One in Jesus

One in Jesus

June 19, 2022

Galatians 3: 23 - 29

Before Jesus, we lived under the law – we were “held captive” and “imprisoned” by the law, St. Paul says in this morning’s lesson from Galatians.  But now, through faith, we are sons and daughters of God. 

            And, since we are sons and daughters of God – brothers and sisters, there are no distinctions among us:  no longer are we Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; we are all one in Jesus.

            Let’s take the pieces of this lesson one by one to see if we can understand it better.

            Before Jesus, we lived under the law – we were “held captive” and “imprisoned” by the law, St. Paul says.

            St. Paul surely meant the Jewish Law – the 613 laws that are included in the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament.  For Paul, this was a pivotal issue:  Salvation by faith, not by keeping the law.

            The real issue is that many – maybe most – people want to see their lives as a kind of bank account of good entries less bad ones, hoping to end their lives with positive balances so that they can qualify for whatever their net goodness entitles them.  Paul argues over and over again that this is not the issue.  Faith in God through Jesus is what counts ultimately, he says.

            Over these twenty centuries since Paul was teaching and preaching, our cultures have changed radically in practically every way possible.  But our human nature has not changed.  We still see most people trying to balance the books with a credit balance.  We hear it in people’s comments all the time:  “She is such a good person, I’m sure that she will be going to heaven.”

            We human beings are pretty set on this bank-account, legalistic concept of valuing our lives -- about which Paul says that we are “held captive” and “imprisoned.”  We are so centered on doing more good than bad to get a credit balance, that we can’t consider the idea of salvation by faith – the only way to life in Christ as Paul understands it.

            This is not to suggest in any way that Paul thought that our behavior was irrelevant.  It is that he understood our human nature as being sinful – we are sinful by nature.  We are selfish and greedy and self-centered people.  It is faith or trust in God that can free us from those ungodly characteristics and that empowers us to live lives that reflect the ways of God -- that would include love and peace and forgiveness and grace and giving and all things fantastic.

            Because of trusting God through Jesus’ teachings and examples, we are sons and daughters of God.  Or, said in another way, as God is our father, we are all brothers and sisters.  And, therefore, Paul writes that there are no distinctions among us:  “no longer are we Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; we are all one in Jesus.”

            Paul was writing this letter to the Christian congregation in Galatia, not to us many centuries later.  And two of his identified areas of distinctions are not relevant to our situation in Wilmington today.  We don’t divide ourselves into Jew and Greek categories – seldom do we consciously even divide ourselves into Christian and non-Christian orientations.  Nor do we – by legal definitions – distinguish ourselves as slave or free.  If we have the means, we may treat people working for us as slaves, but that is not a category that our society now uses.  Yet, after all this time we are still centering so much of our prejudice on male and female.  Our District Superintendents still have to contend with churches over appointments of women pastors.  Even in the heart of the Church we are still making distinctions between male and female; we are still not hearing Paul’s insight into the ways of God.

            Since God is our creator or father, we are all brothers and sisters.  Therefore, there should be no distinctions among us.  But how grossly we deny this obvious fact in our society and probably in our individual lives.  In just a few minutes all kinds of our divisions popped into my head:

Rich and Poor

Straight and Gay

American and Immigrant

Democrat and Republican

President Trumpites and President Bidenites

Black and White

Liberal and Conservative

                                    Politics

                                    Social Values

                                    Religion

If we try, we can probably name ten more divisions in our society.  (I don’t want to try.)

            Our United Methodist Church (maybe our Un-united Methodist Church) is splitting over the Straight and Gay division.  This past Friday our Peninsula-Delaware Annual Conference voted to permit four churches (three on Smith Island) to disaffiliate over the homosexual issue.  Do you know that if I were to conduct a homosexual wedding that I would lose my ordination credentials?  And did you realize that you cannot have a “practicing homosexual pastor”?  He or she is not eligible to be appointed to a local church.  How unfaithful we are!  I don’t know, was I unfaithful voting to let those four congregations disaffiliate?  Or should I have voted to prevent them from leaving our Church so that we could have the time to learn to love each other across that one of the barriers in our world?

            Since God is our creator, our father, then we – all United Methodists -- are all brothers and sisters.  So there are to be no distinctions among and between us.  The real answer is not disaffiliation because we don’t like somebody’s distinctions; that just separates us so we don’t fight any more over the issue.  What we need is love that sees no distinctions.  Love of neighbor that doesn’t depend on what we think about values, or wealth, or habits, or appearance, or anything else.  Since God created each and every one of us, we are all brothers and sisters and there are to be no distinctions among us.

            So, yes, our United Methodist Church is not being fully faithful.  What about our congregation?  Do we love each other as brothers and sisters are meant to do?  Do we look past differences of opinion on the experience of faith?  Do we accept and love each other even when one says “Yea” and another says “Nay” in a vote of the Church Council?  Do we continue to accept and love a brother whose behavior scared us or a sister who’s behavior disturbed us?  Will we bend our own prejudices to accept and love a brother or sister who has different understandings of God’s words and ways?  Will you and I not let differences in ideas and experiences, in preferences and values, and in opinions and prejudices get in the way of our love and care for each other?

            Today’s lesson is for us – for you and for me.  We need to learn and to practice this love regardless of societal differences because God is the father of each of us making us brothers and sisters together.  As we practice loving our brothers and sisters, we will be preparing ourselves to help our neighbors experience the power of God’s love and grace and forgiveness and peace just like we are learning to love each other.  Then we can show our neighbors – also our brothers and sisters – just what God is about.

             We have been following the law in the way we treat our neighbors.  We acknowledge behavior that we like and ignore ideas and activities that we dislike.  But we don’t yet treat everyone as a brother or sister.  We don’t love each neighbor across any and all distinctions simply because they are God’s children, too.  Let us change our ideas and prejudices so that we can learn to recognize each neighbor as our brother or sister and live with him or her in God’s love and grace and peace.  Then we will be able to show our neighborhood what we are talking about – that God is our father, making us brothers and sisters whom we love without distinction or prejudice.

            That is our lesson from St. Paul.  Let us hear it and do it.

                                                                                                Amen.

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