The Uncomfortableness of Being One

Galatians 3:23-29
Second Reading for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost (Year C) 

I nearly didn't get to writing this. It's late. It's been a long day, but I feel like this passage is important. I don't have much to say, but especially in light of people hurting others because of their differences, I wanted to leave this here. The echoes of Orlando will linger for a long time. A presidential candidate has called for banning a religion from this country and even floated racial profiling as a sound strategy. It's terrifying. Unnerving.

So then there's this: 

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28) 

If the church is going to be able to speak to this world at all then they need to get into a knockdown, drag out fight with what this passage is saying. It's a passage that is nice on the surface but has the potential to completely screw up all the neat dividing lines that we've put in place. Lines determining who is in and who is out. Lines determining who can be a pastor or preach from a pulpit. When we have those lines drawn and then build cinder block walls on top of them, it doesn't look like oneness. It looks like the rest of the world.

I will not be so arrogant to suggest that one must come to same conclusions that I have, but I do believe the church really ought to wrestle with this passage. It will be uncomfortable, but discomfort is often a companion for the best journeys.