The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
The Very Rev. Steve Lipscomb, Dean
Grace Cathedral
6/20/10

Galatians 3:23-29

This is Father’s Day and it is interesting that on this Father’s Day we should have the message through scripture—through Paul’s letter to the Galatians—that in Christ Jesus and through faith in Christ Jesus, we are all children of God, our Father in heaven.

When we are baptized, or when we “confirm” our baptism and take full responsibility for the vows made on our behalf when we were infants, we, according to Paul, “clothe ourselves” with Christ. In baptism we become new people—members of the family of God. As a result of that decision, that act of will—ours or our parents—we are taken up into a new life, a life with God, life as adopted children in God’s household, part of God’s family; the community of faith.
 
That membership in the family of God becomes the only distinction, the only kinship, the only bloodline we need. If we have been baptized into Christ, we need not worry, in the first place, with the distinctions between heir and slave, in and out, “in the faith” or “under the law” — that has all been quite handily taken care of, says Paul. For we are no longer subjects to the law, we are part of the family, and we are to function as part of a family, taking on our assigned and chosen roles out of love for the Parent and love for the brothers and sisters, and doing more than what is required – out of love – and not simply doing what we are “required by law” to do because we “have to.”

Once we have made that leap of faith into baptism, according to this passage, we need not worry about any of the usual distinctions — “Jew” or “Greek,” or “slave or free,” or “male and female.” We are all one. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. With One God and Father of all.

This is what it all comes down to in the end: being children — children of God, children in God’s family, through faith in Christ. Through baptism, as older persons or as younger persons and taking full responsibility for our Christian life when we come of age, we “put on” Christ. And in baptism, at any age, we become part of God’s family. That family was established thousands of years ago, when a man named Abram heard the one God speaking to him in his heart, saying, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” — the Promised Land. We become part of all that, says Paul, when we clothe ourselves with Christ through our acceptance of our baptism.

Okay, stirring words, stirring, high-flown Pauline thoughts, these — but on the face of it they seem to raise more questions than they answer. Like, does it necessarily follow that everyone who is baptized simply “puts on” Christ, like a new set of clothes, and that’s the end of it? A wolf in sheep’s clothing? –or maybe better said, a sheep in the shepherd’s clothing?! How does that ritual act—baptism— make us God’s children? And how is it that “faith in Christ” makes us children of God? Isn’t everybody? Are we not children of God by virtue of the fact that we are created human beings? Are we not children of God simply by virtue of being born? & If we are not children of God simply by virtue of being born, then what are we? Merely a slightly higher form of animal life? Children of a supposedly “fallen,” “corrupt” nature?

Well, according to the traditional Christian view—or at least according to one breathtakingly straightforward expression of such a view—no, we are not “children of God” simply by virtue of being human. We are born in sin, and must “accept Christ” to be “saved,” which is to say we must be “adopted” by God, by virtue of Christ’s virtue, as God’s children.  (By the way, that preceding theology or doctrine does not necessarily reflect the views of the preacher.)

But to an extent, as far as it goes, this expression of faith, rigid, even heartlessly so, though it may seem, expresses a conviction that God is not simply some loving, ineffectual grandpa in the sky. He is not a granddaddy who dotes on us and “loves us” to the extent that our actions don’t matter—that God has no expectations other than that we obey a few simple rules—unless we’re particularly inclined not to obey—and if we do mess up and break them, then God will quickly forgive us and so our behavior doesn’t really matter anyway.  

And while it is true that, yes, God forgives; yes, God loves us unconditionally; yes God is a God of grace —God is also, we are told, a jealous God who wants our faithfulness, obedience and unequaled love; God is a God who does indeed have expectations of who and what we are to be. Even the most loving parent—the most loving father—has expectations and standards for his children. Even in a Christian culture that rightly errs on the side of grace, even cheap grace, this traditional conviction insists that God holds us accountable and calls us to account.

 That’s one view. And perhaps some of you have no problem with this traditional expression of Christian faith. But others do. We live in an ever more diverse and divergent society. There are many religions, including Jews and Muslims with whom we have been celebrating this past month our commonality through the one God—the God of Abraham with our Walk Through Jerusalem exhibit. There are Hindus and Buddhists. There are agnostics and even atheists among us — some of them quite militant, even belligerent, but some also who are as dedicated, I would argue, as any Christian ever was to a longing for justice and peace that can only be described as Christ-like, even if they decline to make a specifically Christian or even religious profession. What are we to make of the aforementioned traditional expression of faith in light of that?

Likewise, what are we to make of it in a world in which we find ourselves increasingly side by side—in our workplaces, in our schools, in our neighborhoods—with earnest and committed “unChristian” practitioners of other faith traditions every bit as focused, in their own way, upon faith in God, and love of God and neighbor, as our own is?

In our ever-changing, increasingly diversified culture, we must first acknowledge that this biblical passage from Galatians is now as much as it ever was about faith in the Father God of Abraham. Faith in the God of Christ. It is about the only God who is, or was or ever will be, and who is indeed a “jealous” God. He is a God who has uncompromising expectations of us as human beings, who expects each and every one of us to be and to conduct ourselves as children of God and not as strangers utterly indifferent to God and God’s expectations.

And yet, in our increasingly diverse and often confusing culture, we must also acknowledge that this passage is not really about being “saved,” in the traditional sense. Christian life and faith are not really about being “saved” while others in any degree not like us are “not saved” or more plainly put, “damned.”

We are being told here, by Paul, that Christian life and faith are not about being “saved” and going to “heaven” when we die, but about being, period, --and starting now, and not after we die, at claiming all the children of God as brothers and sisters, just as surely and completely as Jesus claims us as a brother or sister. Christian life and faith is about “putting on Christ” now, so that we can be a part, now, of what God is doing in the world.

“Faith in Christ” is not necessarily the same thing as “believing in Jesus.” It is taking on the commitment to the kind of humanity and obedience and love we see demonstrated and lived out in Jesus, who himself “put on” Christ. This kind of commitment to Christ-like humanity, however imperfectly it may be lived out, is accessible to all religions — and even, in principle at least, to committed secularism. True Christian faith is not — never was! — about being saved and going to heaven when you die. It is about living a genuinely human life now; it is about being human as humans were meant to be human by the Creator God, the One God who created humanity. And we see what that genuine humanity is by looking at Jesus, his life, his teachings, his utter dedication to the One God — even to the point of death—giving up life for the sake of love.

So what is this “genuinely human life” now,--then? Whatever we say it is? Using our “free will” to live any way we might choose to live? No. the genuinely human life is whatever Christ says it is, through his teachings, his example, his way of life. No godly religion can look at Jesus Christ and say this is not how God would want us to live. He is a perfect example for the world.

A “genuinely human life” is a life devoted entirely and above every other consideration to love of God and love of neighbor.A “genuinely human life,” as defined by the most genuine human being who ever lived, is a life that starts with the assumptions that those who are poor in spirit own the kingdom of heaven and the meek will inherit the earth. It assumes that those who mourn will be comforted and those who hunger and thirst for a right relationship with God will be filled. It believes that mercy begets mercy and the peacemakers will be called children of God. It affirms that through faith in Christ we are children of God.
           
And this is no works righteousness doctrine.  That’s not what we’re talking about. Works righteousness, as it is known, begins with works. By doing certain works deemed correct by whatever powers that be, we cause ourselves to be in a right relationship with God through our own actions.

What we are being invited to do in this passage is to “put on Christ,” to take on his way of being, to let Christ’s works be our works. That is an act of faith, given by grace. Which is to say it is an act of trust in the God who has already touched us and called us and is even now drawing us in. It is about faith in God our Father, who made us and loves us and calls us as his very own children.

Through such faith, we receive all that we need. Through such faith, acted out—through baptism, through grace, through love, through Christ—we receive what has already been offered: adoption into the family of God. Children of the Father.

Every one. all together. For in God there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female or any other. We are one, Abraham’s offspring, God’s own and heirs of the promise.

In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.