Homily – Sunday, the 22nd June 2025
Reading: Galatians 3:23-29
Introduction: An unlikely travel partner
A couple of months ago I had a special fellow-traveller with me on my way to one of my study weekends in England.
Let me show you who I’m talking about.
This is Mr Trumpet.
He was a gift to my son when he was a baby.
“But why”, I hear you ask, “does an Elephant attend vicar school?”
Well, for once, to meet his friends from all over Europe and the eastern Region in England.
Just like me.
But the main reason for his attendance was…
…to be my very first baptism candidate.
As you can imagine, us students practicing baptism with our furry friends was great fun!
Definitely a highlight of our training during the past couple of years!
I myself was baptised when I was 6 months old.
For many of you, this will also be true: having been baptised as a baby.
Others will have had their baptism later in life.
(I’m thinking, for example, of a fantastic baptism a few years back at a local waterfall! What a special day that was!)
Some of you here may not be baptised.
But perhaps your path will lead there, one day.
Baptism: What’s it all about?
But, I wonder, what happens during baptism?
In today’s reading, Paul equates baptism with putting on Christ like a new set of clothes.
Baptism, as well as the Eucharist, is universally considered by churches to be a sacrament.
St Augustine, in the 5th century described a sacrament as
‘an outward and visible sign
of an inward and invisible grace.’
I like this phrase!
‘An outward and visible sign
of an inward and invisible grace’
Then there is the ‘Lima Text’ of the World Council of Churches, which a lot of different church denominations agreed on in 1982. It calls baptism ‘a sign of new life through Jesus Christ [that] unites the one baptized with Christ and with his people.’
The Church of England’s Liturgical Commission says that baptism ‘points Christians to their true identity, character and calling within the body of Christ’.
And to Martin Luther baptism was ‘a saving flood’ that drowned and killed all sin.
The letter to the Galatians: Dealing with Squabbles
The letter to the Galatians is particularly interesting to help us think about baptism.
This letter is the one that all scholars agree on being definitely written by Paul.
(There are other letters whose authorship is much more debated.)
He writes to churches that had some dispute going on.
They fought about who was ‘in’, and who was ‘out’.
It’s not surprising that there were such clashed within these early Christian communities:
They were such a mixed bunch of people!
Within them were diaspora Jews, as well as members of other people groups,
women and men,
free citizens and slaves.
And—if you believe Mr Trumpet here—there may have been elephants and teddy bears, too.
In the letter, Paul makes very well-structured arguments,
but uses—How shall I put it?—very emotional, even rude, language!
(Yes, he does do a bit of swearing.)
Some bits read a bit like those all-caps social media comments these days:
‘You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?’
‘I am perplexed about you.’
and, most explicitly,
‘I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!’
Revolutionary Baptism
That last one he didn’t plug out of thin air, though.
One of the central issues Paul addresses in his letter is whether male non-Jewish believers must be circumcised to belong to the church.
You see, circumcision was God’s signature on Jewish men – a permanent, physical sign of the covenant relationship.
It was how you knew someone was truly part of Abraham’s family.
But Paul is saying that baptism has become the new signature – God’s mark on all believers, regardless of background.
Jewish law had its place in the life of Abraham’s descendants,
yet the receiving of Christ,
of baptism,
of faith is a turning point.
I love how Paul explains this, and the way he uses the imagery of his time.
The Message bible version does a great job of helping us grasp some of the concepts Paul uses.
Here we go:
Until the time when we were mature enough
to respond freely in faith to the living God,
we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors,
with which you are familiar,
who escort children to school
and protect them from danger or distraction,
making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.
But now you have arrived at your destination:
By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God.
Your baptism in Christ
was not just washing you up for a fresh start.
It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe
—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.
In Christ’s family there can be no division
into Jew and non-Jew,
slave and free,
male and female.
Among us you are all equal.
That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family,
then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,”
heirs according to the covenant promises.
Paul describes the receiving of Christ,
of baptism,
of faith,
as a revolutionary fresh start:
A revolution of freedom,
of emancipation and agency.
A revolution of inclusion and mutual respect,
of family and love.
Wow!
This is fantastic, isn’t it?
Embracing the Paradoxes
But then, again, we live in the real world, right?
A world where all sorts of issues bump up against each other.
A world in which people wonder how infant baptism and personal agency fit together.
A world where equality is complicated and messy.
A world where fresh starts are rarely as clean-cut as Paul makes them appear to be.
Before I offer some thoughts on some of these paradoxes,
let’s pause for a second.
Noticing, wrestling with, and accepting such dichotomies is already a sign of this spiritual maturity Paul talks about.
We must not be afraid of them and embrace doubts and puzzlement as part of the Christian journey.
What about Infant Baptism?
Let’s briefly touch on infant baptism.
Some churches, like us Anglicans, baptise children, based on the faith of their parents.
Others, like Baptist churches, wait until the baptism candidate is ready to make a personal commitment to following Jesus.
If one digs deeper, the different positions rest on
‘whether sacraments are causative or declarative’.
In other words, does baptism cause forgiveness or signify forgiveness has already happened;
Does it ‘make a complete Christian’ or is it the start of the faith journey?
Both positions have their merits.
Churches like ours who baptise babies base it on several arguments.
We may say:
All humans need God’s grace.
It is God who works in baptism, not a person’s will to follow him.
Or: Baptism brings someone into a greater covenantal community.
And what about Unity & Equality?
But let’s talk about this whole business of unity and equality.
What does Paul actually mean, and, more importantly, what does God mean, by this bit:
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.
(On a sidenote, many of the clever bible experts believe that this little poem was part of a first century baptism liturgy.)
What scholars are less united about,
is the question of how far-reaching this equality vision is to be understood.
Some view it in quite muted terms,
along the lines of the church being some sort of corporate unity.
To some, it’s got to do with spiritual equality within the church.
Others say that even though Paul is aware that these different groups exist, he calls for all hierarchies and power-yielding being destroyed, even in the secular arena. This would have had huge social implications.
And queer theologians point out that ‘neither male nor female’ must mean that any gender-related divisions are made redundant. They see this passage calling for a depolarised society abounding in all-surpassing grace.
If you ask me, I would say that if baptised communities were revolutionary in Paul’s days, they should still be revolutionary now.
Christian communities in 1st century greco-roman cities broke all conventions of social standing, patriarchy and identity by worshipping, eating, and doing life together.
This was unheard of!
This is our heritage.
This is the church’s calling.
Called to Revolutionary Unity
Yes, working it out in practice is complicated.
Cultural differences are challenging.
Personal experience plays a big role in each individual Chirstian.
Questionable expressions of Christianity are scary and harmful.
Convictions on ethical issues differ widely, many of them based on a true desire to serve God and love one’s neighbour.
But yet,
‘We are all one in Christ Jesus’.
It is the workings of God’s Spirit
To show what this means for you and me,
for our church here,
for our polarised Anglican communion,
for the global church,
and for all of mankind and creation.
May our prayers, worship, worldview, and actions
be shaped by the north star of ‘oneness in Christ’.
This, in fact, is a big part of the Anglican ethos, if you will:
to trust God’s Spirit slowly shaping us through worship,
through the sacraments (including baptism),
and through the liturgy we join in each Sunday.
This is the basis of us being and becoming a revolutionary expression of unity in Christ:
no matter our nationality and cultural background,
no matter if we are already baptised or journeying towards it,
no matter our economic standing or gender,
and, perhaps even, no matter if we’re human, a cuddly elephant, or a teddy bear.
So let’s all join into this ancient liturgy:
There is no longer Jew or Greek;
there is no longer slave or free;
there is no longer male and female,
for all of us are one in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
Christine Ghinn
22nd June 2025