John Rogers—Year C Proper 7 in Ordinary Time
Anthony: Let’s go on to our next text. It’s Galatians 3:23–29. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 7 in ordinary time, which is June 22. John, read it for us please.
John:
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 reckoned as righteous 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, heirs according to the promise.
Anthony: “… one in Christ Jesus.” What would you want the audience to know about Paul’s emphasis of Christ and faith in him being the new reality over the law?
John: Yeah. Every time I come to Galatians there’s really only one thing that I feel like is just sounding an alarm throughout the entire correspondence: Christ is enough. When we try to do “Christ, and” to feed … like we kind of get the theology of justification by faith correct. But, yet, we still live within the pattern of wanting to do something on the back end to really justify ourselves.
Anthony: Yeah.
John: And we even kind of write it to say, it’s like the process of sanctification. But I, what I love here is, all these things — the and …, the more … — that is really the background of this correspondence, where it was being sold a bill of goods, that yes, Jesus died for your sins, but there are some other things that you need to do to confirm that, to do more.
And I love the emotion that we get from the Apostle Paul here. And I feel like it is an important … I think it’s an important, strong word of saying, be wary when you ever sense that someone is saying, “You need to do more.” And I … but right before I came on this call today, I kid you not, it was … I don’t know where I was hearing it. It must have been on the radio somewhere, or a podcast. But it, no, it was on NPR, I think, where they were interviewing someone, I think in Japan, about the Unification Church. And like, a key concept with within this, he was saying, … and it’s been a long time since I’ve taught this, so forgive me if I’m getting any of this wrong … But really, basically it was: yeah, there needs to be more.
And I think when I read this text from Paul in Galatians, and when I think about any movement that has ever happened historically in the Church is, what is it about us that we always want to do more? And he’s enough, right? If you belong to Christ then you are a … you don’t need to do something within some ceremony, or some either circumcision, or some kosher ritual, or maybe some pattern of celebration — that you are heirs. Like to this gentile community, “If you’re gentiles that are hearing this, that you’re like” … “oh my gosh, I’m really not in the inside group here.” No. And hearing, oh my goodness, Anthony, hearing this come from a guy like Paul, like someone who is studying under Gamaliel, that if anybody is going to communicate, yeah, you’re not in, you got to do some more stuff. No.
I feel, like, how often in my own ministry, in my life, I run into people that feel like I’m not enough. I need to do something to earn it. I’ve been so bad, or I feel like that I don’t understand it well enough. It’s an intellectual exercise. I’m not ready. To hear someone say, “You right now, you are an heir,” it has a lot of power.
Anthony: It does. And I wonder, John, and I’ve thought about this a lot … if it’s really our pride, we’re offended to hear that Christ is enough for me. No, I’m going to pull my boots up by the straps and I’m going to work. And J.B. Torrance, the Scottish theologian, often talked about the greatest sin of humanity is turning God’s covenant into a contract.
And anytime we try to add something to what God has done, we’re turning it back into a contract. No, it then it becomes quid pro quo. God, I’ve done this for you; now you’ve got to do this for me. This is how this works. because that’s how contracts work.
No, this is covenant and Christ is all. Oh, and that’s good news. When we let it just seep into the marrow of our bones. That’s such good news.
John: Yeah.
Anthony: What would you have to say about verse 28? What’s your interpretation?
John: Yeah. I have spent a lot of time with this verse over the last couple of years, and I think there’s so much thought around. If someone wants to know who I am, right? What’s my identity?
And I elevate things and into a place of essential parts of my identity. Like what’s essential, like I think in these conversations, regardless of position on how we understand people’s understanding of their identity, I think there’s just a problem. There’s a uniform problem. And it’s indicting to me, Anthony, because, do I lead, do I honestly lead, with my primary and essential part of my identity is, I belong to him?
And it’s like, I’m not Jew or Greek. I’m not a Carolina fan or a Duke fan, right? I’m not a Northerner or Southerner. I’m not a guy with a certain color skin. I’m male or female. I feel like that we often lead with so many things that are qualities of us, characteristics of us, even like things that we like and are good for our lives, even like the way we lead with things that we like to eat that associate us with a place of culture. Do I lead … verse 28 is really saying, “You are in me.”
Anthony: Yeah.
John: That’s your primary identity. And I think a big part of what we attempt to do as a ministry at Peterson House is like, can we not just be in the text together and immerse ourselves in it to really get what this is saying? So that it’s not like a posturing of, “I need you to know this about me, because that’s going to tell you more about who I am.” And I think it’s one thing if you’re not even a person of faith and you lead with any number of things of who you are. But it is such an indictment of me in the way I think about it, do I lead …? If someone says, “Hey, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, John?”
Anthony: Oh yeah.
John: I am tied inextricably to this person of Jesus. And my primary identity is defined, everything connected to that, and everything is subordinate to it. And I feel like for me when I hear this text read even again today is I’m hearing freedom, that you’re no longer those things that are definable about you, that you think are definable, but you like, you have been set free to be “in me.”
Anthony: Yeah. And I wonder once again, if it’s pride that gets the best of us, that we want to put our identity in other things, when Christ is all sufficient. He is enough. And what does it look like today to be clothed by him?
And I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s just to identify with that, I am a beloved child of God. Not because of who I am, but because of who he is. Not because I’ve loved well, but because he’s loved well. And that is enough for me today and tomorrow …
John: and all those other things separate us from one another.
Anthony: That’s right.
John: If God is going to say in God’s character, I’m not separating myself from you in the love of Christ Jesus, why in the world do we keep doing this with the way that we separate ourself from one another?
Anthony: Amen. Amen.
John: And yeah, I think we just … and unfortunately when we do that … we just don’t get the best of one another.
Anthony: That’s right. And that’s why I’ve held back from telling you I’m a Kentucky Wildcat fan. Because I didn’t want to cause division between brothers, John. Sorry.
John: Touche. Yeah.