Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:22-40
January 1, 2011
I
always find it a bit ironic when Paul’s letters are used by people in literal
ways to impose a kind moral code on people, adherence to which determines your
status as a Christian. Paul fought his
whole life to rid the church of exactly that way of thinking. Though a man of his time and culture, though
imperfect and quirky, Paul was at his core about inclusion and revealing a God
of love and grace rather than law and judgment.
Galatians is one incredible example of this, and it would probably be
good for all churches today to read and study Galatians on a regular
basis. The message it brings is powerful
and compelling, calling on people of faith to end all divisions, real and
imagined, that we might be one in Christ.
One
of the central questions Paul is answering in this letter, our passage
included, was whether or not the Gentiles could be included in the community of
faith if they did not follow all of the commandments of the Torah. The classic example of this was
circumcision. Were the Gentiles required
to be circumcised before they could be a part of the covenant of Yahweh? Paul emphatically argued that to require such
a thing was antithetical to what he knew of God in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus.
Because
of this, Paul was often accused of “picking and choosing” from the scriptures
what applies and what doesn’t. In other
words, he was neither a literalist nor fundamentalist when it came to
interpreting and applying his scriptures.
The effect of this was not lost on the Gentiles. They felt invited, welcomed by Paul into a
life of faith…experiencing through his words and letters a God whose love
transcended boundaries and rules.
In
this sense, adoption was a wonderful metaphor for Paul to use when he talked
about our relationship to God. Adoption
transcends traditional notions of love and what constitutes a family; this was
especially true in Paul’s day. Adoption
was a radical notion for the Hebrew people – everyone thought of family in
terms of blood relations. In fact,
biology was far more determinative of family than love was. Among Jews, adoption was virtually unheard of
because it had no practical value, and would undermine inheritance laws…it
would confuse the system they depended on to understand their place in the
world.
In
the same way, they didn’t include those “outside” the Jewish family in the life
of faith. Circumcision was the sign of
entrance into the community of faith, just as biology was the path of entrance
into the family. It was biology –
physiology – that mattered, that defined your place in the world and status
before God.
Yet
here Paul talks about God doing what was considered the unthinkable…adopting
human beings! People become a part of God’s
family not through biology or physiology, not through rules and traditional
definitions, but through the unmitigated love of God…a love that completely
transcends such considerations as biology.
In
other words, becoming a part of God’s family is not accomplished through
following the legal code, or by being born Jewish…it is accomplished through
love – a love we can see clearly in Jesus’ life. Because Jesus was God’s child, and because
Jesus is representative of all of humanity, we are God’s children. Period.
As much as God loves Jesus – as much as God loves God’s self – God loves
us, regardless of how religious we are, how closely we follow the religious
rules. Which of course means, God loves
others as well – regardless of how religious they are. All are welcome in God’s family.
We
need to bring Paul into conversation with today’s religious folks – with us. We need to recognize that Christianity (along
with other religions, I’m sure) is capable of legalistic thinking and using the
bible to justify such thinking. We don’t
talk about circumcision today in the Christian church, but we have our own versions
of it: Church attendance, pledging,
reading the bible, professing Jesus as Lord and Savior, acting in acceptable
ways. None of these are bad – in fact,
as people of faith who feel God’s love, we often feel compelled to attend church,
pledge, read the bible, confess Jesus, and change destructive ways. But sometimes, almost unwittingly, we turn
these things into requirements instead faithful responses done joyously and in
freedom.
We
measure a person’s faith by whether or not they are in church. We tell people they are not saved until they
confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. We say
that if you are gay, or republican, or democrat, or if you doubt or question,
or if you can’t articulate what you believe, then you are not a person of
faith. We may not say these things
directly, but it’s what people often hear from the church. Paul, by talking about God adopting all of
humanity, was saying that our relationship to God does not depend on anything we do.
We are in a relationship with God because God chooses to be in
relationship with us.
This
makes complete sense to me: I adopted
Lydia, and that makes her my daughter – there is nothing she can do or not do
to change that. There is nothing about
her status as my daughter that is dependent on her actions or beliefs or
ethnicity or anything else in the world.
I didn’t adopt her because she is “good” or “moral” or “Christian” or
anything else. I adopted her because I
wanted a child to love, no matter who that child was or what she was going to
be.
In
the same way, God wants to be in relationship with all of humanity, and so we
are adopted – all of us: Jews, Christians, Muslims, gay, straight, poor, rich,
good, bad. And nothing we do in this
life or the next, will change the fact that we are God’s children…loved just as
we love our children, biological or not.
God will draw people closer to the divine through love, just as my love
draws Lydia closer to me, no matter what she does. If I, or others, were to believe that because
Lydia is not my biological child, she has to do something special to earn my
love, that would be utterly offensive to us because of what we know and believe
about relationship.
Now,
it’s important to note that Paul certainly did not see the Gentiles as
replacing the Jews as God’s favored people.
Not even a little bit. In fact,
such a thing would be unthinkable to Paul.
He was simply advocating that the religious folks of his day recognize
that all are welcome in God’s family. In
fact, he saw a distinct role for the faithful Jews – he believed they were to
be the ones who open their arms in welcome and show others what God’s love is
like. They were the ones who had known
God all their life and could share that with others.
That’s
why I love that this Galatians passage is coupled with the passage from the
Gospel of Luke – which is an unabashed celebration of long-time faithful
Jews. These two people, Simeon and Anna,
are life-long practitioners of the faith, which prepares them for this seminal
moment. They followed the laws, but were
not bound by therm. Their lives were
shaped by traditional practices and rituals in such a way that the law did not
confine them, rather it freed them – freed them to see God anew – freed them to
see God in the present – freed them to see incredible possibilities for all
people going forward.
Simeon,
a most faithful Jew who surely followed the law to the best of his ability,
believed in the importance of the Torah, and performed all the rituals required
of him, sees Jesus and in that moment sees how expansive God is. Notice that he doesn’t say, “this child is
the savior of our people, the one we have been waiting for, the redeemer of
Israel.” This very Jewish man, who has
read the scriptures all his life, says that in Jesus he sees God’s salvation,
which is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to the people of Israel.” His faith led him to see that Gentiles were as
much recipients of God’s goodness and grace as the Jews were.
We
come to church each week, listen to the scriptures, take communion, sing
praises to God. And if in all that, all
we come up with is a moral code that determines acceptance into our community
of faith, then we are no Simeon or Anna.
All of these practices should only serve to expand our notion of what it means to be a part of God’s
family. All of these spiritual
disciplines should serve to expand our
picture and understanding of God so that when someone comes to our door we can
recognize them as our brother or sister – without hesitation, without knowing
anything about their behavior, religion, background, or what they have to offer
us.
Paul’s
message about the Gentiles – his argument that they didn’t need to be
circumcised in order to be a part of the community – is not that we are to shun
our own faith tradition, abandon ritual, jettison everything we know that has
brought us closer to God, any more than he was arguing the Jews should stop
following the Torah, which – at its best – had connected them to God.
We
draw on those things to form us into people who can see and share the expansive
nature of God with others, but they are not requirements necessary to make us
children of God. They are not requirements
to impose on others. These practices and
rituals are what we have chosen
because they do help us see and
understand God. They may or may not do
that for others.
The
message for us is that we can choose to either require things of those who wish
to bathe in God’s love, or dismantle the barriers at every turn. We can choose to look at the life of Jesus
and say to the world, “the God we know through this human life welcomes all
into community and communion with the divine.”
We can choose to say, because of our faith formed through years of ritual
and study, all are welcome in this place…whoever you are or wherever you are on
your spiritual journey. Amen.
