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Don't be a McChicken
Covenant and Galatians 3:19-25
by Captain Michael Ramsay

 One day at the McDonald farm there is a rumbling in the air; something is a foot. In the chicken coop something isn’t just quite right. The old farmer walks all around the chicken wire fence. It seems to be in tact. The barbed wire along the perimeter looks undisturbed. Everything looks fine as he locks up the hens for the night. But inside the henhouse on the top rung, something is stirring…it is Henrietta the poultry hen.

Now, as soon as Farmer McDonald closes the door to the coop, Henrietta the hen, speaks up: “It’s time.” Quickly Henrietta, Polly, Mick, and all the chickens on the top rung run to the southeast corner of the coop. They peck and they peck the ground in the corner like never before. Last night they had almost made it. Tonight would be the night. Finally – breakthrough! Henrietta and the other chickens are free. They are free from the farmer’s coop. They are free from the barbed wire and the chicken wire; they are free from the tedious ritual and routine. They are free!

They spend the next morning roaming around the yard, exploring the whole farm. They eat what they want, when then want. They can be near or wander far away. They talk. They talk and they talk some more: it’s a hen’s life. They spend that whole day walking around eating what and when they want and really enjoying the full freedom from the yard. At the end of the day, they perch on a branch of tree across the road from the farm and cuddle up for the night. It is good.

They have a nice rest but in the morning when they wake up, they notice something on the road: it is Mick the chicken crossing the road. They wonder. Why did the chicken cross the road? Mick is walking back towards the farm.

Mick is walking back to the coop. She goes across the road, to the fence and through the same crack under the chicken wire fence. She walks around the corner and up the walkway onto her old bar in the farmer’s small, confining chicken coop. The farmer then notices the crack in the fence and repairs it quickly. Mick is trapped.

Henrietta can’t believe it. She sees the whole thing where she is sitting, still free, looking on from her perch on other side of the road. She sees Mick, of her own accord, trapped all over again on the farm.

Mick was free and then she just goes back to be trapped all over again and it is even worse then she thought at first. As Henrietta scans the farm and hears the noises: here a cluck, there a cluck everywhere a cluck, cluck. She remembers, Mick the Chicken is on McDonald’s farm. The Mick Chicken is back at MacDonald’s! And you know what happens to McChickens at McDonald’s.[1] They get eaten. Mick is trapped.

And this is just like the Galatians to whom Paul writes his letter: the Galatians have become just as trapped by the Law of the Old Covenant as Mick the chicken is by McDonalds. And Paul is quite concerned. After all as we read in Galatians 3, where Paul repeatedly calls the Galatians ‘foolish’, he says in verse 10, “All who rely on the law are under a curse; for it is written ‘cursed is anyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law (cf. Gal 3:10; Deut 27:26).’ And it seems no one can do that.

Paul is then rightly quite concerned because it appears that there are some ‘false believers’ (Gal 2:4) who actually want the Galatians to be trapped by the Law.[2] It appears that there are some here, in the Galatian churches, who are walking away from their freedom and in the process even walking away from the Gospel of Christ.

Rather than relying on Jesus, they prefer to return to the rules, regulations, feasts, celebrations and the Law (cf. Gal 4:9,10) as if that can save anyone from our sins: the Law has been fulfilled (Matt 5:17-48; cf. Heb 8:13). None of us who are grafted into the promise offered to Abraham (Gen 12:3) and David (2 Sam 7), none of us can possibly do anything to merit salvation and the resurrection – its not possible: All who rely on the Law are under a curse because they do not and will not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the Law (cf. Gal 3:10, Deut 27:26).

The people in Galatia here are at risk now of being trapped by the Law. Paul is desperately, in this letter, trying to point them to freedom again.[3] He is trying to stop Mick the Galatian chicken from returning to the confines of the Law of the Old Covenant (Gal 3:4, 4:9).

This raises a question though: If the Law is something that traps us, if the Law is something that curses us, why did God give humanity the Law in the first place? Why did God write the Ten Commandments and hand deliver them to Moses? Did God want to trap us? Really, if the Law is so terrible, why were God’s own people expected to follow it for so long – hundreds of years before it was fulfilled (Exod 20, 34; Deut 5, 10; cf. Matt 5:17; Rom 2: 12-29, 9:30-10:4; Heb 8:13). Why?[4]

For me, as I was reading and re-reading Galatians, this was a pivotal question that kept coming to my mind. If the Law of the Old Covenant is so bad, why did God give it to his ‘chosen people’? And you’ll notice in the passage, Galatians 3:19-25, that Paul considers this as well.

Paul speaks of people as being imprisoned and guarded by the Law in verse 23. He says that the Law –depending upon your translation -was our guard, our disciplinarian, our custodian, or some translations even say our schoolmaster in verses 24 and 25. This is interesting because the word in verses 24 and 25 that is translated these so many different ways probably could best be rendered ‘tutor’ and tutors –unlike guards or disciplinarians- were generally not considered bad people in first century Galatia.[5] They were the good guys: servants protecting and helping the children.

I look at the historical role of the Law like this:[6] The Law is sort of like a storm cellar. Remember the Wizard of Oz? It is a place to hide when the storm kicks up, a place of refuge. When humankind started sinning (vs. 19), sin entered the world like a tornado bringing death and destruction to everything in its path. It is recorded in Galatians 3:19 that the Law was given to us as a result of our transgressions (Cf. Ro 5:20).

There is this storm of sin and death kicking up out there. People are dying and so God builds this storm cellar in the form of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) and the Law for our own protection. God builds the Law as a shelter from this storm of sin and death and He gives it to Moses and says to him, “Here, in there, take everyone in with you. Quick. Hurry!”

Moses does and the people remain in this safe, albeit somewhat cramped and confining, shelter for a long time and then something happens…Jesus, through His death and resurrection, defeats sin. Jesus calms the storm. It is over. As Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.”

So now the storm is over. It is finished and Jesus, through His death and resurrection, has freed us from the storm cellar as the storm is finished. We no longer need to remain in the storm cellar of the Law. It kept us safe for a while but it is of no use to us now, sin and death – the storm – has been defeated.

So, while the storm is whipping around outside we are all very grateful if we can find shelter in the Law of the Old Covenant but who of us, after the tornado had passed wants to continue to live in a hole in the ground? No one. No one in her right mind anyway.

This is exactly what Paul is talking about here in Chapter 3. And in Chapter 4, he goes on explaining the Law as if it were this servant guardian tutor of a small child. The guardian only has any authority until the child is grown, then the child has authority over the slave. We are no longer servants to the Law, customs and ceremonies. While we are grateful for the shelter God provided through the Law. We are especially thankful now that He has freed us from that hole in the ground.

But I have a question for us. Are their times when, like Mick the Galatian Chicken, we are tempted to return to the confines of the Law or of a new law or some other trap? Are there ways in which, even though life is carrying on outside the storm cellar, we refuse to walk around in the freedom of Christ? What are some of the rules, special days, and traditions that can cut us off from our freedom in Christ (Gal 4:10)?

I remember one incident at a youth group activity many years ago, Janet, one of the girls at the church, invited a group of her Christian friends to a youth event and at break time these kids –who she knew were smokers- step outside for a cigarette. They have their cigarettes and start roughhousing a little bit. Janet is devastated; she cries. It didn’t make any sense to her. A Christian couldn’t do those things. There are rules to follow. There are things YOU HAVE to do. So while it would serve us all well to never have a cigarette, of course, and we should all be on the road to holiness, sanctification, which ends in glorification, here is the problem: like Janet and like Mick the Galatian chicken, we can become trapped by our own rules, our own laws. We can start to believe that these rules are the means to our Salvation or, just as bad, someone else’s.

Have you ever thought, “Does he really need that piece of chocolate cake? He’s already 800 pounds.[7] How can she really call herself a Christian? She stays up all night playing video games[8] and she doesn’t clean up after herself or help out around here at all. Look at that kid. He’s got his nose, ears, eyebrows and probably other parts pierced. I’m a good solid Christian though. I don’t smoke. I go to church and Bible study. I never eat too much. I always give my tithe. When I get to heaven, I’ll get a big house – not like those people who just get in by the skin of their teeth.

Don’t we sometimes get trapped by believing that if we never speed and always declare all our income on our income tax; if we never lie, obey all the commandments and the Golden Rule, we’ll get into heaven? Aren’t there things that tempt us to hide in the security of the storm cellar of legalism rather than experiencing the freedom of Christ. What are the things that trap us? Is there anything that is impeding our relationship with Christ? Are there any chains that are holding us back, stopping us from experiencing the full freedom in Christ. Is there anything at all that causes us to hide in a storm cellar of legalism?

Remember Christ died freeing us from the storm cellar. Christ died on the cross so we don’t need to be trapped by our traditions. Christ died so we don’t need to be trapped by our prejudices. Christ died so we don’t need to be trapped by the Law. Christ died so we don’t need to be trapped by, as Paul says in Galatians 4:10, observing special days, months, seasons, and years. Christ died. Christ died defeating the storm of Sin and Death and freeing us from all this and then He rose from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead. So for those of us who are still trapped beneath ground in the storm cellar of legalism, for those of us who are still underground, let’s rise with Christ. Let’s not remain in the ground. Let us let Him break those chains that bind us and let us experience the full freedom of a wholly sanctified life with Christ.

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 [1] Based on: ‘Mickey the Hen’ from the sermon, Free as a Bird: Galatians 5:1-15. by Michael Ramsay

 [2] Richard B. Hays, Galatians. (NIB: XI. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2000), 314. The NIB calls them ‘Missionaries’

[3] It appears that many of the Galatians were originally Gentiles and thus not subject previously. This then would be particularly irritating to the apostle, Paul. Cf. also Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians.  (WBC: 41. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1990), 227.

[4] Cf. Ramsay, Michael. Paul’s Understanding of the Role of Law as Reflected in Romans 2:12-16, 17-24, and 25-29. Available on-line at: www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm

[5] Cf. Cousar, Charles B., Galatians. (Interpretation. Louisville, USA: John Knox Press, 1982), 79.

[6] Cf. for a good discussion of the role, function, and traditional understanding of the Law, NT Wright, “The Law in Romans 2,” Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn (WUNT 89; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), republished with English translations of German essays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).

[7] Intentional example since “Experts estimate that 10 to 25% of all teenagers and 20 to 50% of all adults have a weight problem”. Obesity Canada. n.p. [cited 09 04 2006] On-line: http://www.obesitycanada.com/

[8] 80% of BC Teens play video games regularly. Media Analysis Laboratory Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C. “Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of B.C. Teens.” Simon Fraser University (October, 1998): 5.