Children of Promise
This sermon was proclaimed on June 22, 2025, at Open Hearts Gathering Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It is based on Galatians 3.23-29
In today’s gospel reading, we have a piece of one of Paul’s letters to the area of Galatia, also known as Gal (this area is now associated with England and the British Isles). He is writing to a group of both Jewish and Gentile crowds. He is speaking of what the work of Christ did in a world that tries to enslave us with not only guilt but also shame.
Frith, Francis. Mount Horeb, Sinai, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55613 [retrieved June 21, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francis_Frith_(English_-_Mount_Horeb,_Sinai_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.
Paul says that Christ came to save us from a world that seeks to hurt and, more importantly, grant us life and wholeness in a world that would much rather leave us shattered and without hope. Paul says that in Christ, we are all children of God
In verse 25, the word there for “disciplinarian” is fun. It is the Greek word παιδαγωγόν (paidagōgon). It occurs only once in the canon, and it is only in this section of the pericope. Some translate it as “tutor”, “jailer”, “teacher”. A closer visual representation is a trainer in the scheme of things. Maybe it’s a barbell that one lifts to stretch and exercise the muscle before one does a heavy lift.
Paul is trying to tell us that the law came as a trainer to prepare us for the work of Christ. That isn’t to say that Jewish people must accept Christ to get into heaven. In Paul’s mind, there were parallel tracts. Hence, Paul’s discourse in the first three chapters of Romans. Romans is the fullest version of Paul’s theology we can get in the contemporary church. God sent the law . Giving Jewish people a way to create a community and a system that enabled the Kingdom of God to begin to exist. The only way a Gentile could be saved before Jesus and have freedom was to convert to Judaism. Jesus then came into the world. In Christ, there is no Jewish or Gentile, male or female, we are all part of the one Kingdom, in unity in all our freedom that comes from the love which grows and adds to the good in the world.
We have to remember, tho as well, that in the mind of the Palestinian Jew, the laws and codes were not given to make a million glass vases on shelves that were easily to break. In the mind of the first-century Jewish person, they had built a fence around the law to protect the law. If one didn’t break the code around the law, they didn’t have to worry about breaking the major law.
For much of the history of the United States, the very principle of Freedom in Christ and the Reformation was used as a bulwark and reason to do good in the world. Nowadays, Evangelical is a bit of a dirty word. It has been covered with 30 years of regressive thought that continues to haunt the church. Before the 1980s, Evangelical meant one who was working their hardest to do their best to make the world better. The most famous Evangelical books were by Henry Fosdick in the 1920s.
In Christ, we are all now creating the Kingdom of God. We are free to live in love and love the world, healing the world. In Christ, our faith is justified, and through our actions, we should act like it. Our actions should show us approved and saved. For much of church history, we were blinded by the empire and tied to one wrong horse or the other. Yes, so much that the church continues to get a bad rap, and so many people don’t want to do church like it was done in the 50s and 60s, which would enable violence against women and LGBT people. It did this through aligning itself with political ambitions and corrupt devotions, especially greed. We all know the root of all evil is the love of money, and that leads us to imprison our neighbors and, by extension, ourselves. This is summed up in the final verse of this pericope. Verse 29 tells us, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.” It is through Christ that we are grafted onto the tree of life. We are indeed children of the promise. The promise of hope that came to liberate the people of Israel, the children of promise, which fed the Israelites when they wandered the land. We are children of the promise, following Jesus who fed the five thousand. Who stepped beyond the law and was the very fulfillment of the law. We are children of Promise and must remember the freedom that the love of Christ creates. May it be so. Amen!