I used my phone in the pulpit for this sermon to take a selfie to start the sermon and then pano to close the sermon. I don't know how well it worked, but it fit with what I was trying to do in the sermon. I have been trying each week to find some type of "hook" into Paul's letter, in part because the sections of the letter we are reading are complicated and dense. I do not want to trivialize Paul's theology, but I also want to make it accessible.
“In the Background” June 30, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Galatians 3: 23-29 Richard B. Culp
3: 23-29 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 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. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,[k] heirs according to the promise.
Introduction: Do you mind if I take a selfie before starting on the sermon? (take selfie from pulpit)
when I was in OH, I had several people comment they had not seen any photos from St. Andrew.
It’s a pretty good photo, well at least it is of me. You know with selfies, you really only get a good view of the person who is taking the photo.
I suppose that is why there are so many selfies posted every day on social media. Not just to chronicle what is happening in a person’s life, but to recognize that the most important person in the moment, the one who matters most, is the person taking the photo.
Everyone else is just background. Y’all do make some pretty good background.
In our world of selfies, hear these words of Paul.
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 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.
Move 1: Paul’s words are not about selfies, but about freedom, our being freed for relationship.
a. You may remember that last week I noted that Eugene Peterson, the author of the Message, suggests that the overarching theme in Paul’s letter to the Galatians is freedom.
1. In this passage at the end of the third chapter, Paul tells us that we are free for relationships.
2. Notice how Paul ends the chapter: And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,[k] heirs according to the promise.
3. Offspring and heirs mean sons and daughters.
4. Words that by definition are about relationship.
5. Can you be a daughter without being connected to someone? Or can you be a son without being in some type of relationship?
c. With that in mind, we discover that Pual’s words about there no longer being a Jew or Greek, slave or free, or male and female, is not primarily about equality, but about relationship.
1. the point is not that we are all equal, as in separate, but equal.
2. the point is we are all connected to one other, bound together.
3. The distorted human perspective sees that which divides – Jew and Greek; slave and free; male and female.
4. in Christ, through faith, we are called to relationships that bind us together.
5. Who I am gives way to who we are in Christ.
5. Who I am gives way to who we are in Christ.
c. My neighborhood still had the sound of fireworks going off last night.
1. As I understand it, our celebration of the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence, and then the development of our nation’s constitution, celebrate not just freedom, but the triumph of our new undertrained of we are connected.
2. thirteen independent colonies had to decide that their relationship to one another, the freedom they shared together, meant more than their individual freedoms.
3. They chose to be bound together in the greatest political experiment in history, one that continues today.
d. Our nation’s freedom, of course, is a bit different than the freedom Paul describes (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/; or read American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, Joseph Ellis)
1. namely, our forbears chose to be bound together as a nation; in Christ’s case, Christ chooses us.
2. Christ chooses us and Christ binds us together, calling us to be free to be in relationship with one another.
Move 2: biblical scholars and church historians remind us that this phrase we read in Paul’s letter was probably part of the baptismal liturgy.
a. Imagine a group of newly baptized believers emerging from the water, putting on articles of clothing, and being addressed by the person who baptized them with these words.
1. "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 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.”
2. their new life in Christ is marked by their new found freedom to be in relationships defined by Christ, not by the world.
b. Notice the parallel groups described.
1. “No longer Jew or Greek” - not about nationality or heritage, but about those who are circumcised and those who are not circumcised.
2. the historic marking of God’s people gives way to being marked by their relationships with one another in Christ.
3. the promise given to the Jews has been opened up to all people through Christ.
4. “No longer male and female” - perhaps a reminder that we were all once mud and share the common ground of being brought to life by the blowing of God’s spirit into us.
5. “no slave or free” - the distinctions our world has that separate are undone by Christ who calls us to new relationships.
6. In our baptism, we find our common ground.
c. I might note that in our liturgy for funerals where we give thanks to God for the life of a person and witness to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we also return to our baptismal imagery.
1. a reminder that we share in our human mortality.
2. At our death, all that we have been that might have divided us from others no longer matters. In death, our unity with an in Christ is our only hope.
3. A reminder that challenges us to examine how we live our lives and before our deaths.
MOVE 3: Finally, Response to freedom
a. A lot of what we hear about freedom these days is about how freedom removes us from responsibility to others.
- “I am free, so I can do anything I want.”
- “I am free, so don't tell me what I should do.”
- how different that sounds than how Martin Luther describes Christian freedom: In In Freedom of a Christian,: 'A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, but subject to none. A Christian a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
1. The new freedom with have in Christ binds us to one another.
2. A freedom that brings with it an obligation to care for others.
Conclusion: Let’s take another photo - not a selfie, but a panorama, a photo to reveal all of us who are bound together in christ and freed to be in right relationship with one another. (Take pano from pulpit).
6. The excitement and enthusiasm for doing a new thing had worn off, now they had to deal with the nitty-gritty of how to be thirteen states that co-existed and what did it mean to have a federal governme
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