching to the pagans, lest I should be working or have worked in a wrong way (Ga 2,1-2). In effect, fourteen years later, Paul again goes up to Jerusalem. Nobody had convoked him. He goes up pushed by God´s living word. He meets privately with the leaders of the community and explains to them the Gospel he is preaching to the gentiles. The apostle has no doubt about his mission, but he wants to give an answer to the accusation he is suffering and to make clear that he is not running in vain. Barnabas is with him, and Titus, who is a gentile and that is not circumcised, too, a whole test! Circumcision is the rite that labels Abraham’s children like members of the believer people (Gn 17,12-14): But they did not impose circumcision, not even on Titus who is Greek and who was with me (Ga 2,3).
6.- The main problem becomes evident: There were some intruders and false brothers who gained access, like spies, to see how we live the freedom Christ has given us. They would have us enslaved by the Law, but we refused to yield even for a moment; otherwise you would have lost the truth of the Gospel… (Ga 2,4-5). They say of themselves that they were brothers, but they undermined Paul´s authority, they spied the legitimate Christian freedom and menaced the Gospel truth.
7.- The intruders, who had come down from Judea (Acts 15,1), support themselves upon the authority of the apostles in Jerusalem, but these extend their hands to Paul in a signal of communion: The others, the more respectable leaders – it does not matter what they were before: God pays no attention to the status of a person – gave me no new instructions. They recognized that I have been entrusted to preach the Good News to the pagan nations, just like Peter has been entrusted to preach it to the Jews. In the same way that God made Peter the apostle of the Jews, he made me the apostle of the pagans. James, Peter and John acknowledged the graces God gave me. Those men who are regarded as the pillars of the Church stretched out their hand to Barnabas and me like a sign of fellowship; we would go to the pagans and they to the Jews. The only thing they asked of us was to keep in mind the poverty of our brothers in Jerusalem; I have taken care to do this. (Ga 2, 6-10).
8.- Paul also narrates the reprehension he made to Peter. The authority of the apostle, whatever can be, “is not over God´s word, but to its service” (DV 10): But when later Cephas came to Antioch, I confronted him since he deserved to be blamed. Before some of James´ kinsmen arrived, he used to eat with non-Jewish people. But when they arrived, he withdrew and did not mingle anymore with them, for fear of these circumcised people. The rest of the Jews followed him in this pretence and even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting uprightly in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas publicly: If you who are Jewish agreed to live like the non-Jews, setting aside the Jewish customs, why do you now compel the non-Jews to live like Jews? (Ga 2,11-14)
9.- Minutia? Simulation, comedy, involution, scandal! It has been made clear in the council of Jerusalem that what saves the man is not a group of legal practices but the conversion to the Gospel of Jesus. But the involution advances. And all of a sudden some intruders appear in Galatia, contraries to the council decisions, saying that the observance of the law is necessary, that the founder of the community has betrayed the exigencies of the faith, that he is a man who acts out of the church. Then, that man raises his voice: How foolish are you, Galatians!… Did you receive the Spirit by the practice of the Law of believing what you heard? (Ga 3,1-3), there is no longer any difference between Jew and Greek, or between slave and freedman, or between man and woman (3,28), you are not slaves, but God´s sons (4,6-7), how can you turn back to weak and impoverished created things? (4,9), we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman (4,31), remain firm and do not submit again to the yoke of the slavery (5,1), all you who pretend to become righteous through the observance of the Law have separated from Christ and have fallen away from grace (5,4), he who confuses you, whoever he may be, shall receive punishment (5,10), you were called to enjoy freedom (5,13), you removed the scandal o f the cross, the persecution for the cross of Christ (5,10; 6,12), in Christ Jesus it is irrelevant whether we be circumcised or not; what really matters is to have faith that works through love, the new creation (5,6; 6.15).
10.- January 2005. The Pope communicates to Peter Casaldáliga, Sâo Felix (Brazil) bishop, that he has nominated his successor and demands him to get out of the city before his arrival. Casaldáliga purpose was to live in the city in which he has been bishop for 34 years. All sounds to a strict expulsion and not to a Christian relieve. The bishop would like to obey the Pope, but the diocesan assembly asks him to avoid collaborating with this antievangelic practice of nominating bishops without any consultation with the local community and acting with obscurantism. Living symbol of the council renovation, the bishop affirms that the faith is resistance and that to resist to what he considers contrary to its own conscience is a duty. For that reason he decided to resist (El Pais, 16-1-05). Two days later, we sent him a letter of support. The two years extension granted to him and that could have been considered a good signal, seems to be the previous step of a plan that could destroy the work carried out along the years. In this context, we communicate him the following word read that day in all the churches: God is not unjust and will not forget everything you have don for love in his name serving the saints now and before (Hb 6, 10-20).
* Dialogue: Paul´s combat (conversion, community, council, firmness before the involution, Peter reprehension, call to freedom) is it present? Experiences.