Freedom to Love
Freedom: Part 5
August 2, 2026
Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time, we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up. So then, let’s work for the good of all whenever we have an opportunity, and especially for those in the household of faith.
~ Galatians 6:9-10
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As Paul concludes his letter to the Galatians, he brings his argument full circle by asking what this freedom looks like when it is lived out in real Christian community?
In 6:2 and 6:5, he seems to contradict himself. “Bear one another’s burdens,” and yet “each one must carry their own load.” Paul is showing us what life in community looks like. Each person is responsible for their own growth and maturity, yet no one is meant to carry that weight alone. We are called to accountability without judgment and mutual support without dependence. This kind of freedom is both harder and more honest than either pure self-reliance or absolute dependence. This is what community looks like when it is rooted in Christ’s love.
Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest, was assigned in 1986 to Dolores Mission Parish in Los Angeles, then the poorest parish in the city with the highest concentration of gang activity. Early in his ministry, he buried over 200 people killed by gang violence.
He came to see that the deepest issue was not the gangs, but the absence of kinship; the kind of belonging Paul calls “the new creation.” Young people were not lacking programs or charity; they were lacking family. They needed somebody to stand with them. Instead of asking what he could do for them, Boyle simply asked, “Can I be with you?”
Being with people in that environment is risky. Father Boyle has been shot at numerous times and has sat with young men on death row knowing he could not save their lives. Through it all, he has truly been present with the people.
His ministry, Homeboy Industries, now serves over 10,000 former gang members and previously incarcerated people annually. It is built on the belief that every person is “unshakably good - no exceptions. We belong to each other - with no exceptions.”
Former enemies work side by side. He did not ask them to like each other or even to forgive each other before they started. He simply asked them to work. And in working together, a new community was formed, a lived expression of the “new creation”.
Paul’s vision is not the individual freedom to do what we want. It is the freedom of being family to-gether, bearing one another’s burdens, enduring hardship, and sharing the fruit of the Spirit for the sake of the world.
In that life together, old markers of identity and worth lose their power. What remains is a communi-ty held together by grace.
Practice: This week, show up for someone.
Think of one person in your life who is carrying something heavy right now. Do not try to fix it. Just show up, a text, a phone call, a meal, a visit. Simply be present with them in it. Notice what it costs you and how much it matters to them.