“There is no longer Jew or Greek,” says Paul, “There
is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you
are one in Christ Jesus.”
Funny, because it looks like there still are those things
to me. I still see different nationalities—not just Jews and Greeks, but
Chinese and Indonesian and Pakistani, Sudanese and Romanian and Peruvian;
Native American and Caucasian; white and black. I still see those things, so
I’m guessing you do too. I also see slaves and free people. 30 million people
in the world today are slaves according to the Walk Free Foundation. Around
60,000 people in the United States of America today are slaves, mostly in the
sex trade. 60,000 people in the USA… 14 million in India… 4% of the population
in Mauritania. Slavery is not just history; it is the present. Then there is
this matter of male and female. We all see that—we all experience sex and
gender in different ways—but nobody is suggesting it isn’t real. Nobody, except
Paul.
So what gives?
Paul is clearly making a theological point that in Christ
there is no distinction. No woman or man is lower for being created one way or
another; no slave is lower for being a slave; no person is excluded from the
promise of salvation because of their nationality—or because of anything thrust
upon them beyond their control. This is a fascinating and revolutionary
statement that would not have been obvious to many in that day. Jews were heirs
to a promise by virtue of being born into it. Men were given all manner of
property rights over women by virtue of being men. Paul wasn’t necessarily arguing against that, but he
was suggesting, one way or another, that ultimately none of it matters in the
kingdom of God.
Therefore, the big question—in a world where our reality
does not match God’s reality—is how do we respond? What kind of life do we live
knowing that God sees this world profoundly different than we see it?
I tend to think the best, and maybe only, way that we can
understand the promise that God is offering here is to consider the image of
the body of Christ—that we are all part of that body. This is why there is no
male or female, why there is no slave or free, and why there is no Jew or
Greek, but we are all one in Christ because we are all part of the same
whole—the same one body. So, when one suffers we all suffer. When one becomes
cancerous the whole body feels it. When one of us is broken the rest feels it.
And it’s not so much that we are all hands and feet and hearts and lungs, as if
we were that important and obviously different, but instead each of us is
merely the smallest atom in the working of Christ’s body. We are so tiny as if
to not even be there and yet without us there would be no body at all. There is
no longer slave or free because we are all perfect slaves to the law which
condemns us, and we are all free through Christ who unites us. There is no male
or female because in Christ we exist for something much more than sex; we are
complimentary not just with one another but with the whole fabric of human
community. We are woven together deeper than we know. And there is no Jew or
Greek because our nationality and origins, though appearing distinct, trace
back to one place where we were created and called “good” not distinctly,
separately, or because of how unique we are but because of our commonality, our
human being-ness.
We are all part of the body of Christ, and Paul begins to
hint here that this is true whether we like it or not, whether we decide on it
or not, whether we care or not. Instead, the criteria he lays out is belief
through faith given to us through the Spirit. It is not belief that makes us
part of the body of Christ; rather, it is belief that makes us aware that we are already part of that body by virtue
of nothing more than our human-ness. We are connected intricately with one
another and through the bonds are stretched and broken by sin, which keeps us
from seeing one another as the children of God that we are, nevertheless God is
uniting us in ways we cannot yet see, so that while I still see male and
female, God does not. So that, while I still see nationalities of all types, God
does not. So that, while I still see slaves and free people, God sees we are
all the same—slaves and free both.
Far from telling us that life has no rules this is a
strong command to treat one another with dignity and respect. Treat every man
like your brother because he is your
brother, and treat every woman like your sister because she is your sister. Every boundary you erect
is imaginary. You are one and the same through Christ—part of the same body.
But let me be perfectly clear: This is not an excuse to abuse or lord over, to
take advantage of others as if it is your right. Quite the opposite, Paul is
saying that no one can own you, no one can touch you, and any abuse toward you
is cowardice and blasphemy, because any attempt at power over another betrays
the powerlessness of the perpetrator. It is self-defeating cowardice that seeks
power over another, because there is no slavery in Christ; there is nothing
that separates us one from another and to try to own another—whether
dramatically through slavery or more commonly through abuse or coercion—is
blasphemy against the reality of the world God wills for us.
We were created to be bound to one another in love, not
broken from one another by sin, but here we are. Here we are. And in this world
where people do take advantage of one another and seek to own one another, to
disconnect from one another, and to divide people one from another, we are
called to proclaim a kingdom of God that looks nothing like any of that. There
is no Jew or Greek in God’s eyes. There is no slave or free, male or female.
So, how are we living like that’s actually true? How are we proclaiming that to
be a fact? It’s something to consider, because, like it or not, we are not as
different from any other as we may imagine. We are less distinct as individuals
in order that the whole body might be more magnificent. Put simply, in Christ,
the individual believer is a contradiction in terms. We are connected and
united, for good or for ill on this side of the kingdom of God, but one day—one
day—things will be fixed. We are heirs to a promise after all. Children of
Abraham, like the Jews and others, like men and women, like people enslaved and
people enslaving. Kinda puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment