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Galatians 3:23-29
23.06.13
Clothed with Christ, one in Christ.
Just over one hundred years ago, on June 4th 1913, Emily Wilding
Davison stood by Tattenham Corner at the Epsom Derby. She wore
around her the flag of the Women’s Social and Political Union,
founded ten years earlier to campaign for women’s suffrage in the
United Kingdom. A group of horses approached and Emily Davison
ducked under the railing and attempted to grab the reins of the king’s
horse as it raced by. The horse knocked her over, fell, and kicked her
violently. Emily sustained a fractured skull, severe concussion and
internal injuries. Four days later she died at Epsom Cottage Hospital.
At her funeral five thousand women, dressed in white, followed the
procession. 5 years later women got the vote, or at least those aged
30 or over.
There has been much speculation over whether Emily
Davison intended to commit suicide. The evidence suggests
otherwise, though clearly she was aware of the risks and had made it
clear that she was prepared to die for the suffragette cause. She had
already been imprisoned nine times for her defiant and sometimes
violent conduct and had been subjected to repeated force-feeding.
Emily Davison, however, also had a strong Christian faith. Her
motto was, ‘Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God’, and she
understood her own suffering in terms of Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross. I imagine that she would have been inspired too by our verse
from Galatians 3 this morning, ‘there is no such thing as… male and
female, for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.’ Emily Davison’s
story, however, leaves us with troubling questions. Why – above all,
why in a so-called ‘Christian country’ – did it take so long for
women to be recognised as equal in this way? And why did it have
to come at such personal cost to Emily Davison and her like? And
while she had many supporters and co-militants, where was the
witness of the church to which Emily Davison belonged? Where was
there to be found a body of Jesus people where the male-female
relationship was transformed and reconfigured, where it could be
demonstrated that ‘here all are one in Christ Jesus!’? Might that not
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have been a platform for fighting the suffragette cause? Might that
not have made Emily Davison’s task easier, her burden lighter?
Similar questions could be raised about William Wilberforce
and his campaign to end slavery. Our passage from Galatians speaks
not only of there being no ‘male and female’ but also no ‘slave or
free.’ So why did it take so long for slavery to be eradicated in
countries where it co-existed with the Christian faith? Where was the
clear, concerted testimony of the church? Where, in this country and
elsewhere, was there a visible and tangible demonstration that where
people belong to Jesus they are given a new identity, and that new
identity eclipses any other that we might want to pin on them? And
while Wilberforce was of course a passionate and committed
Christian, as were many of his supporters and allies, where was there
a Jesus-shaped community that might have consolidated his protest?
Well, our reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians
envisages such a community. In this chapter 3, in the preceding
verses, Paul has been outlining a kind of a history of the special
family that God has established in the world, a family which will
exhibit to the world a different way of living, a different way of
relating to one another, a different politics. Paul goes back a long,
long way, to the figure of Abraham, the father of the Jewish race.
You may recall that Abraham was called out from the city in which
he dwelt, called to radical trust and faithfulness as God led him to a
new land. And if Abraham could have looked into the future as he
set out from his home to go he knew not where, what would he have
seen? Well, he would have seen that in the fullness of time his
descendants would become Israel, a nation especially chosen and
blessed by God. And one of the chief blessings bestowed upon Israel
was God’s Law. The gift of this Law was central to their identity as a
people. Why? Because the Law told them how they were to live –
and how they were not to live. Obedience to God’s Law would make
Israel distinctive, demonstrating to the world what human life should
look like. The Law would school Israel into an alternative way of
living that would challenge the ways of the world. And furthermore,
this Law had a magnetic quality to it. As Israel lived it out faithfully,
the nations of the world would be drawn to Israel’s example, drawn
to Israel’s revolutionary way of life, drawn to Israel’s God so that
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they too would become part of God’s family. Such would be
Israel’s impact on the world.
This would, however, require faithfulness on Israel’s part:
faithfulness to God’s Law. And herein lies the problem. If Father
Abraham could have seen into the future he would have seen Israel
failing, and becoming just like the other nations of the world, with
nothing distinctive about them. He would have seen God’s Law
violated and spurned, and the terrible consequences for Israel. But if,
however, he could have seen far enough he would have seen
something wonderfully different. If he could have seen far enough he
would have seen Israel at last living out a life of faithfulness. If he
could have seen far enough he would have seen Israel at last
embodying the whole spirit and ethos of the Law. He would have
seen Israel at last fulfilling its very purpose in the world as a light to
the nations. And he would have seen too the violence and hostility
and the suffering that is provoked by faithfulness to God’s Law. The
strange thing is however, that what Father Abraham would have seen
was not a nation, not a people, but a single person, a man, Jesus of
Nazareth. Here in a sense God’s special nation of Israel becomes a
solitary human being. But in him all the purposes and desires of
God’s heart are met.
So what is next? Well, Jesus’ fulfilment of Israel’s calling,
his faithfulness to God’s Law, means that the way is now open to all
the nations of the earth – to everyone everywhere – to come and join
God’s family. The invitation goes out to all, Jew and Gentile, to
come and to be part of this new community, a people that exhibits to
the world how God intends us to live, and where a new politics
prevails. Now that’s great, but the big question of course that has
prompted Paul’s letter to the Galatians is if they are going to do this,
do Gentiles need to live by God’s Law and, in particular, do they
need to follow certain distinguishing features that marked out Israel:
food regulations and circumcision? Paul is adamant. No. And here
he uses a very interesting word to describe the law given to Israel.
Our Bible translates it as ‘the law was put in charge of us’ but the
original Greek word refers to a kind of slave whose responsibility in
the houses of the rich was the welfare of the son and heir of the
house. This slave was a kind of governor who would discipline and
protect the child and keep him on the straight and narrow. Now, Paul
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says that was the role of the Law in the life of Israel. It was for a
community in its infancy, to guide and direct it, to teach it wrong
from right. But God’s new community does not need such a
governor. We now have Jesus. We now have the Spirit of God. Jesus
is our living Law and like the Law Jesus has that magnetic quality
which draws people to him. And to join this new Israel and to belong
to it we do not need to follow dietary regulations and men do not
need to be circumcised – praise the Lord! All we need is the faith
that Jesus is indeed God’s Messiah who has fulfilled Israel’s calling.
All we need is to be committed to him so that our lives might be
patterned upon his.
It’s beautiful how Paul describes the relationship that we
have with Jesus in this new community. He talks in verse 27 of
‘putting on Christ like a garment’ and I love that. I imagine that a
Jew might have spoken of God’s Law as a garment. God’s Law was
like something that was worn, covering every area of life. But to put
on a law is very different from putting on a person and that is what
Paul is describing here. When someone joined the Jesus community
they were of course baptized and in so doing they took off all their
clothes and entered the water naked, symbolising the death of an old
life. And as they came out of the water they put on a baptismal robe,
signifying the putting on of a new one. And here in this verse that
baptismal robe signifies Christ. This is wonderful. Think about it.
Elsewhere our relationship with Jesus is pictured in terms of feeding
on him, consuming his flesh and his blood and what an extraordinary
image of union with Jesus that is. And of course that lies at the heart
of the sacrament of holy communion that unites us to Jesus and to
one another. But here our relationship with Jesus is imagined in
terms of the other sacrament, of baptism, of putting on Jesus like a
gown. And what associations does that bring to your mind, I
wonder? I think at once of the story of the Prodigal Son and how
when he eventually returned home in despair his father threw a robe
upon him. That robe signified forgiveness; and that robe spoke of
honour for we are told that it was the best robe the father had; and
that robe says something too about identity for in the ancient world
what you wore said a great deal about you. Clothing spoke volumes
about where you came from and your social class and economic
status. Clothing was coded: you could tell who people were by what
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they wore and what they had in common and their differences. And
putting on that robe signified that that the son had come home to
himself and returned to where he always belonged as part of that
family. And to put on Christ, to be clothed with Christ like a robe,
says all these things. It speaks of forgiveness, it speaks of being
honoured, it speaks of belonging to Christ and to Christ’s people. It
tells us that no matter who we are in the eyes of the world we
fundamentally belong to Christ and trumps anything else that might
define us – male, female, transgender, working class, middle class,
straight, gay, black, white, young, old, criminal record, squeaky
clean, clever clogs, cerebrally challenged, creatively gifted, clumsy
klutz… All of these things are part of who we are and they do not
cease to be - but they are all secondary. First and foremost we have
put on Christ and that is the key to our identity and that is what
unites us.
I wonder what putting on Jesus might mean to you this
morning. I wonder what it might mean to you, with your joys and
your sorrows, with the fears and anxieties that gnaw away at you,
with the temptations that assail you, with the uncertainties that sap
your strength and confidence. Know that you have put on Jesus like
a garment. And know that you belong to a community united in
Christ. And please God, may it be a community that is worthy of
Emily Wilding Davison and William Wilberforce and all those who
have understood what it means that we are all one on Christ Jesus.
Amen.
READING: Galatians 3:22-29
DATE: 9th June 2013
KEYWORDS: Galatians; Emily Wilding Davison; William Wilberforce; neither
male and female; slave or free; all one in Christ Jesus; God’s Law.
ORGANISATION: Emmanuel United Reformed Church
ADDRESS: Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RR, UK