Trinity XV preached at St Paul’s Crownsville
“I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Who is with us and who belongs?
Our ancestors in Christ struggled in a world which did not want them, did not accept them, and did all they could to wipe them out. The Romans were shrewd and cunning, doing their very best to forge a coherent administration across the Mediterranean encompassing many tribes and faiths and nations. And they knew that good administration and tax systems is not sufficient to make a coherent culture. Like most effective empires they spread a culture though temples and building projects, plays and entertainment, sport and competition. And they did a remarkable job of registering and deputising local leadership and accounting for all the diverse people they ruled.
They had a really good way of accounting for everyone who belonged, and everyone who didn’t.
The Judean people had asked Rome to save them from the Greeks generations earlier, entering into an uneasy friendship with them. These are radical Monotheists in an empire which works by sharing many gods, and they are bound to be set apart by their perculiar customs and loyalties which challenge the politics and systems of the Empire. They are a small and brave people who live and marry and work in almost every city in the Mediterranean.
But something new is sweeping through. The follower of The Way. The poor, the curious, the outcast, and even foreigners have started to call a Galilean Rabbi their Saviour. They worship the God of Israel, the King of Kings. And the peace of the world, the settlement that keeps everyone happy, the greatest civilisation ever known strains under their claim that Jesus is Lord.
This claim that the God of the Judeans has come amonst us in the flesh, has died and risen again, and has poured out the Spirit of God into all who call belong to Jesus is of course completely crazy. There are Jews and there are Gentiles. That’s how the world is. And that is how we know who we are. And that is how we are safe.
Followers of the God who chose Abraham, of the Saviour of the slaves in Egypt, of the Ruler of the Hosts of Heaven are marked out not only by their theological commitments, ethical outlook, or special books they they read. They are marked in the flesh. Every boy born to these people God has called will be marked, and it will not be his choice. He will be circumcised on the 8th day and will carry in his flesh a claim he can never esape. Circumcision is a sign in the most hidden, the most intimate part, that you belong to the one who said I AM WHO I AM. From the bronze altar in the Temple to the furthest flung parts of the sprawling Empire it cannot be denied and it cannot be forgotten.
And when you’re surrounded by enemies, or at least by indifference and hostility, it is very good to know who is with you. Who can you marry? Who can you pray with? Who can you trust? Who belongs with you?
The Gospel claims us by water and word. We witness it, we see the moment God makes someone alive in Christ but when the water dries off there is no mark that we can see. The baptised have every opportunity to walk away, to deny the faith, and to fit in with the brutal and incredulous world. Is this really how the community of those saved by Jesus, called radically to follow Him, summoned to seek His kingdom and righteousness in all things, will work?
Our ancestors in the Faith in a Roman outpost called Galatia find their numbers swelling. The news of the Galilean who has conquered death and has spread and this new movement of people who have left behind all their old gods and sins is completely unprecedented. Much to the surprise of the Jews, these Gentiles want to follow the God they have known since they were called out of Ur of the Chaldeans. But the mark of belonging to that God is made in the flesh, it is not something so fragile as to be a simple oath and a ceremonial washing – is it?
And with all these new converts how much safer and more secure they will be! The bigoted administration and hostile city officals, the schools and businesses who do not welcome them, the courts and governors who disavantage them will have to take notice of all these people who wear in their flesh a pledge that cannot be denied. It is survival. It is peace. It is security. These converts are a boast against the Gentiles that the God worshipped in Jerusalem is the true God, the God of power and might.
St Paul does not tolerate this way of understanding the life of faith and the fellowship of christians. The fear of persecution and the desire to prove a point is not the reason the church exists. We are not one tribe competing for space in a crowded empire and we are not one constituent in a political plurality. And we are certainly not marked out by our moral perfection – or at least I am not. Circumcision was a pledge of the people who would live in Covenant of obedience to be witnesses to God’s goodness and love but as St Paul points out this is a promise no one can keep. Circumcision was a sign waiting for its fulfilment, a promise made by God that one day there would come from the children of Abraham One who would keep the Law and pour out blessing on all the nations. It came as quite a surprise that the one perfect lawkeeper should wind up being executed on a Roman cross but it turns out the only way for the misery of sin, the sadness of a divded humanity, and the horror of the death which claws at us from the darkness of the tomb is by the restoring of all things. And so on the third day Jesus rose again, ending that old world and beginning a new one.
The Galatians cling to that old world, the one of rules and tribes and strength and power. St Paul exposes this lie and lays bare the fear underneath it. For as Christ’s bright Kingdom is coming into this world the vanishing darkness rails against it with all its pitiful might. Those who belong to Jesus will be persecuted. This is not an accident. It is the case that those who belong to Jesus will be marked out, not with a ceremonial incision, but by the cuts, blows, and cruelties of a world which hates them. Paul bears in his own body the marks of the Lord Jesus, but these marks aren’t made by a parent or Priest. They are the scars made by the nails of the cross he picked up on the day he was blinded on the road to Damascus.
Our fellowship in Christ is so very fragile. Those of us who have been joined to Christ by Baptism retain forver the ability to deny it. It is an act that has witnesses, and we will testify to the world on behalf of our sisters and brothers that they belong with us in Christ but we cannot stop them denying it. There is no scar that proves they have been baptised. And yet, a life pledged to seek the Kingdom and His righteousness will not lack a mark somewhere. May we never be ashamed of the marks the cross has made in our own lives, for these are the evidence of a faith well lived, and may we always learn to cherish the marks of Christ in others, no matter how surprising or different from our own, for there we will find the true family to which we belong.
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Finally Human 