C
Proper 7 12 Ord BFC 2016
Galatians
3:23-29
June
19, 2016
So here is what I am proposing. When we began reading from the book of
Galatians in the Revised Common Lectionary several weeks ago, I proposed doing
public baptisms for all who wanted them, once a month, in conjunction with the
Farmer’s Market that begins in July. I
would stand outside and offer that for an hour.
I would need your help on how we might present that, share that, make
that into the radical act it is. If you
want to participate in that, if you want to be a part of that, I hope you will
let me know.
As I have been sharing every week for
the past four weeks, the Scripture we have before us is the central part of
Paul’s letter. Some people believe that
the apostle Paul made the radical teaching of Jesus more milquetoast. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and, in
particular, this baptismal formula, thought to be the earliest baptismal formula
we have for the Christian Church show Paul’s teaching to be just as
radical. In a society built on slavery,
Paul says there is no slavery in serving Christ. In a society built on patriarchy, Paul says
there is no male or female in serving Christ.
Perhaps the most radical is found first.
Not more than twenty years after the
death of Jesus, communities of Jewish Christians set up shop in various
locales, hammered out rules, and tried to determine who belonged at table and
who did not. To make matters worse,
there had been a riot at the town festival in Antioch. Greeks slaughtered Jews and burnt down their
synagogues. Later, Jews, organized by a
priest named Phineas countered with a slaughter of their own.[1] In a world where Jews and Greeks, were
mortal, violent enemies, Paul says there is no Jew or Greek in serving
Christ. Paul believes that socially,
politically, and religiously, a new exodus is taking place.
The exodus was the primal birth story for the Jewish
people. As slavery pursued the Children
of Israel from Egypt onto the river bed, God’s water broke and on the other
side the Children of Israel emerged newly born—freed from bondage, delivered
from the hand of their oppressor. So it
is that Paul laces his letter to the Galatians with all of this language from
the exodus story and says in Galatians 4:19: “My dear children, I am having
labor pains all over again with you, waiting until God’s Christ is formed in
you!” All of the old dichotomies which
enslaved us and divided us based on religion, culture, ethnicity, and race (Jew
and Greek), based on social, economic, and political status (slave or free),
based on gender and sexuality . . .
Those go away! To give birth to
something new in Christ!
I tried so hard last week to relate that, to share
how mind-blowing and world-transforming this message is that I just failed
miserably. It was one of the worst
sermons I have ever given. It sucked and
it bugged me all week long. Because with
all of the events that transpired over these past few weeks, we have to, we
must hear this message. There are many
reasons why Christianity has stuck around this long—not all of them good. This is one of the good reasons. This is one of the powerful reasons.
Paul, as a Jew, sees the primary sin in the world as
idol worship. Throughout Scripture,
Jewish teaching sees all of sin literally and metaphorically as idol
worship. We lose sight of God and the
things of God and our eyes are drawn to the gold baubles and trinkets, the
power and prestige of misplaced priorities which literally and metaphorically
is understood as idol worship. In his
letter to the Galatians, over and over he hints at a subtext that lets us know
he understands Roman law and order and the worship of Caesar as the modern day
idol worship. As I said last week, Paul
believes the Jewish Law, based in neighborliness and community sustainability,
has been co-opted by Roman law and order.
Jewish Law became conflated with Roman law and order. Paul is using critique of Jewish Law as
subtext for critiquing Roman law.
We know it to be subtext because Paul, in Galatians,
Chapters 5 and 6, returns to talk about the core value of the Jewish Law: neighborliness. Love your neighbor as yourself. This, Paul writes, is the new law of Christ
which is really the summation of the Jewish Law.[2] In a critique of how the “other law”
functions, Paul references biting, devouring, and consuming one another—a regular
reference to the activities of foreign empires.[3]
And Roman law and order violently, mercilessly,
decided who was in and who was out, who was saint and who was sinner, and who
was a friend of Caesar and who was the mortal enemy of Caesar, worthy of
enslavement, torture, and death. That
should ring in our ears. We should look
around and see that this is modern day Christendom as interpreted by so many
fundamentalist and evangelical churches.
The Christian message has been co-opted and conflated with empire. And it is so seductive. Because once you give yourself over to that
message of who is in and who is out, spiritually and morally, your numbers and
giving grow because people feel comfortable, strive to succeed in, a cultural
narrative that is not only spoken like a low hum everyday out in the wider
world but emphasized and given the gentle voice of Jesus every Sunday in
worship. Jesus gently tells you that you
do not belong. That cultural narrative
pushes and pushes us to be successful at it.
And makes life a living hell when we cannot possibly succeed at it.
Friends.
Sisters and brothers. This is not
the world-transforming news, the gospel as lived out by Jesus Christ and
preached by the apostle Paul. What Paul
is suggesting is that the other, in Roman mythology, the Galatian, who Rome
violently massacres, is welcome at Christ’s table, is baptized as an heir into
life and wholeness, to hear that they too are a Child of God. This is not progressive Christianity. This IS Christianity. What is preached in so many evangelical and
fundamentalist houses of worship, in many not all, is not Christianity but Christendom—the
conquering, who is in and who is out, Roman law and order. If you too would only confess Jesus as your
personal lord and savior, you too would receive all the gifts due you as a “winner”,
a success story, a victor over and against others who just can’t cut it.
In this radical, world-transforming message to the
Galatians Paul is worried that the people are sliding back into the violent and
conquering imperial body. As New
Testament scholar, Brigitte Kahl, writes, “The new creation, on the other hand,
of which Christ is the firstborn, erases the inscription of conquest and
violence from the collective and individual self and reshapes human beings in
the likeness of Christ’s solidarity and love.”[4] Can we imagine this to be so? This does not do away with our diversity but
requires it. For it to be of Christ, we
must acknowledge what is wholly “other.”
As more and more of us find ourselves losing, failing at a system that
sets us over and against one another, we are open to the possibility of another
gospel.
This gospel says that we are one as we are called
and live out that we are bound together as Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and
European in ancestry, that we are one as we are called and live out that we are
bound together as Muslim, Christian, and Jew, that we are one as we are called
and live out that we are bound together as rich and poor, that we are one as we
are called and live out that we are bound together as male and female, gay and
straight, transsexual and asexual. Diversity
becomes a litmus test for a mutuality, solidarity, and compassion that bring
about our unity.
This is our baptism.
This is the exodus from bondage we are called to make so that we might
be a new creation in Christ.
Caesars, the most widely known resurrected people in
the First Century, were resurrected from glory to glory. They are like Zeus, descending out of the
heavens in those incredible pieces of art we looked at two weeks ago, without
pain and suffering, striking the terrorists, the marauding Gauls or Galatians,
these outsiders, the other, the beasts. It
is a massacre. And that is the
political, social, and religious culture we share as gospel every day in the
empire we live in. Glorified violence
and death bring about salvation for the Roman people.
As many of you know, last Sunday in the early
morning hours, Omar Mateen walked into a club that advertises itself as the
hottest gay club in Orlando and opened fire, killing 49 people. Though our history has worse massacres of our
Native American sisters and brothers, this is the deadliest mass shooting in
modern U.S. history. We grieve this
tremendous loss of life, the violence that is becoming commonplace. Although Mateen made a call attributing his
actions to ISIS, CIA Director, John Brennan, said that Mateen had no direct
link to ISIS or any other extremist group.[5]
More and more facts about Omar Mateen
are beginning to emerge that suggest this man who shot up an LGBT nightclub was
himself gay. His father, who denies that
his son was gay, called him “gay” as an insult.
Mateen was known to attend the very nightclub where he killed all of
these people, a “regular”, was a known fan of drag queen performers,
propositioned male colleagues, had a profile on a gay dating website, and sent
lewd photos of himself to other men over another gay dating website. Omar was referenced as creepy, socially awkward,
and known to violent outbursts.[6]
What Omar Mateen did was
horrific. But it sounds like his life
was a living hell. Mateen could not come
to grips with the “other” inside of himself, the part that was an outsider,
vulnerable. It sounds very much like he
saw his homosexuality as something he would need to violently exterminate once
and for all through this massacre. Would
that Omar Mateen had heard, knew, that the “otherness” of his homosexuality
might have opened him to a kinder, more authentic place where he knew himself
to be a beautifully gay Child of God.
Christ.
Christ is resurrected from the dead as wholly other. Unlike the Caesars, victim of a violent
death, he comes up from the dead, the dust, the dirt—where the Galatians are
found. Love and neighborliness in Christ
then are understood from our solidarity with people who are the “other” in our
world—the conquered, the vanquished, the outsider. And to say and to act into being with them, “We
are one.”
On Saturday, for an hour, I hope there will be a
number of people who might join me in baptizing people who have never known that
God wants to invite them to the table of life.
Perhaps they have always known themselves as “other.” And what we can offer is to step outside our
church and say, “You don’t have to be an insider at our church to know the
rich, full, abundant love of God.” Maybe,
just maybe, in those public moments of baptism, we might be able to welcome
them to the table of Christ, share with them that they no longer have to
identify with the combat, competition, and mindless consumption where
absolutely nobody wins and leaves us all bloodied, grieving, and broken. The God who is other calls us to a table of
compassion and solidarity with the places within ourselves and the people who
silently wonder to themselves whether they are welcome. May we all join with them to say, “Yes. Yes . . . and we will join hands with you to
build an alternative to the combat, competition, and mindless consumption, a
kingdom of justice and joy.” Time to
make baptism real in downtown Billings.
Praise God. Amen.
[1] Magnus Zetterholm, The Formation of Christianity in
Antioch: a Social-Scientific Approach to
the Separation of Judaism and Christianity (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 114.
[2] Galatians 5:6, 14, 6:2
[3] Galatians 5:15, see esp.
the book of Daniel where imperial beasts are known for two things: 1) their arrogance; and 2) their huge teeth
which devour and consume without end.
[4] Brigitte Kahl, Galatians
Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2010), p. 262.
[5] “CIA Director: No ‘Direct
Link’ Between
Omar Mateen and ISIS,”
Democracy Now! June 17, 2016. http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/17/headlines/cia_director_no_direct_link_between_omar_mateen_and_isis.
[6] Chris Spargo, “'If you
were gay you would definitely be my type': Orlando shooter came onto former
classmate and shared penis pictures on gay app - but gunman's father insists he
isn't homosexual,” DailyMail.com, June
15, 2016.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3642784/If-gay-definitely-type-Former-classmate-reveals-Orlando-shooter-came-drag-queen-says-club-regular-shooter-s-father-insists-isn-t-homosexual.html#ixzz4C07bgcca
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3642784/If-gay-definitely-type-Former-classmate-reveals-Orlando-shooter-came-drag-queen-says-club-regular-shooter-s-father-insists-isn-t-homosexual.html#ixzz4C07bgcca
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