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Dr. George A. Purnell
April 18, 2010
“Putting on New Clothes”
Galatians 3:23-29
What are the identifying characteristics of a group? How does the group identify itself? What comes to mind when we hear a group mentioned by name?
The list could go on indefinitely, of course.
Although Islam is a peaceful religion whose ethical teachings are similar to the teachings of Christianity…and while most Muslims are appalled by acts of terrorism… many Americans have come to believe that Muslims as a whole are enemies to the United States.
Laura Bush spoke at the IU Memorial Union on Thursday April 1. She mentioned in her talk that many people had a caricature in mind of her as the 1950’s housewife; always looking perfect; promptly and dutifully being there for her husband, with his slippers in hand and supper ready when he arrived home; without a thought in her head.
What we heard that night was an articulate woman who was anything but shallow. Her ideas on education, the theme of the Institute she was serving as a keynoter at, were important. Her thoughts on other matters were also impressive. Yet, I will admit that I had my mind made up about Mrs. Bush before hearing her, and I had to change my mind.
Republicans...Sarah Palin is a lightning rod speaker on the circuit right now and many people associate all Republicans with her. (Or Democrats…some people believe that every Democrat in America is a clone of President Obama and agrees with his every idea.)
Christians…What comes to mind when someone is described as being a Christian?
Some people immediately go to the extremes in imagining what a Christian looks like and acts like and talks like.
I think that most of us here today claim the identity of being a Christian. But just as all Republicans are not Sarah Palin clones, and all Democrats are not President Obama bobbleheads, and all Muslims do not sympathize with terrorists, neither do all Christians have a similar understanding of what it means to call oneself Christian.
What identifies us as Christians? For Paul the answer is baptism…
Paul writes today to new believers. There were stepfamily issues at work in this early period of Christian faith. Peter was a Jew. James was a Jew. John was a Jew. Paul was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. So, Jewish DNA was part of the new faith, and some leaders of apostolic Christianity believed that Gentile converts would have to agree with Jewish laws and customs, including circumcision, to become full members of the family of Christ.
Indeed, in chapter two of Galatians we find Paul angrily writing about other leaders among early followers of Jesus, accusing them of being hypocrites. He writes that while he was ministering to Gentile converts, some others were “secretly brought in...to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus.” Paul continues:
“But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy…” (Verses 4, 11-13)
Until Christ came, Paul writes, we were under the discipline of law. But we are a new creation now in Christ. Our old self has died and we have risen from the waters of baptism to a new life.
The participation in Christ’s death and resurrection is part of our baptism.
“Do you not know that all of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:3-5)
What does it mean to be a Christian? Our lesson today finds Paul writing:“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
This is revolutionary talk! One of the sources I consulted said: “Paul didn’t choose thesethree arbitrarily. He chose them deliberately, because the society in his day was split along just those lines: ethnicity, social class, and gender. And to write “as many of you as were baptized have clothed yourself with Christ” was also symbolically significant, because in the Roman Empire what one could and could not wear was more than a matter of fashion; it was a point of law. It identified one’s station in life.
But, for Paul, your former identities became irrelevant at baptism, when you took on a new family name: Christian.
Is this really true of us? Have our old identities receded into the background, and our new identities as Christians taken precedence, because we have been baptized? I believe this is an important question for us to consider.
Frankly, I am not convinced that baptism has had such a dramatic affect on many of us. In ways, I might compare our feelings about baptism to our feelings about citizenship, at least for those of us born in this country. I think we take both for granted.
When we were born as citizens of the United States, this became a part of our identity. We are “Americans.” When we were baptized, many of us as infants, this became a part of our identity. We are “Christians.”
Now there is a difference between our identities as Americans and Christians…
As American citizens, we can be called upon to put our lives on the line to defend our sovereignty. From our war for independence in the late 18th century, to our Civil War in the 19th century, to the World Wars of the 20th century, to the present day 21st century conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, American men and women have fought and died…have been wounded and taken prisoner of war…have had to leave their homes and families…to protect and preserve our freedom and unity as a people.
But more of us have not had to respond to that call than have, and from birth we can take our freedoms and our citizenship for granted. (In ways that peoples who have escaped tyranny by coming to our shores do not…and in ways that those who have served in wars do not…)
And while some Christians around the world must fight and lose their lives and otherwise sacrifice and suffer for their faith, we do not. We have, almost from birth, taken our identity as Christian for granted. We have not been forced to escape totalitarian governments that would prohibit us from claiming our identity in Christ.
So, we are “Christian” in name, but we are not sure what this identity means for our lives. Phil Amerson joked in his sermon last Sunday (as a president of an academic institution can) that the reason faculty fights are so vicious is because so little is at stake. I wonder if the reason being a Hoosier is as important to our identity as being a Christian is because so little was at stake when we were baptized. The only thing new we might have been clothed in was a baptismal gown.
In a former church (when I was a young adult), I taught a young adult class that was made up mostly of couples with children. I had baptized most of their children. One topic we tackled in this class was the meaning of baptism, both their own baptisms and their children’s’ baptisms. These conversations revealed a lot about our understanding of, or lack of understanding about the meaning of baptism.
My children were baptized before I went into ministry, and I will admit that I did not ask enough questions when I was having them baptized. When I look back on it, I did not take full responsibility or understand the full implications of having them baptized. And I must admit that I did not adequately or often discuss the meaning of baptism with my children as they grew into adulthood.
And my mother really did not talk with me about my baptism in any meaningful way during my growing up years. I knew that I had been baptized, and I took my Christian identity for granted.
Yet over time my Christian faith became a life saver. As a young adult my life came crashing down around me. I lost my way. I lost the most meaningful parts of my identity: my family, my health, my sense of vocation…
But because I had been baptized…
This morning we will participate in and be witness to the baptism of Benjamin Scott Wagner. What we will do here is sacred. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ,” wrote Paul. We the baptized have put on new clothes, a new identity…And we are preparing to clothe Benjamin in Christ.
As the church, we make promises to the one being baptized. These are printed in our bulletin as the congregational response. As we participate in this baptism, let us remember our own; and let us reclaim the identity that is ours’ through baptism into Christ. Amen.
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