In the British comedy A Fish Called Wanda, Otto is an egotistical criminal with far more pride than common sense. One of his taglines is “Don’t call me stupid!” To which Wanda, his partner, replies, “To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people.”

Otto is a comic figure, but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. One can imagine that he probably felt triggered by people calling him stupid, because deep down he knew that he struggled in this way.
And yet in Galatians 3, one of the greatest apostles berates a church for its, well, stupidity. It is bad enough that St. Paul leads with this insult, but he circles back to it a few verses later. Clearly, he is riled up by the issue at hand—that the church of Galatia seems to be so caught up in observing the letter of the law, that it has forgotten the gift of grace at the heart of Christ’s saving work. It’s a foolish mistake to make theologically, so no wonder Paul finds it irritating. But the apostle seems to be exhibiting his own flavor of foolishness.

If we base our faith on following the rules rather than accepting God’s grace, soon every infraction becomes a crisis. Ironically, Paul makes a “stupid” mistake of his own as he criticizes his Galatian friends. We might wince at the sting of Paul’s words, but perhaps we should smile at the irony of how he embodies the very point he is trying to make: that God’s grace is for everyone, from people who bungle their theology to those who lose their temper and speak artlessly.

Carl McColman

Carl McColman blogs about contemplative spirituality at anamchara.com. He is the author of books like The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart.