12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 20, 2010
Galatians 3:23-29Faith of our Fathers
Two dilemmas faced me as I tried to prepare for this morning’s services. (Well, three, really. The first one had to do with the air conditioning system, which should be operating better this week).
The first dilemma had to do with which lectionary passage to explore in the sermon. The choices were Elijah in the desert ready to give up on his vocation, Jesus in the region of Gerasenes wreaking havoc on the pork industry, and Paul somewhere in Asia Minor writing to the church in Galatia.
The second dilemma had to do with Michael Corzine’s suggestion that we sing “Faith of Our Fathers” as the gradual hymn. Now, we haven’t sung “Faith of Our Fathers” for a least 25 years. Though I sang it often as a child (It was in the “old red” hymnbook,) “Faith of Our Fathers” was one of several hymns that was put on the “no fly list” when we realized that the generic masculine left out at least half of the congregation.
The reasoning went like this: If we’re going to sing about the faith of our fathers, we’d better learn to sing about the faith of our mothers, too. Else we risk distorting the gospel. Some hymns are emendable, but you can’t sing “Faith of Our Forebears” without breaking out laughing, so we decided to can this hymn for a while. It went into the file alongside “Rise Up, O Men of God.”
Michael was keen to sing this hymn this morning for reasons not altogether clear to me. However, because Michael is a superb liturgical theologian, I always trust his instincts.
Having solved the second dilemma, the first became a no-brainer. I would preach on Galatians 3:23-29, and especially on verses 27 through 29:
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves in Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
What is Paul talking about in this passage, and why is it important?
The question facing the church in Galatia was this: Providing you weren’t born a Jew, just how Jewish do you have to be to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Do you have to obey all the rules and regulations of the Mosaic law, or just a few?
Surely, Jewish Christians reasoned, Gentile Christians can’t just ignore the law. It’s obedience to the law that marks us as God’s own. God made promises to our father Abraham and his descendants. To be a true heir of Abraham is to obey the law.
When Paul started the church in Galatia, he preached a gospel of grace, saying that faith alone is what makes a person a child of God. After spending some time in Galatia, Paul moved on to other places, and along came some other preachers who preached a slightly different gospel. Gentiles can join us, they argued, provided the men become circumcised and everyone follows at least some of the dietary laws. This, after all, is the faith of our fathers.
There was a lot to be said for this middle way. The Romans had made certain provisions for Jews within the Empire. Jews didn’t have to sacrifice to Caesar and they were exempt from certain requirements. If Gentile Christians were to behave like Jews, the church could operate under the Roman radar.
But Paul would have none of this. He respected the law of Moses, but the law, he argued, had its limitations. The law can’t make you holy. A best, it can only show you how far short of God’s best hopes you fall.
The law, said Paul, is like one of those pedagogues that could been seen in the streets of Galatia – a slave who escorts school boys to and from school to make sure they stay out of trouble. The law can keep you on the straight and narrow, but it can’t seal within your heart a love for God and neighbor. The law was a caretaker, a pedagogue, an au pair. It was given to Israel to prepare Israel for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Now that Christ has come, it’s not obedience to the law that identifies us as heirs of the promise, the descendants of Abraham. It’s trust in Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled the law. Don’t fall back into slavery to the law, Paul urges the Galatians. Instead, claim the inheritance sealed in your baptism. By grace, God has made you, Jew and Gentile believers alike, the children of God. “In Christ you are all children of God through faith,” he writes.
If Paul had stopped there, he’d have made some people in Galatia mad, and some happy, but he would have offended absolutely everyone. Alas, like many a preacher before and after him, Paul just had to go to meddling.
“As many of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” he says.
“There is no longer Jew or Greek.” O.K. We can live with that
“There is no longer slave or free.” Wait a minute! The current economy would collapse without the distinction between slave and free. Better rethink that one.
“There is no longer male and female.” Now, you’ve crossed the line, preacher. What are you, some kind of feminazi? What do you mean, “No longer male and female?”
“I haven’t finished yet. Don’t interrupt . . . for all of you are one in Jesus Christ.”
Well, now he’s done it! Now he’s got the whole church riled up.
Now the Jewish Christians are going to feel self-conscious about their prayer shawls and the Gentile Christians are going to spend their nights eating bar-b-que at the pagan temples. The slave owners are going to be losing sleep at night and the slaves are going to get uppity and demand their rights. The Nominating Committee will have to put women on the ballot, and before you know it, there will be women priests and women bishops, and no place for the good old boys to hang out in peace.
This, in short, is a recipe for disaster. Imagine what the church would look like today if Paul’s radical ideas had caught on.
For a while, the equality envisioned in these verses did take root and flower. There is some evidence that the early church really did make impressive progress toward this vision of Paul’s. There were certainly some respected female leaders in the early church. We read their names in scripture. There may even have been a few female bishops, but it wasn’t long before this radical equality Paul talks about was undermined by men with selective memories.
G. K. Chesterson wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”[1]
The burning issue before today’s church is not how Jewish we ought to be, but how unified we ought to be. Or, to use Paul’s terms, how unified we already are, if only we would live into our own baptism.
In fact, the unity of the church is not a goal to be realized, but a gift already given. We are already one, not because we have achieved obedience to the law of unity, but because Jesus Christ lived, and died, and rose again to make us heirs of Abraham and Sarah, to make us the adopted children of God.
Unity in Christ is more than a theological abstraction. It has practical consequences. For instance, at the moment it is common practice for Christians in Arizona to transport undocumented aliens from their homes to clinics or services of worship. I know of Presbyterians who do that kind of thing every day. It’s the least they can do for their brothers and sisters.
Luz Santiago is a pastor in Mesa. Most of her congregation is in the country illegally. She often drives her parishioners to doctor's appointments, the grocery store and school. Once a month, she transports youth to youth meetings. She’s worried that she could be subject to prosecution for driving while under the influence of the gospel.
The unity of the church is more than a given. In Arizona, it could become a felony.
Most of us in this congregation have come to accept that in Christ there is no longer male and female. But there are some other categories we haven’t quite managed to encompass. Rich and poor, housed and homeless, educated and unschooled, straight and gay. In Christ we are already one. In practice we are still divided.
Paul’s intention in writing to the Galatians was to encourage them to keep moving forward, and not to fall back. When Paul sings of the “faith of our fathers,” he is not calling for retreat to the “good old days,” but for movement toward the future embodied in Jesus Christ.
I told you Michael Corzine is a superb liturgical theologian. Now I realize why he wanted us to sing that old hymn. It’s not because “our fathers” always got it right. It’s because the “faith of our fathers” is living still, in spite not only of “dungeon, fire and sword,” but also, at times, in spite of those same fathers.
In the end, it’s neither the fathers or the mothers who make the faith holy. It’s the living God who hasn’t finished with us yet.
[1] G.K. Chesterson ,What’s Wrong with the World, (New York: Dover Publications, 2007), 23
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