Sunday Musings

The Gospel of Inclusion

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JULY AT THE COTTAGE — THE PAST IS PROLOGUE

The summer spiritual journey at The Cottage is about to begin!

During the entire month of July, paid subscribers will be treated to a special series on history as a spiritual practice.

We’ll take a trip through 2,000 years of church history by revisiting my book, A People’s History of Christianity, where I deconstruct “Big-C Christianity — Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and a Christian America” and offer a more generous, constructive, and generative narrative of “Great Command Christianity” in its place.

There will be video presentations, interviews with historians, discussions about the use and misuse of the past, and some thoughts on what I missed in the earlier book.

I love history. Being a historian has literally enabled me to stay Christian.

It will be fun. And important. Because history is on the front lines of the fight against authoritarianism — understanding the past is key to envisioning the future.

It will be like Vacation Bible School for grown-ups (but church history instead of Bible class!) — and suitable for your adult education and book groups, too. If you’re going to be on vacation or away from your email in July, all paid subscribers will be able to access the material afterward to review or for later use.

The seasonal series (Lent, summer journey, and Advent) are for paid subscribers only. This creates a more intimate online atmosphere! If you’d like to take part and can’t afford a paid subscription, email us and we’ll make sure you are included. No one is ever turned away for lack of funds.

If you want to read the book as well as being part of the series, you can find affordable copies of A People’s History online — new, used, paper, and ebooks are available.

(As an aside, A People’s History of Christianity has always been Fr. Richard Rohr’s favorite of my work! He has often featured it in his daily meditations. You might have seen the book there.)

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TODAY IS THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

We’ve entered the second half of the Christian year — the weeks ahead focus on Jesus’ teachings and how his followers practice faith in this world. The season is sometimes called “Ordinary Time,” and with its attention on mundane and quotidian things, the name is appropriate!

To begin this season, I’m exploring the epistle today. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the oldest books in the New Testament — and this section of the letter quotes words familiar to early followers of Jesus that are even older still.

If you are curious about or need sermon help with this week’s Gospel reading, it is the story about pigs from Luke 8:26-39. Three years ago, I wrote an essay that proved very popular! “What About the Pigs?” (to read it: click HERE) was one of the top posts at The Cottage in 2022.

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Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

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. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

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I was tempted to begin today by saying how much I love the Galatians reading.

But I don’t entirely love it. Indeed, as well as loving it, this passage drives me crazy. Or at least the interpretation of it does.

I hope you’ll bear with me as I explain. We’re going on a little journey through these familiar verses today.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is either the oldest or second-oldest (1 Thessalonians may be a bit older) book in the New Testament. Older than any of the gospels. Older than any other letters or instructions. In the New Testament, “older” means that it is closer to the actual events of Jesus. “Old” lends authority. Galatians was probably written around 49 CE, roughly fifteen years after Jesus’ execution, maybe a dozen years after Paul’s own conversion.

These short verses are really about two things. The first sentences are the conclusion of a long argument Paul is making regarding a very specific problem in early Christian communities: should circumcision be required of Gentile converts to the faith? The last two sentences aren’t really sentences at all. They are, according to most recent scholarship, part of a baptismal creed that Paul “lifted” from a liturgical form and inserted into his letter.

Two things: a theological argument and a short creed.

Concerning circumcision, Paul championed including Gentiles in community without this Jewish ritual requirement. Early Christian leaders argued long and hard about this. When Paul wrote Galatians, the issue was far from settled. Indeed, he appears to have written the letter when he was mad — and feared his position was rejected. It is a pretty harsh defense of non-Jewish converts.

And that’s one of the reasons this passage upsets me. It is painfully easy to pull it out of its complex historical context of Gentile inclusion and make it sound like an attack on Jews! That, of course, is nonsense. Paul was a Jew, a point he makes numerous times in his writings, with a sense of appreciation and pride.

Paul is defending Gentiles in the same way I might defend, say, Black Lives Matter or trans rights. In other words, this letter is full of passionate overstatement and some convenient deflections when it comes to making a point in a very heated argument — something you believe an injustice that must be corrected.

And so, we come to misinterpretation. Lacking a sense of how much Paul was worked up over potentially losing a fight, generations of Christian commentators saw this as replacement theology — Jewish law and ritual was incomplete and, once Jesus’ work was concluded, Judaism was no longer necessary. Christian revelation fulfilled the previous covenant with the Jews, in effect “replacing” it.

There are so many problems with this that it is hard to know where to start. Replacement theology is misguided (at best). But, even as there are inherent difficulties with the theological interpretation, there are also issues with the translation itself.

For example, the Greek word translated as “disciplinarian” in this passage might be better rendered as “tutor.” “Disciplinarian” is pretty negative. Seeing the law as a “teacher” would carry more respect than the image conjured by “disciplinarian” and help mute the anti-Jewish tone.

The letter to the Galatians is like this more generally — so many opportunities for antisemitism.

I do not exaggerate. For most of church history, Christian theologians read this as Paul’s argument against Judaism as a whole.

The translators of this passage didn’t help matters. They saved the worst for the second half of the text. On its face, this appears to be a beautiful statement of inclusion:

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.

However, there’s also an issue here. The words “no longer” aren’t in the Greek. They do appear in the earlier, misunderstood-as-replacement, half of the passage: But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian….

The implication, of course, is that baptism is superior to circumcision and it replaces the Jewish ritual. Paul didn’t intend to replace Jewish practice; he intended to provide an unobstructed pathway for Gentile inclusion. He was trying to keep a very particular thing from being added that might be difficult for an excluded group.

“No longer” in that context might mean: We no longer need circumcision as a tutor…. He wasn’t saying anything about replacement. He just didn’t want it as an added requirement. There’s a difference. Subtle, perhaps, to Christian ears. But not really all that subtle if you think about it.

Yet, the translator of this passage (and yes, this is the New Revised Standard Version, the so-called “liberal” translation of the New Testament), added the “no longer” replacement-sounding phrase to the verses that followed below. The translator carried through with the phrase “no longer” as if it is part of a single thought.

Added? Did I say “added”?

Yes, added.

The way we often read it, the elimination of the distinctions between Jews and Greek, slave and free, and male and female only happen in baptism. That they “no longer” exist for Christians. And there it is again: replacement theology. The translator pulled the “no longer” thread through the entire passage.

But remember: “no longer” isn’t in the Greek version. The word in the latter verses is ouk eni, meaning “does not exist.” Not that this thing once existed and then ceased to exist as in “no longer.”

Paul borrowed these Greek words from somewhere else — he’s quoting another source, most likely the very first baptism creed used in Christian communities. Perhaps the very creed from his own baptism. The little creed that Paul inserted without change, as biblical scholar Stephen Patterson insists, “claimed that these distinctions simply do not exist. Did not, do not, will not. Baptism did not make this true; baptism…simply signified that it is true.”

The literal Greek reads:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

According to this ancient creed, these words that Paul borrowed to make his vigorous argument for Gentile inclusion, do NOT say these things are true only for baptized Christians. Rather, this first creed insists that complete equality is true. For everyone, everywhere, always. It is the state of things.

All the distinctions of ethnicity, economics, and gender are false constructs of politics and societies. But the truth? No distinctions. Ever. Oneness. No boundaries. No division.

We are all children of God.

Anything and everything else is a lie.

For Christians, baptism is an affirmation of this foundational truth. And those ancient words were what the earliest followers of Jesus said to each other as they passed through the ritual of baptism. Remember. We are all children of God.

No distinctions. None. Not between anyone. Ever.

It takes some patience to understand. To clear away the prejudice we Christians bring to this text. To rid ourselves of centuries of Christian social privilege regarding baptism. To see Paul’s angry defense of once-excluded Gentiles for what it is. To grasp the reality that translators inject their own interpretations into treasured texts.

Yes, it takes patience to understand. But to misunderstand is to compound injustice. To misunderstand is to exacerbate division instead of eliminating it. To misunderstand is to cause harm. And the misunderstanding of this text has certainly caused that.

The truth of these verses from Galatians is simple: God intended that human beings were, are, and always will be in solidarity with one another, sharing the image of the sacred, and together called to care for creation. We are diverse, yes. Unique as individuals and cultures. But there should be no distinctions between us as human beings. It’s beautiful, really. Diverse (but not distinct) and in solidarity (but not the same).

That’s the basis of peace, compassion, and creativity.

There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female.

That’s it. That’s Galatians 3:28. The oldest Christian creed, found in the oldest Christian letter in the New Testament, written by an angry apostle of the Good News of Inclusion for All.

And that I love.

I hope you do, too.

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The creed was originally about the fact that race, class, and gender
are typically used to divide the human race into us and them
to the advantage of us. It aimed to declare that there is no us, no them.
We are all children of God.
It was about solidarity, not cultural obliteration.

― Stephen J. Patterson

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INSPIRATION

The Indiscriminate Citizenry of Earth
are out to arrest my sense of being a misfit.
“Open up!” they bellow,
hands quiet before my door
that’s only wind and juniper needles, anyway.

You can’t do it, I squeak from inside.
You can’t make me feel at home here
in this time of siege for me and mine, mi raza.
Legalized suspicion of my legitimacy
is now a permanent resident in my gut.

“Fruit of the prickly pear!” they swear,
striding up to my table
to juice me a glass of pink nectar.
They’ve brought welcome baskets
stuffed with proof I’m earthling.

From under a gingham cover,
I tug a dark feather
iridescing green — cohering
to “magpie” thought,
to memory’s chatter,
to mind. Mine.

And here they have my mind translated
into a slate-surfaced pond, which
vibrates in the shape
of a cottonwood’s autumn molt,
which trees me to dirt, which soils me
heat & freeze —

But you’ll always be
one definitive document short! I complain.
Doubts can forever outstrip
your geo-logic.

For which they produce
a lock of my natal dust,
bronzed
to the fluttering fiber
of lacebark pine.

Where’d they get that stuff?

The baskets are bottomless,
and it’s useless for me to insist
on being distinct.
Undergoing re-portation,
I’m awakened to a Center,

where walls
between all beings
are dreamt to dissolve.
— Maria Melendez Kelson, “ICE Agents Storm My Porch”

Please check out the poet’s website, Maria Kelson, where you can discover her other work — including as a novelist of crime fiction!

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Always we are all in it together. Together we stand before God's blessing and together we receive the gift of life, if we receive it at all. Shalom comes only to the inclusive, embracing community that excludes none.

— Walter Brueggemann

For a wonderful, challenging read on Galatians 3:28, I highly recommend The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism (Oxford) by Stephen J. Patterson.

It was transformative for me.

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