“The Life of Faith, Part 1: “Heirs, One and All” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, June 22, 2025, Year C / Pentecost 2 / Proper 7 (12) – Galatians 3:23-29 • Genesis 12:1-5a (not in lectionary).

THEME:  Our identity is in Christ and, in him, we are all equal inheritors of God’s promise of blessing and life.
 

Do any of you enjoy a good murder mystery? Do you have any favorite authors? One of my favorites is Agatha Christie.  If she is also one of yours, you are not alone, by any means. She published her first book in 1916. Over the next 60 years, she wrote 60 more. She developed a worldwide following. According to the Guiness Book of World Records, her books have been translated into other languages more than any other individual author. There is good reason for this. Her settings are wonderfully atmospheric. Her plots are masterful. Her characters are intriguing – Hercule Poirot anyone? - and, of course, there is always a surprising plot twist somewhere along the line. If you have ever read “Death on the Nile” or “Murder on the Orient Express,” then you know exactly what I mean. But, when you’ve written 60-plus books, some are bound to get overlooked.  One of the best of these lesser-known gems is “After the Funeral.” 

Do you know it? It revolves around the unsealing of a rich man’s will as his family members gather at his Victorian mansion. All of them expect that the estate will go to the favorite nephew. When the list of beneficiaries is revealed to be far more extensive than they expect, they are shocked.   Paul is making a similar point to the gentile Christians in Galatia, a congregation he founded in modern day Turkey.

Here is the situation. While Paul has been away, Jewish Christian evangelists have come to visit the Galatians. They insist that these Gentile Christians must observe parts of the Jewish law, specifically circumcision. Paul, who is himself a Jew, is vehemently opposed. Not only is this unnecessary, he tells them, it is harmful. They do not need the law to connect them with God. Their faith in Christ connects them with God through Abraham to whom God promised blessing and new life. God has fulfilled his promise in Jesus Christ. Therefore, Galatians are already God’s children. They are already inheritors of God’s promise of blessing and new life. At their baptism they were clothed in Christ. Through their faith in him, they are justified before God. 

And further, all who trust Christ are equally righteous – not because of anything they have done, but because of what God did.  God came to us in Jesus of Nazareth in order to be united to us for all time. This is the gift of eternal life. God intends us to be united with one another, too.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, we become part of a larger family. The other aspects of our humanity, the things that make us distinct from one another, remain intact. But in relationship to God, we are the same: we are all his children, part of the same family. 

The question is do we see ourselves that way? And, equally important, do we see others that way? That is the question Paul is asking the Galatians, and that is the question he is asking us. We have a 2,000-year history of emphasizing what makes us different from one another, rather than embracing our common identity in Christ. Never has that been more pronounced than it is in modern times. Modernity is the age of individualism. Over the last 700 years, humanity has steadily moved toward the celebration of the individual at the expense of the collective.

Before Modernity, in the Middle Ages, human identity hinged entirely on your family and your community.  If you or I lived back then, we would not think of ourselves as anything but members of our nuclear family and our village. That was the source of our identity. But then, came the Renaissance and the Reformation. The source of human identity began to change. In the 1700s, the age of Enlightenment arrived. That is when individualism really caught fire. The English philosopher John Locke proposed his theory of natural rights. He argued that individuals possess inherent, inalienable rights, things like life, liberty, and property. 

On this side of the Atlantic, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson wholeheartedly agreed. They argued that these rights were essential to the pursuit of happiness. This became the rationale for the American Revolution. You do not have to read very far in the Declaration of Independence to see that. The old priorities of communal identity and well-being took a back seat to personal autonomy, self-reliance, and individual expression. This shift affected every aspect of life in the West. It was nothing less than a cultural revolution.  It transformed politics, economics, art, social structures, and institutions, including the church. In 20^th century America, especially after World War II, the “we” culture morphed into the “me” culture. In the 21^st century, that shift has gone into hyperdrive. Isn’t it ironic that, with the rise of technology and the internet that gives us access to others across the globe, we have never been as disconnected from one another as we are right now? 

Friends, that is not what God wants for us. What we need is a third way. A holistic way of thinking and living that encompasses both communalism and individualism, and then transcends both. This new way of life should celebrate individual identity and the unique attributes that God has given to each of us. At the same time, it should prioritize the connectedness of all God’s children and the well-being of the community that sustains us. Paul gives us exactly that.

Friends, that is the focus of this sermon series, called “The Life of Faith.” Today and the next two Sundays, I will lead us through Paul’s vision for how the Galatians should live out their faith with one another. It is no mistake that our lectionary groups these readings into the season of Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit that enables, inspires, and guides this Pauline way of Christian living. 

Next week we will talk about the fruits of the Spirit. Two weeks from now, we will see how the life of faith, and the salvation it brings, points to God’s Kingdom. But we are getting ahead of ourselves!  

Let’s zero in on what Paul says about identity. He writes, “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 is clear that living the life of faith starts with how we see ourselves, because that determines how we see others. So, that is where we start. The way we perceive our own identity is the key. In Paul’s view, the first and foremost source of our identity is Christ. Any other identity marker, even ones as fundamental as gender, ethnicity or social status, are secondary to our primary identity as Christ’s own, children of God, and heirs of God’s promise to Abraham, the promise of blessing and new life. 

When we focus on other, lesser aspects of our identity, we tend to get judgmental. We assign disproportionate value to the things that differentiate us from others, things which, in God’s eyes, are nowhere near as important as our faith in Christ. We even judge different ways of being Christians. The Reformation itself is evidence of that. This very passage in Galatians played a central role in that debate. Paul is clear that our justification is by faith and not works.  By works he meant circumcision.  The early Reformers saw that the Roman Catholic Church was in bad need of reform. They were right. But they misinterpreted the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church was merely teaching that works should result from the infusion of God’s grace after we are justified by faith. If you will forgive me for using some theological jargon, the Reformers were talking about justification, while the Roman Catholic Church was talking about sanctification, which is what happens we are justified. 

Does that mean that we should ignore our Protestant heritage, or any other identity marker for that matter? Absolutely not. They are still important. They are part of who we are, and they should be celebrated. But our identity in Christ has to come first.  How do you think of yourself? If someone were to ask you, “Who are you? What makes you who you are?” What is the most important part of you?” What would you tell them? 

The answer is critically important. Because in this life, we are like characters in an Agatha Christie novel. We are gathered together around the table. The will has been unsealed. The contents have been read. There is a plot twist – a big one. It declares that we are all inheritors of God’s promise to Abraham. We are all heirs of the promise of blessing and new life. But we have to learn to see ourselves first and foremost as clothed in Christ, united with God through him, and equally as deserving of blessing as every other child of God who trusts in his name.

The question is will we accept our inheritance?

May it be so.