Scripture can be found here...
UCLA Professor Jared Diamond has
written a book called The World Until
Yesterday, in which he looks at traditional cultures and examines what they
have to teach us. One of his most striking observations is the fact that, until
almost 10,000 years ago, every human being on this planet lived in fairly small
tribes, of anywhere from a few dozen to a couple of hundred people. And because of that, it was almost unheard
of, nearly impossible, to have an encounter with a stranger. Everybody in your
tribe literally knew everybody else in your tribe.
So if you did, unthinkably, run
into a stranger, here’s what would happen. You would sit down together, and
begin reciting the names of everyone you were related to, everyone in your
tribe, until, hopefully, you found someone in common. If you didn’t find that
common person, that human thread to bind you together, your options were to run
or to kill. Xenophobia, what modern psychologists would describe as “irrational
fear of foreigners or strangers,” was the normal state of those for whom the
glimpse of an unknown face was terrifyingly out of the ordinary.
From time beyond time, human
beings have tried to distinguish for ourselves which tribes we live in. We have
worked hard to figure out whether or not we “belong.” And we have fashioned
rituals and marks and tattoos and all manner of things to place on ourselves to
say, “Here. This is my tribe.”
From ancient times, three
thousand years at least, one mark of being a Jew, a member of God’s covenant
people, was a mark borne by men on their bodies, circumcision. There were other
signs of belonging, of course. Eating according to the kosher laws, resting and
worshiping God on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, learning Torah,
the law. Many markers… tribal markers, if you will… of what it means to be a
member of God’s covenant people. And because Jews and Christians are sprung
from the same roots, because Jesus and his first followers were Jews, there was
a time when it was assumed that those who would be Jesus-followers, must bear
all those same markers of belonging.
A man whom we first met several
weeks ago, when we heard the story of the first martyr, Stephen, was
instrumental in changing all that. You might remember the man named “Saul,” a
minor character in that episode, who was watching over the coats of those who
were heaving rocks at Stephen until he was dead—(“run or kill”). Saul approved
of all that, and he describes himself later as “zealous for the traditions of
his ancestors.” Which, take note, is not necessarily a good thing. Saul is a
case study in how ‘zeal for the traditions of our ancestors’ can place us in
opposition to what God is doing. All this went on until, a little while later,
when God pulled back the veil, and Saul had a face-to-face encounter with the Risen
and Living Christ. Saul’s entire life was turned upside down. From that point
on, that persecutor of Jesus-followers—the one who, by his own admission, was
violently trying to destroy the church—became a Jesus-follower himself, became
the author of much of what the church continues to find, well, authoritative.
We know him as Paul.
And we know him as the author of
the scripture passages we’ve read today; they are from a letter Paul wrote to a
church in Galatia, an area of the region still called Anatolia, part of what is
modern day Turkey. Once upon a time in Galatia, Paul tells us, a dispute was
roiling about the issue of “belonging” within the tribe of the Jesus-followers
What is the marker of belonging to the community that has sprung up around
Jesus, what we call the Church? What do we have to do… do we have to keep
kosher? Must the men and boys bear that particular sign of belonging to the
tribes of Israel on their bodies? Worship on Saturdays, perhaps? How do we know
we belong?
We belong to the family of God,
as it turns out, not because of what we do, but because of what God does. “We
know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith
in Jesus Christ,” Paul says. Well, sort of. The new Common English Bible
translates that phrase, “the faithfulness of Christ.” We belong to the family
of God… we come to have our own faith in Jesus Christ as our redeemer… not
because of what we have done, but because of what God has done.
This is one way of understanding
how and why many churches, including ours, baptize babies and children too
young to be able to profess their faith in Christ. This beautiful, smart-as-a-whip child was baptized today, not because she has come to an
understanding that Jesus is her savior, although, maybe she already has
inklings in that direction. She has been baptized today because of a Divine
nudge in the hearts of her mom and stepdad. God decides these things, and then we
cooperate; that is how it works in the world of Jesus-followers. And Beloved Child, by
being baptized today, “belongs” to us, here at Union Presbyterian Church, the
same place where her mama and stepdad were married not too long ago. But really, this
is so much bigger than us. Beloved Child belongs to the whole church of Jesus Christ,
and it belongs to her… wherever she goes, the church will be there for her. Not
because of anything she did or did not do, but because of what God did, what
God does, and what God will continue to do for her, throughout her life, and beyond
her life in this world.
Baptism, we are told, puts a mark
on us. Today it has put a mark on this Beloved Child, telling her and everyone who knows and
loves her that just as she belongs to the family of her mama and daddy and
and stepdad and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and grandparents, she also
belongs to the family of God that takes its name from Jesus Christ. The
faithfulness of Jesus has reached out to touch her, and claim her, and bless
her, so that one day she will be able to say, for herself, in her own words and
actions, “Christ lives in me.”
So welcome Beloved Child of God. Welcome to this family of God, and welcome to this communion table. The
mark of our tribe is simple: Jesus invited you, and we welcome you. We cannot
wait to see what Jesus does in your life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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