"Becoming Ourselves"

Galatians 3:23-29

I read something this past week that stopped me in my tracks, and I’d like to begin by sharing it with you.  It’s by Layne Redmond from her book, When the Drummers were Women.

Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother’s ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother’s womb and she, in turn, formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother’s blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother - we are truly children of one blood.

Occasionally somebody comes along and simply nails it!  Occasionally, somebody has the words and the audacity to name an absolute truth about human life—namely, that we are not as different as we think we are; that we are one; that many of the walls between us are but figments of our unimagination.  With that in mind, we springboard right into our text from Galatians today.  Paul, the biblical author most often written off as a prudish thud, gets into this second half of his letter to the church in Galatia, and darn it if he doesn’t start sounding like Martin Luther King! 

“You used to be imprisoned by the law,” Paul argues.  “But in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith...  There is no Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus... And I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood...”  You can almost hear Paul get there, can’t you?  His call to recognize human oneness has a transcendent voice that resonates with struggles for justice in generations beyond his own.  Granted, the “faithful” have found creative ways to ignore Paul here and instead focus on “Slaves, obey your masters” from Ephesians and Colossians—words we now know that Paul didn’t write, but words that have fueled division in our own nation’s church history.

This was Paul’s struggle, too.  Divisions between Jewish and Gentile believers threatened to tear the Church apart.  Both sides were wary of one another.  Jews were suspicious of the legitimacy of Gentile faith.  “Can a Gentile be a believer if he isn’t Jewish?”  The Gentiles whispered in secret about the Jews.  The Jews held secret meetings when the Gentiles weren’t around.  The Gentiles protested and claimed their rightful place in the Church.  The Jews conducted illegal wiretapping of Gentile phone lines.  And the Gentiles tampered with ballot machines in Jewish voting districts.

A climate of fear and suspicion.  Who’s in?  Who’s out?  Who’s right?  Who’s wrong?  And Paul’s voice is clear.  “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” 

But Paul knows these people.  He can hear what they’re thinking:  What about the Law?  What about Scripture?  This is all fine and good, Paul, but what about the law forbidding a Jew to eat at table with a Gentile?  What about the law, given by God through Moses, that, up ‘til now, seems to have had some pretty clear things to say about non-Jews, slaves and women?  

What is it about “the law”?  Today it seems there are legions of people willing to die in the ditch of whether or not the Ten Commandments are posted in public schools and courthouses.  And, of course, there are all kinds of questions this struggle brings to mind.  Chief among them for me, though, is “Why the Ten Commandments?”  Of all the things in the Bible, why that?  Why not the beatitudes?  Why not, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth… Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God…”   Now I’m not saying that we should put the beatitudes up in classrooms and courthouses either; I’m simply curious about our fixation with law.  Seems like on a surface level, the law is measurable; either you’re obeying it or you’re not.  The lines are clear-cut and at the end of the day, you’ll know how you did.  Not always so true with the beatitudes!  So even despite the fact that many Americans can’t name all Ten Commandments and have absolutely no intention of actually obeying them, I guess they’re preferable to some of those ambiguous statements of Jesus.  “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor” just doesn’t work on a bumper sticker quite like “Honor thy father and mother.”

So, what about the law?  Paul writes that “the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came,” and that word, “disciplinarian,” is a bit tricky.  The Greek actually refers to a slave whose role it was to look after a child, to go with him to school, to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble.  Sort of a chaperone, really.  “The law was our chaperone until Christ came,” as if to say, “There’s nothing wrong with chaperones!  But friends, this isn’t about your behavior, it’s about your identity.  This isn’t about behaving because you’ve got a chaperone looking over your shoulder.  This isn’t about what you do—it’s about who you are!” 

Paul’s word is a message of freedom found in Christ—a freedom to find identity in Christ.  “Slave or free, Jew or Greek, male and female… all of you are one,” he writes, for “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” 

When folks in that early church were baptized, they were actually given new clothes, a new garment—a symbol of new identity. 

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself wearing the same stuff day after day after day.  I usually don’t complain about not having anything to wear; I just take whatever’s there and put it on.  That may be true for you, or perhaps the dance you do in front of the closet each day is a bit different.  Whatever the case, friends, we have a new garment to wear.  What would it look like each day if we found ourselves clothed with Christ?  What would that look like?  What would we look like?  Can you imagine it?  Can you imagine no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, gay or straight, rich or poor, documented or undocumented, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, us or them? 

Can we even begin to imagine it?  The truth is, we can’t.  And so, day after day after day, we attempt to clothe ourselves with Christ, and to help each other get dressed—to help each other fit into the clothes of the One who, on the cross, said, “This is how I am with you, this is how I am always with you, and this is how I call you to be with each other:  to love one another so much that you would suffer with and for one another.” 

Paul calls the church to be one and Jesus prays that we would be one.  The problem is, though, that if we truly believe that we are one—that we are all children of one blood—then when any one suffers, we should all fiercely fight to suffer with and for that one, perhaps to stop that suffering, or perhaps to be with that one as God is.

I would like to invite you to look at yourself.  Just look at yourself.  Actually, look at your clothes.  Look at what you are wearing.  Shirt, dress, pants, skirt, shoes…  And I want to say to yourself, “Today these are the clothes of Christ, of God With Us.  This is what God is wearing today.”  On some of you, maybe God has a little more fashion sense than on others, but it’ll all do.  Say it to yourself:  “This is what God is wearing today.”  Take a moment and find yourself sitting there in God’s outfit.  Look at the people around you and see what else God is wearing this morning. 

I wonder if something doesn’t happen to us when we realize that we are clothed with Christ.  If we don’t begin to see ourselves and God in the faces of those around us.  If we don’t begin to sense that God is peeking at us out from under all sorts of hats and scarves and turbans... no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman, us or them...  Just us.  People.  Becoming ourselves.