One in Christ Jesus

Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2025: 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a;
Psalm 42 and 43; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

I was going to write today about how God comes to us in a sound of sheer silence. And maybe I was going to write something about how the passage from Galatians has been misused to proclaim an antisemitic message (through, I learned this week, mistranslation), and possibly something about the contrast between the Legion of demons which had possessed the man, and the small gesture of Jesus in releasing them. But the decision by the president last night to intervene in the war between Israel and Iran and to bomb Iran changed that. We now read these lessons in light of the war we are now part of, and the many unknowns that face us in the weeks ahead. War, as some of you know more directly than I do, is always unpredictable. We always read scripture in the present, and this week the present is in our face.

I want to start by reminding us that we can think two things at once. We can think (as American leaders have for the past 20 years) that we do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, and that Iran has been a supporter of violence, often against civilians, in Lebanon and Israel in particular. Chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” have been staples of government propaganda. But we can also acknowledge that attempting to solve this problem through bombing has consequences that challenge our faith. Since Israel first attacked Iran there have been significant casualties among civilians in Iran, and as Iran has responded, in Israel as well. We must remember that governments are not the same as the people. We pray, as we must, for all those caught up in wars that have been started for other reasons.

But what do our readings have to say to us in this time? The reading from 1 Kings tells the story of Elijah fleeing after he had killed the false prophets. Jezebel has threatened to kill him, and he is afraid. Fear is a logical response when someone threatens to kill you. He runs, first to Beersheba, where he left his servant, and goes a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down “under a solitary broom tree”, and asks to die. He fell asleep, and an angel came to him and told him to get up and eat: suddenly there was a cake and a jar of water. He slept again, and then again the angel woke him and told him to eat so he has strength for the journey. And that food kept him going for 40 days and 40 nights, to the mount of Horeb. He found a cave in which to spend the night, and is told that if he goes to the mountain before the Lord, the Lord is about to pass by. First there is a great wind, and then an earthquake, and the a fire. Only then is there the sound of “sheer silence”. And there Elijah encounters the Lord.

It is important, I think, that the Lord is not present in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in silence. Silence. It is hard to find in our world, but it is only there that we have time to hear the Lord. As we think now about how we as individuals respond to war, may we seek out the silence.

But we have another reading today that is challenging, Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Galatians is one of the oldest books in the New Testament, written probably less than 20 years after Jesus’ death. It is important to talk about it because it has often been read to say that Judaism is inadequate. Diane Butler Bass reminded me this morning that Paul was writing in the midst of a huge argument among the leaders of the early Jesus movement about how gentiles were to be integrated into what had been a Jewish movement. Do converts need to become Jews to become Christian? Did they have to follow the law? Did they need to be circumcised? Paul’s answer to that was a vehement “no”, but at the point he is writing, he thinks he has lost the argument. So his discussion of the law is not about the law being bad, but why it gentiles do not have to become Jews to be Christian. Bass suggests that the word “disciplinarian” might better be translated “tutor”, which changes the tenor of the passage significantly. It’s not that the law is bad, but for those who have encountered Jesus, the law is incorporated into his teaching.

The passage from Galatians ends with the amazing affirmation of inclusion, one of the earliest Christian creedal statements. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free people, male and female all are “one in Christ Jesus”. Except: the Greek does not include the words “no longer”. A literal translation of the Greek, according to Bass is:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

One of the things that happens when nations go to war is that we create images of those we have defined as enemies that make them less than human. But what Paul says here is that we are all already one: it doesn’t depend on anything. Jesus did it to the world. We are all one in Jesus. There are no qualifications. All those involved in the war–Israelis, Iranians, and now Americans, are all one, connected. It doesn’t depend on what people believe. It is because Jesus lived.

As we live through the weeks ahead and whatever they bring, we must remind ourselves to listen for the voice of God in the silence. And remember, with Paul, that the distinctions of this world are not distinctions God makes. There is no special place in heaven for any one group, because we are all welcomed by God. Our prayers must be with all those who are victims of war. And pray for the leaders of the nations that wisdom prevails. The Book of Common Prayer offers us this:

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of kustice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.

May we always remember that we are one in Christ Jesus.