The text we are about to share is mountainous. It is one of those Pauline peaks that looks easy
from a distance. But the closer you get, the more fearsome it becomes. Few ever make the
summit of this text to take in Paul's breathtaking view of Christian community. Even though we
Presbyterians love that mountaintop — "In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or
female" — we almost always settle for snapshots from disposable cameras.

Hear the Word of the Lord:

15Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life:
once a person's will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it.
16Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring;
it does not say, "And to offsprings," as of many; but it says, "And to your offspring,"
that is, to one person, who is Christ.

My point is this:
17  the law, which came four hundred thirty years later,
does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God,
so as to nullify the promise.
18For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise;
out God granted it to Abraham through the promise.
Why then the law?
19 It was added because of transgressions,
until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made; and
it was ordained through angels by a mediator.
20Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one.
21Is the law then opposed to the promises of God?
Certainly not!
For if a law had been given that could make alive,
then righteousness would indeed come through the law.
22But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin,
so that what was promised through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ1
might be given to those who believe.
23Now before faith came,  we were imprisoned and guarded under the law
until faith would be revealed.
24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came,
so that we might be justified by faith.
25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
27As many of you as were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28There 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. 
29And if you belong to Christ,
 then you are Abraham's offspring,  heirs according to the promise.

The Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

Yes, I know Paul was being radical. For most of his life Paul had obediently recited from the
Jewish prayer book words like these:
"Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, for not having made me a
gentile...for not having made me a slave...for not having made me a woman."2
The man who uttered those words every morning was so transformed by Christ that he had the
nerve to overturn every one of those blessings:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female."
 

This blessing actually postdates Paul, as it is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Menahot 43b. 2
However, its record in the Talmud is likely a reflection of earlier Jewish practice. This blessing, as it is quoted here,
can still be found in the Jewish prayerbook, The Complete ArtScroll Siddur, trans. Rabbi Nosson Scherman, ed.
Rabbi Nosson Scherman and Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1984-95), p. 19.
The Jewish community has added an alternative for women: "Blessed are You, HASHEM, our God, King of the
universe, for having made me according to His will." "HASHEM" is the transliteration of the Hebrew for "the
Name" and it is read instead of the actual text — YHWH — which is the sacred four-letter personal Name that God
gave Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3.13-16. The Jewish prayerbook commentary explaining this awkward
daily blessing reads: "The Torah assigns missions to respective groups of people. Within Israel, for example, the
Davidic family, Kohanim, and Levites are set apart by virtue of their particular callings, in addition to their shared
mission as Jews. All such missions carry extra responsibilities and call for the performance of the mitzvos
[commandments] associated with them. We thank God, therefore, for the challenge of improving His universe in
accordance with His will. Male, free Jews have responsibilities and duties not shared by others. For this, they
express gratitude that, unlike women, they were not freed from the obligation to perform time-related
commandments. This follows the Talmudic dictum that an obligatory performance of a commandment is superior to
a voluntary one, because it is human nature to resist obligations. Women, on the other hand, both historically and
because of their nature, are the guardians of tradition, the molders of character, children, and family. Furthermore,
women have often been the protectors of Judaism when the impetuosity and aggressiveness of the male nature led the
men astray. The classic precedent was in the Wilderness when the men — not the women — worshiped the Golden
Calf. Thus, though women were not given the privilege of the challenge assigned to men, they are created closer to
God's ideal of satisfaction. They express their gratitude in the blessing '...for having made me according to His will'
(R' Munk)."

You mean he wants them to confront their one-ness in Christ. Why are you emphasizing
differences when Paul is emphasizing same-ness? Let’s talk about unity in Christ!

But we cannot faithfully talk about unity with one another unless we seriously confront our
differences. Aren’t you the first to remind me that women think and behave and pastor
differently from men? Isn’t Paul saying that it really does matter that some of us are Hispanic,
some heterosexual, some rich, some educated, some disabled, some children of divorce? Isn’t
Paul trying to communicate that we can’t actually be one people in Christ until we believe we
are individual persons loved by Christ? Isn’t it only when we believe Christ loves each of us
just as we are that we finally grasp the radical goodness of Paul’s gospel: each one of us, by the
mercy of God alone in Christ, equally the heir of Abraham and Sarah? So I think Paul is forcing
the Galatians to face their particular races, classes, and genders in order to clarify the gospel.

The gospel, however, is ultimately about our unity in Christ. But unity that does not appreciate
differences is a false unity. We are created equally in God’s image but not identically in God’s
image. We express God’s image differently. So what we should strive for is a unity that
embraces diversity. But, frankly, diversity makes us uncomfortable. We say our church doors
and baptismal font are open to everyone, but we prefer people who think like us and act like us
and look like us. We greet those who are different from us with less enthusiasm or with a
contrived, exaggerated enthusiasm that betrays our discomfort. We get nervous when those
different from us challenge our notions of what it means to be God’s faithful people.

And being "God’s faithful people" means that when we look at one another — eye-to-eye — the
first thing we see standing before us is an heir of Abraham and Sarah, a child of the living God.
That’s the first thing we must see when we look into each other’s eyes. But the very next thing
we should see is how exceedingly different we are from one another. Only then will we see
what a truly motley family Sarah and Abraham have. Only then will we marvel at God’s
inclusive grace in Jesus Christ.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p. 3
382, reminds us that "the [Jewish] law...is pervaded with the notion of distinction: between priest and layperson,
between holy and secular, between pure and impure, between Israel and the other nations, between good and bad,
and sometimes simply between permitted and forbidden with not reasons given...[and] the priest's task [is to]
distinguish."

No, it’s agonizing. Do you remember what Peter Paris, the Princeton sociologist, said when we
asked him what it takes for black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated Christians
to dwell together in meaningful unity? I’ll never forget it. He said it takes a "commitment to
uneasiness." A commitment to uneasiness. That’s what it takes to keep unity from sliding lazily
into uniformity.

Christian unity is never uniformity. Paul is absolutely convinced that "the fullness of time has
come" (Gal. 4.4), that the age of the Law with its power to separate people from one another is
finished. Paul is convinced that the new creation in Christ has begun. This is the age of faith 3
with its power to unite. "Now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
for in Christ Jesus [we] are all children of God through faith" (Gal. 3.24-25).

I think what Paul is saying here to the Galatians is this: Never forget that this family of Abraham
and Sarah’s contains both Jews and Greeks, both slaves and free, both women and men. Don’t
let your one-ness keep you from celebrating your differences.

And I think he’s saying that the family of faith contains neither Jews nor Greeks, neither slaves
nor free, neither women nor men. Don’t let your differences keep you from celebrating your
one-ness.

Elizabeth & Richard Deibert
Presbytery of Coastal Carolina
Thursday, 17 June 2004
Community Presbyterian Church, Pinehurst, North Carolina