3 Pentecost C
Galatians 3:23-29
June 20, 2004

Hear again the words of St. Paul; As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs to the promise.

St. Paul tells us that by our baptism, we are adopted into the family of God, and made children of the same heavenly Father. Not a bad topic for Father’s Day.

At one time or another, each of us became members of God’s family, the Church, by one of several methods. Some of us joined as infants by Baptism. Others were made members by Confirmation. Still others became members by coming to the church as adults, and requesting membership. These new members attend a short series of classes, and then stand up here before the congregation, who accepts them into our family of faith.

Once in a while, someone from the “old school”—that is—someone who had to learn the whole Small Catechism and then recite it in front of the congregation in order to get confirmed will say, “We make church membership too easy. A person can just stroll into the church, and with a minimum of instruction and commitment, get their name put on the church membership roll. It’s too easy to join the church.”

I disagree. From what I’ve observed, sometimes, the most difficult thing in the world is to join the church. In order to do it, people have to first be willing to walk into a community of strangers, asking for acceptance. That’s never easy. But once they do overcome that hurdle, and complete their membership classes, we welcome them on New Member Sunday with smiles, handshakes, and coffee cake. But it doesn’t always take.

Sometimes, weeks later, despite repeated attempts to fit in, the new member has not really become a member. No group came forward to adopt her. A few months later, someone asks, “What happened to that nice young woman who joined the church last April?”

It can be difficult to join a church. Getting your name on the membership roll is easy. Belonging to the church is another matter.

Evangelism experts call this “the back door syndrome.” We do fine getting folks in the front door, welcoming them and telling them about all the programs of our church. But then, a few months later, they quietly exit out the back door. They joined, but they never belonged.

I think it’s fair to say that no one ever joins a church. Sure, people come looking to join, but that can’t happen unless the family that already exists welcomes them and integrates them into the family. The only way to get into a church, to belong to a church, is to be adopted.

We become members of a particular church by adoption, and, according to St. Paul, that is also how we become children of God. In today’s Second Lesson, Paul is writing to the church at Galatia, a church full of both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. To the Jews he speaks of their old life as “imprisoned and guarded under the Law.” They had the Law, with its lists of requirements and demands. “But now that faith has come,” Jews like Paul have discovered that they are in a very different relationship with God. No longer are they subject to the judgment and discipline of the Law. Now, they have all become “children of God through faith,” adopted into God’s family of faith by faith.

What is even more surprising is that Paul says to the Gentile Christians that they are now “Abraham’s offspring.” Abraham was the father of the Jewish people—the ancestor of the whole family of Israel. Through faith in Christ, these outsiders, these Gentiles, have become children of God, members of the family, inheritors of all that God has so graciously promised to Israel. They have been adopted into the family.

To the Galatians, both Jew and Gentile, Paul says that the only way to get to be beloved children in the family of God is through the adoptive and expansive love of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul says that after what has happened in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus that, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul has listed some of the most ancient and deepest distinctions that we make between one person and another—distinctions of religion, gender, and class. For our time, I would update Paul’s list by adding the distinctions that divide us today—economic status, race, and sexual orientation, saying; “There is no longer rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight.”

That is not to say that these distinctions no longer exist. Of course, even after Christ, there are males and there are females, black and white, gay and straight. But what Paul tells us is that after Christ, these distinctions no longer matter in the way that they used to. What distinguishes now that we have faith in Christ is that we are all adopted. Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight. By an amazing act of God’s grace, all of us have been brought into one family.

I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember. I was brought to the church for adoption by Baptism as a babe in arms. Yet even if you just joined this church or became a Christian last Sunday, I have nothing over you. Both of us are adopted. Neither of us—on our own—have any claim by our natural endowments, or by our racial, gender, or class characteristics, on the love of God. All we have is our adoption. We belong to this family not on the basis of who we are or by what we have done, but by God’s acceptance of us. As Jesus said to his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”

When parents adopt a child, they have various ways of telling that child how he became a part of the family. Some parents choose from a very early age, to tell their child that they were chosen to be a part of their family. They might say to the child, “Some children are born into a family. You are different. You are special. We chose you. You are adopted!”

Dear Christian Friends; Something very much like that happened at a placed called Calvary, on a day called Good Friday. We were adopted. Jesus stretched out his arms and embraced us—all of us. You and I are special for that reason, and for that reason only. We have been adopted. None of us have any special distinction, when it comes to God, or to one another, other than that we’ve been adopted.

Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight. In Christ Jesus, God says to us, “I have sought you out, have found you, so that I might bring you home.”

This is the great mystery of faith, the great Good News. By our faith in Christ, we are all home. We are all adopted. We all belong. AMEN

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