Dispensing With Our Labels

Devotional Reflection, Thursday, December 23, 2021

The week of the fourth Sunday in Advent

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:

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.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 939)

AM Psalm 45, 46; PM, Psalm 146, 147 Baruch 4:36-5:9; Gal. 3:23-4:7; Matt. 1:18-25

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), Page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Office Epistle, Galatians 3:23-4:7

3:23 Now 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.

4:1My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits* of the world. 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our* hearts, crying, ‘Abba!* Father!’ 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.*

David’s Reflections

W. H. Auden, the British poet and Anglican once wrote: " . . . humility and demonic pride speak the same language." * We, as Episcopalians, often pride ourselves on being rather inclusive, seeing ourselves as more inclusive than some other brands of Christian community. However, that self-image can have an exclusive shadow side, where we actually function as noninclusive and nonaccepting of those who do not practice our brand of inclusivity.

Jesus avoided that trap during his ministry. He socialized with the poor and the outcast, and he socialized with the social and religious elite (See Luke 7 for an example of Jesus dining with Pharisees, those rather critical of his socializing with the unclean.) In today’s Epistle, Paul avoids that trap as well. Verses 27-28 say, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 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.”

Paul takes us back to our baptismal identity. In Holy Baptism we have “put on Christ” like one dresses with garments. We have become part of a new humanity, we now live “in Christ,” our lives lived in a living union to Christ and to Christian community. In that new humanity, the old distinctions no longer apply. In Paul’s day the most basic racial distinction was Jew vs nonJew or Gentile. The most basic social distinction was free person vs. slave. And, the most basic gender distinction, of course, was and is male vs. female. Those basic distinctions carry with them adversarial boundary frictions.

However, in Christian community, those adversarial boundary distinctions, with their accompanying frictions, no longer hold. In Paul’s communities, the slave might be the more spiritually mature and be the teacher for their owner. The nonJew might have a better command of the biblical witness than a Jew newly united with the community and might be their teacher. A woman might be more seasoned and experienced and be more of a leader than her spouse.

Obviously, we still are living into this truth. Each generation of Christians must carve out their own understanding of their baptismal identity and how that identity subverts the classical ways we distinguish ourselves from each other and elevate ourselves above each other. For example, the full inclusion and ordination of women did not happen in our church until the mid 1970’s, but the energizing truth that subverted those old structures and distinctions lay in verses like this one all along. Our traditions, enshrining the old humanity’s ways of distinguishing and ranking people, gave way with great difficulty. But, give way they did and are to the witness of texts like this one.

As we celebrate the birth of Christ in this season, we can discover anew how subversive Christ’s person and message continue to be to all our ways of distinguishing and classifying people. The more fully we live into our baptismal identity, the less power those social, economic, and gender distinctions will have in our common life as those who have “put on Christ.” And, the less likely we might be to elevate ourselves above those within the larger Christian world who differ from us.

How refreshing it would be to dispense with the labels that divide and demean in favor of the most basic one, a person of faith. Imagine that our only real concern about another was whether they had a living connection with God in faith, not their race, gender, denomination, nationality, political affiliation, conservative vs. liberal, etc. Our little mental boxes would only have two bins and we would simiply be seeking to make the wall between those bins as low as possible.

* W. H. Auden, "Foreword" to Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld. Trans. Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964), xvi.

Collect of the Day, The fourth Sunday of Advent

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 212)

A Collect for Protection

O God, the life of all who live, the light of the faithful, the strength of those who labor, and the repose of the dead: We thank you for the blessings of the day that is past, and humbly ask for your protection through the coming night. Bring us in safety to the morning hours; through him who died and rose again for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, 124)

A Collect for Early Evening

Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)

A Collect for Mission

Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 816-817)