The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity September 6, 2026 Galatians 5:16-24 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, This weekend usually marks the end of summer, but the meteorological calendar indicates summer still has a few weeks before fall begins. It’s also Labor Day Weekend, offering one last chance to visit the lake, go to a water park, or enjoy a picnic — a perfect excuse to take a break from work. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882 in New York City; a couple of years later, the day became a Federal Holiday. As many see it today, it’s a day off from work, but its history reveals that the day would include speeches on the holiday’s economic and civic significance. Labor Unions might use these days as opportunities to build support for their causes and sway public opinion on pay and benefits for today’s workforce. But what is a Labor Union anyway? At the most basic level, a Labor Union is an organization of workers who join together to negotiate with employers for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. A Labor Union is a group of people, united in their work, their toil, and labor. Have you ever pondered how the world around you might influence how you view the Christian faith? Have ideas about the labor force influenced the Church or the local congregation? A group of people, united in a common work, to “make” Christians. But if the work conditions aren’t favorable or up to your standards, can you go on strike from “making” Christians? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? What we’re really asking here is this: can we go on strike from living the Christian faith if the conditions of faith aren’t favorable or acceptable to us? Can you negotiate better working pay, benefits, and surroundings so it’s easier to “make” a Christian? Or could there at least be some hazard pay when life becomes difficult? The answer is no. To all of this. The reality is that you dwell, live, and labor in this world, in the flesh inherited from your first parents, which means this life will be difficult, just as it was for your father, Adam, who worked the land full of thorns and thistles. Your flesh will be tempted, as King David’s was, to take for yourselves men and women who are not your husbands and wives, and to suffer the consequences of such sins. Like laborers in the vineyard, you will complain and grow jealous of your neighbor who receives a higher wage than you, which in turn will lead you to jealousy, strife, and anger, if not with them, then within your own heart. If you permit these events to overtake you, if you permit your careers, positions, and places in society to become your sole focus and identity, you will likely begin to see yourself more at odds with one another than in union or unity with one another. The reason for this is that you’ve permitted yourself, or what you perceive as your “work,” to become a god. You began to idolize yourself and what you do. This is why some mutter, “No one appreciates me.” And here is one of the reasons St. Paul warns you in this morning’s epistle: to walk in the Spirit so as not to gratify or give way to the works of the sinful flesh that clings to your bones and surrounds your heart. The way we read the words of St. Paul is interesting, too, because we tend to lose something in translation. We hear “you” and think St. Paul is speaking individually, in the singular, but we need to take into account not only the context of his writing but also the Greek grammar. He is speaking in the second person plural, saying that you all, the whole community of the Galatians, are to walk in the singular Spirit of God. Likewise, you all, the people of Good Shepherd, the body of Christ, are to walk in the way of the Holy Spirit, to be in union with one another and led by the Holy Spirit in faith. But here lies the divide: we wish to live according to the flesh, and when we do this, we are led away from the unity of Christ, living for ourselves through “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” In these ways, we live for ourselves; we aim to elevate ourselves above others, trying to control the uncontrollable. However, this only leads to brokenness, death, and eternal separation from one another and, most importantly, God. And of course, this catalog of vices is not exhaustive or conclusive; that’s why St. Paul ended it with, “And things like these…” Still, St. Paul doesn’t simply end the sermon there; he continues to warn the Galatians, and we receive the same warning today that if we continue in these behaviors, these works of the flesh, we too will not inherit eternal life. So, Paul then moves forward by outlining the things that lead to faithfulness, unity, and eternal life. Also, did you notice ...
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