The St. Thomas More Society Scranton, Pennsylvania
2301 N. Washington Avenue
Scranton, Pennsylvania 18509
Mr. Eric L. Bergman, Executive Director
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 21, 2005
The 5PM Service of Evening Prayer
Galatians 3:23—4:7
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Last week I talked about the necessity of an authority outside ourselves, why we must accept the authority of the Church when discerning what is the correct interpretation of Scripture. Moreover, I said that to rely upon ourselves to be the final arbiter of what is holy, good, and true is suicidal, for it is to reject the help from God that He offers and we desperately need. The passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians that we heard this evening illustrates this principle precisely, because it is so often misused and misinterpreted by those who reject the teaching authority of Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Tonight I’m going to tell you what it really means, so that with the wisdom of the Church you can refute the lies of those who use Scripture to justify abominations. But I will also tell you what it does not mean, so that we may all grow in our appreciation of God’s desire for the diversity of gifts in His creation.
The passage I refer to is, of course, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This passage out of context sounds like a denial of reality, but this only implies then that the verse is more difficult to understand. This difficulty is, I believe, what leads to the myriad misinterpretations, as scholars and liberal clergy everywhere try to make it conform to what St. Paul could never have meant. Rather than dwell on those misinterpretations, I will now concentrate on what St. Paul did mean when he said that there is neither Jew nor Greek, free nor slave, male nor female.
The best way to understand this verse is to think of it as the equal opportunity summary of the New Testament. To say that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female means simply that regardless of our ethnicity, our station in life, or our sex we all have the same opportunity to embrace the truth of the Gospel. To be a gentile, or a slave, or a female is not an impediment to receiving and benefiting from the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is available to all who have heard it because its reception is not dependent upon characteristics we may or may not possess but upon the faith that is in us. In other words, God gives the gift of faith to people from every race, class, and sex without appealing to whom our parents may or may not have been. By faith in Christ, which God gives to us as a gift, anyone can be adopted as His son and thus become an inheritor of the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ.
This basic equality is then manifested in three distinct ways. First, the call from God to believe in His Son is the same for everyone. If you have heard the Gospel you are called to believe in the Gospel, to become a Christian. There is no such thing as a person hearing the Gospel but the call not applying to him. The first way that we are equal is that we all get to make the same choice, whether or not to follow Christ, with no conditions attached. You cannot belong to a minority to whom Jesus has said, “Do not follow me”.
Second, the condition to be a follower of Christ is the same for everyone. Everyone must have faith that is manifested in works that befit repentance. When I say faith here I mean that we must have faith in Jesus Christ. We must trust with all our hearts that Jesus is the only Son of God, who died and rose from the dead that our sins would be forgiven. Our faith must encompass all that the Church teaches us about Jesus in the Creeds, and that faith must be accompanied by works. To respond to the universal call to holiness is to respond by confessing Jesus as Lord and for that confession to be shown forth in our lives. There is no such thing as a person fulfilling the requirements of Christian charity without believing, nor is it possible to truly have faith without that faith being evident in works of charity.
The third way that our basic equality is manifested has to do with the benefit received. Since our call is the same, the condition that we respond by faith to that call is the same, the benefits that we will receive if we respond are also the same. That is, those who live by faith all submit to baptism and therein receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul says in tonight’s lesson, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (Gal. 4:6). By the Spirit we are able to live into the call we have received, able to respond in faith as we ought. And beyond the gift of new life that we receive by the Spirit here on earth, we look forward to new life in the age to come. We are all the same in that we will all receive the gift of life everlasting if we respond to God’s call to believe in His Son. There is again no such thing as one who has lived the life of a saint being shut out of heaven because of his ethnicity, or station in life, or sex. As for those who have the opportunity to be inheritors of the promises of Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.
The fact that we all have equal opportunity to respond to the Good News of God in Jesus Christ and become inheritors of the promises does not mean that we are all the same or that we have all received the same gifts, as if the purpose of God becoming man in Jesus Christ were to obliterate all differences between individual humans. This passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians does not mean that to become a Christian is to cease being a slave or freeman, to cease being a Jew or a Greek, to cease being male or female. To say that whatever we may be we are one in Christ is not the same as saying all differences have been reduced to such an extent that they are now meaningless. Our differences still obtain, but this is not a threat to our oneness in Christ. As St. Paul makes clear in his first letter to the Corinthians, we may be different, having received different gifts, but we are all part of the One Body.
Therefore, who we are, and what we bring to the Body of Christ, insofar as it is not a threat to the unity of the Body, helps to bring greater unity about. Right belief and good works engender unity, but falsehood and immorality tear communities apart. So long as a group or people are not proponents of heresy or impenitent offenders of charity, they will be of great benefit to the Church. The role of the Church is to find out how their particular gifts will benefit the mission Christ has given all of us. On a broad level we have to be serious about discerning how male gifts differ from female gifts, how the contributions of the rich differ from the contributions of the poor and how different ethnic groups can bring the best of their heritage to make the Church ever stronger. It is easy for us to understand that one person will be a better singer than another, but it is harder for us contemporary Americans to articulate clearly why something like nursing is particularly feminine or why we associate orderliness with being German.
To refute the heretics who want us all to be the same and want women and men to be interchangeable we who are orthodox must be able to state forcefully and unashamedly what are the strengths of men, what are the strengths of women, and the special gifts that each ethnic group and class have to offer to enrich the whole Body of Christ. At the same time we must be able to state what the weaknesses of women are and the weaknesses of men. And, lest we sound ethnocentric and conceited, we need to be able to admit the shortcomings of our heritage, whether we be Jewish, Greek, American, or some other heritage we may claim. We need to be able to tell the world that doesn’t know the Good News of God in Christ how those who differ from us have truly made us better by becoming one in Christ with us. We need to be able to say how our brothers and sisters complement us and how we complement them.
To be mature Christians we must get beyond the illogical formula that insists a compliment to one group is an insult to the other. To insist that family ties among Hispanics are incredibly strong is not the same as saying that Anglo-Americans do not value family. To propose that men make better defenders of their families and communities is not the same as saying that women cannot defend the ones they love. It only makes sense, then, if we are truly to use the gifts that each group brings to the body of Christ, to draw from them the lessons we should. Why deny something if it is true, if the only result is to deprive members of Christ’s Church of a lesson they may well need to learn and a valuable talent they may lack? For example, I am certain that the Irish and the Poles can teach the world much about how to suffer faithfully under external oppression, and using their knowledge, far from being an insult to them or us, will make us all more faithful in the time of trial. Whatever gifts we possess are to be shared and proclaimed, never hidden. And whatever gifts our neighbors possess are to be valued, never resented.
In April at the end of Pope John Paul II’s funeral there was a moving testimony to the diversity of God’s gifts within the Catholic Church. Representatives of the Eastern Rite Churches gathered around the casket of the late Holy Father and offered up prayers from their liturgical traditions. It was beautiful, and though they do not dress the same as Catholics in the West, we could not understand the language they spoke, and their music had a distinctively Eastern flavor, their oblation that day demonstrated the devotion to the Truth that the Eastern Christians possess. Sure, the Pope was from Poland and lived in Italy, but he was their Pope, too. Their call, their faith, and their hope are no different than ours, even as their contributions to the unity of the Church differ substantially.
Therefore, we can take three lessons from the correct understanding of the most misinterpreted passage in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. First, never be surprised by who desires to come into the Church. Nobody is disqualified as a potential convert. Second, never be surprised by or envious of the gifts God has given one of your fellow servants. God has the big picture in mind and knows how all the gifts fit together in the service of the evangelization of the world. And third, do your best at doing what you do best. The Church is far better served by those who fulfill the ministry God has given them than by those who dream about and work for the day they’ll be able to do the job God has assigned to someone else.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.