The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
June 24, 2001

Male and Female No More
Galatians 3:23-29

My brother-in-law, Mark, has made an interesting observation about church life in East Tennessee, where he lives. Mark says that a common expression he hears is “in church.” People refer to themselves as “in church” or “not in church.” As Mark explains the expression, there are many assumptions tied to what it means to be “in church.” We are gathered together this morning in a church building, but that is not what the expression “in church” means. The idea is that when you are “in church,” you are acting like a good church goer should. When you are “in church,” it’s because you have already bought the whole package deal.

There is an order to things. First, you get your life together, and then you may go to church and consider yourself “in church.” You have to follow this order because there is a lot of baggage attached to being “in church” or “not in church.” You are “not in church” because you are backslidden and don’t dare go. You have to get your act together first. The folks in church are so judgmental, that you don’t dare go to church before you are ready to be “in church.” In fact, many times stop going to church when the going gets rough. For example, if your marriage starts to hit a rocky patch, you back away from church life to get out of the glare of judgment. If you pull things back together, you can be “in church” again.

I’m sure that not all folks in East Tennessee follow this pattern of being “in church” and “not in church,” but this package of assumptions is useful to consider. Who is “in church” and who is “not in church,” and who gets to decide. This is the larger question that the Apostle Paul is working with in the passage we read this morning from the Letter to the Galatians. Paul uses the term “in Christ.” Paul loves the term. Paul uses “in Christ,” “into Christ” and “in Christ Jesus” 151 times in his letters. Paul also attaches a set of assumptions about what it means to be “in Christ.” Here in Galatians, Paul’s use is decidedly baptismal. Those who are baptized into Christ and once in Christ, they are all the same.

Here’s what Paul wrote to the Galatians, “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.” For Paul’s time, and perhaps even for our own, that is a very radical statement.

Paul seems to break down religious barriers between people with “There is no longer Jew or Greek.” Next Paul breaks down class and even ownership barriers between people with “There is no longer slave or free.” Lastly, Paul breaks down the importance of gender differences with, “There is no longer male and female.” Paul breaking down barriers between Jew and Gentile sounds normal. Paul spent his whole ministry trying to break down barriers that separated non-Jews from hearing the Good News that the salvation offered through the Messiah Jesus is for all people. But no more slave or free, no more male and female, this doesn’t sound like the Paul we know from other letters.

This is the same Paul who wrote to the Corinthians saying that “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when God called you, don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.” Paul didn’t try to declare freedom to the slaves in that situation, though he thought it was fine if they could save money to buy their freedom.

This is also the same Paul who wrote, “Wives be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” Not exactly the declaration of a radical feminist, is it? He doesn’t sound like the sort of guy who would write, “There is no longer male and female.” And by the way, what’s up with the word “and?” That’s the word that really got my attention. Why does Paul write, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile. There is no longer slave or free.” But then write, “There is no longer male and female.” You have to go back to the beginning to get that answer. Not the beginning of the Letter to the Galatians, but the beginning as in “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This is the first distinction between genders. At this point, it reads like male and female are different from each other but equal to one another. Later in Genesis 2:18 God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” The King James Version translate that second sentence, “I will make him an help meet for him.” That older English word meet was for something appropriate, something corresponding to something else. That’s closer to the Hebrew meaning of I will make a helper equal and corresponding to him.

Not too much later in the creation account, Adam and Eve would decide that they should be like Gods, they did the one thing God asked them not to do and humanity fell from the perfect state of paradise. Then there would be greater divisions between men and women. Woman was told, “your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” That was in a fallen world, but in an ideal world, in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, there was equality between men and women. The image of God was male and female and a woman may have been a helper for man, but she was a helper equal to him.

Paul imports all of this information about gender roles into his Letter to the Galatians with the use of the conjunction “and.” This may sound far-fetched at first, but this use of a keyword to connect you to another scripture passage is common in Paul. Paul uses vocabulary that is intended to remind you of Hebrew scripture, as Paul did not want to leave the teaching of that scripture behind in the Christian message. Paul, who was a master at using rhetoric for effect, intentionally built up Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, so that we would notice the male and female. Paul wanted to remind the hearer that a seeming change in gender roles was not a new thing, but a very old thing. Paul goes back to the story of the creation to talk about the new creation that takes place in baptism.

Ok, that’s what the verse of scripture says. But in trying to understand a passage of scripture, it can be helpful to ask “What is it doing?” What is the bigger picture that this passage is part of and what is happening in that bigger picture? Then once we understand how the passage works in the bigger picture we can return to consider more deeply what it means.

The Letter to the Galatians itself, like all of Paul’s letters, is an occasional one. Paul wrote to address a particular concern or concerns. So the content can be better understood in the light of the occasion that gave rise to it. In the case of the Galatians, the occasion was that teachers who came along after Paul were telling the Galatians that Christians must follow all of the Jewish law, so if a Gentile convert wanted to be a Christian, they had to also be a Jew. One key sticking point was that circumcision would be required of all gentile males for them to be considered Christian. So, Paul wrote to assure the Galatians that it was faith that mattered most.

In the third chapter of Galatians, particularly beginning in verse 6, Paul offers an extended argument on how any righteousness we have before God comes from faith, not through adherence to the Jewish law. Paul is trying to show that we can all be heirs of God without being literal children of Abraham.

Then when we get to our passage for today, Paul uses the image of baptism to further his case on behalf of former Gentiles who are now Christians. In verse 27 he writes, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Paul is not speaking quite as figuratively as it may seem. You see while it is true that the earliest Christian baptisms were done publicly with the person being baptized wearing clothes, that practice soon changed. In order to show through actions what was taking place, the practice became for people to be baptized with no clothes on. As I was raised they would have been nude, not naked. A female deacon would baptize women and a male deacon would baptize men. Baptismal pools had steps descending into the water from two sides. A person being baptized would approach from one side, removing their old clothes as they entered the water. The deacon would baptize the person in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then as they came out of the baptismal waters, they would be given a new white robe to put on. This white robe symbolized that they were being clothed in Christ. The old stain of sin was washed away and when God saw the baptized person, he saw them clothed in Christ.

Paul says that anyone can be in Christ, the old distinctions do not matter. Jews or Gentiles can be in Christ. Slaves or freemen can be in Christ and male and female can be in Christ. No matter who you were before, now that you are in Christ you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. Paul is using this image of baptism because he is writing to a group of Christians who share this common experience. Paul knows this as he baptized many of them. Paul calls on this common experience to call the Christians in Galatia to a knew way of understanding the meaning of their baptism. Paul instructs that the main thing is being in Christ. Then the old distinctions don’t matter as much as they used to. A woman may have been a gentile, but now she is your sister in Christ. A man may have been a slave, perhaps your own slave, but now he is your brother in Christ.

Paul was not writing a manifesto of equality and he did not take the argument any further. Paul did not use the occasion to say that all slaves should be freed. Paul did not use the occasion to say that there is no difference between men and women. Paul used the occasion to tell the Galatians that they needed to stop putting adherence to law over faith. Paul’s message in our passage for today is that your ethnic background, class or gender do not determine whether you can be “in Christ.” Those distinctions still exist for Paul, but they have no salvific value. You cannot be more saved than someone else because of race, class or gender.

But it is interesting to note that Paul did set Christianity on a path that we are now much further along. Paul referred to breaking down divisions between Christians of Jewish background and gentile background. No one has disputed that distinction in centuries. Next Paul wrote of breaking down the division between slave and free. That division took much longer to break down. People owned people in this country well into the 19^th century and though much less common, slavery still continues in some places today. But Christians now speak in unison against slavery using the Gospel as a basis for speaking out. Finally, Paul spoke of breaking down the divisions between male and female. The stark division between male and female came through the disobedience of humanity. This division has not easily been healed.

It is easy for us to sing “gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man, no more,” but what do those words mean to us? If they mean that there is no difference at all between men and women that we have missed the point biologically as well as theologically. But if they mean that all of us male and female are equal in God’s eyes, then we are hitting at the heart of the theological statement, the understanding of God that Paul was trying to convey. Treating someone else as if they are equal to you in God’s eyes may not sound so radical at first, but try living it out and see what you think.

Amen.