Sermon: Who Are We?

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Who Are We?

By Sarah Pomerantz

August 30, 2009

Galatians 3: 25-29

[ Audio (mp3, 2.8Mb) ]

owing up, my sister Carrie and I were often met with two responses when we would share with other kids that we had a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. First was, “AWESOME! You must totally rack up the gifts during the holiday season”. That was of course, not true. We often got one gift that was suppose to cover both holidays—and for me, it often covered my birthday which falls right after the holiday season. Second response was—“well, which half of you is Jewish and which half of you is Catholic. The right or the left”? Tough questions to answer when you are a child, and for Carrie and me, we were the only kids in our neighborhood in Northern Virginia who came from an interfaith household.

Our parents made it a point to educate us in both faiths, and to find us books geared towards the children of interfaith marriages. Despite all of this education, it was still hard to answer those questions and to have such deep conversations on the playground. I can't fault those classmates of mine from asking those questions because they were the questions I asked myself as I grew up. It is still a question I wrestle with today.

The truth is identity is complicated. No one is simply one thing or the other, and answering the question of “who we are” requires us to really think long and hard about that answer. We really are no different from that group of early Christians that Paul wrote to in Galatia. They too are faced with questions about who they are and no one really knows what these groups of Christians are supposed to look like. This question about the relationships between “these new non-Jewish converts and Jewish Christians, and between the emerging Christian movement and Judaism” [1] was the question for this community. Critical to this discussion was adherence to Moses' law. Some in Galatia believed that all Gentile converts should be required to follow the law, not just part of the law but the whole thing. This group was Paul's main detractor in Galatia, and Paul has to find a way to bring in these two groups, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians together.

Baptism becomes the great equalizer-erasing all of those social distinctions that would normally keep Jews and Gentiles apart. This baptism “…makes us one and gives us the potential of seeing each other, regardless of differences, as brothers and sisters, all baptized into Christ”.[2] All now are heirs to the promises made to Abraham.

Although we may feel removed from this community, those walls are still with us. Those “Religious/ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender differences in our day might not take the same labels as (Jew, Greek, slave and free, male and female). We may need to translate to new categories like Korean and African-American, Latino/Latina and Anglo, rich and poor, gay and straight, educated and uneducated, “High” church and “low church, young and old, and more. The differences, whatever we call them, still be divisive, not just in the world but also in the church”. [3] We only have to look to the person next to us in the pew this morning or on the train to work in the morning to see someone who is different than we are.

This passage is beautiful reminder of the radical equality found in God's kin-dom. It is true that, “Galatians 3:28 calls us to be…draw in together into oneness”. [4] However, that “oneness doesn't take away the differences” [5] that we see in ourselves and those around us. Those differences shape who we are and our identity. Oneness does not erase our gender, class, race, sexual identity, status or education level but rather it requires us to face those who we would normally find ourselves at odds with. It is recognizing everyone's right to have their own identity and allowing for that identity to have a place at the table.

We are all made to be unique and different from those around us. Our diversity is a reflection of God's image and while we have to reconcile those differences, we should also celebrate them as well. As we strive to become one, our diversity does not disappear. It is not stamped out so that we all become cookie cutter images of the “perfect Christian”. In fact, it will only become more apparent since we are all going to have to encounter those who are different than us.

Striving towards the oneness Paul writes about will always come with some pain and strife. Living “with oneness means confessing that we are both barrier builders and the weapon wielders. It means getting close to those who are most difficult to love… It means entering into the hard of working of reconciliation and allowing ourselves to also long for the unity Paul spoke about”.[6] Thankfully, “living with oneness can lead to working for more unity in the world.[7] This is how we can do the work that Christ started and that we have been commissioned to pick up.

So, who are we? We are many people striving to be one body. As I stand before you now, I am a Jew and I am a Christian. I am biologically female. I am white, American, and am still struggling to figure out my own identity. Those questions I faced at five are still questions I ask myself at twenty-seven. Yet I am sure that my identity, my diversity, my own self can be part of this oneness, as is everyone else's in this place.

When you leave this sacred space this morning and head out into the world, I urge you to contemplate who it is you are and how you can help us move into a spirit of oneness. Remind yourself that God created you and your neighbor to be reflections of God's self and that diversity is something to be treasured and protected. Leave this holy place ready to embark on a painful yet fulfilling journey of oneness and unity.

Amen.

[1] “Introduction to the Letter of Paul to the Galatians,” The New Oxford Annotated Bible ed., Coogan, Michael D., 309.

[2] http://www.luthersem.edu/word&world/Archives/20-3_Galatians/20-3_Williams.pdf

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.