Blessing All

Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29

 “Blessing All”

28 May 2017 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel Singapore

            Two weeks ago we explored the idea that there are no entry requirements to the church. In the passage from Acts Peter said that to place any requirement on someone to call themselves Christian other than the gifting of the Holy Spirit was to put an unnecessary yoke that wasn’t present at the start of the Church.

            Today Paul is telling us the same thing, but from a different perspective. He is placing this idea into an historical context with a present day reality. A long time ago God offered grace and salvation to one person based on his faith alone. Abraham. Our entire belief system comes from this welcoming of one person into God’s family.

            Now, to be fair there was a catch to God’s offer of grace to Abraham. He was blessed by God to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. Abraham was brought inside the family to bring others into the family. The founding father of our faith was instructed to seek out and bless the nations. He was given something for free and was expected to pay that gift forward. And so are we.

            Fast forward to Paul’s time and the issue he addresses in this letter to Galatia. The Galatians are excluding people from the fold by their reliance solely on the Law of Moses as the basis for calling someone Christian. Paul isn’t saying the law is no longer useful. The law is a guide for living that helps foster and strengthen individual and communal faith. It still plays that role today.

            Paul is explaining to the Galatians that the law isn’t the source of our faith. Christ’s resurrection shows us that our faith is rooted in God’s love throughout history, most concretely through the life of Christ on earth. Because of this there is no longer anything that is allowed to divide followers of Christ from each other. We are all baptized into Christ and thus we are all equal in Christ.

            And in our society that is so hard to accept. We strive to be better than the rest. We seek strength in numbers, in our likeness, in our solidarity to a common idea, common belief, common upbringing, etc. So, like Christians throughout the centuries we need frequent reminders that we are all in this together.   

What does it mean and what would it look like to have a world where the dividing lines of society don’t matter? Not that we eliminate all difference, but where difference isn’t a barrier. Where difference is celebrated and utilized rather than divisive and eliminated.

            Coming from the American Church, it can be hard to find those examples. Not just because those examples are rare on Sunday mornings, but also because American society tends to self-divide along all kinds of lines. It is said that 11am, the traditional church hour in America (and yes I know that has and will continue to change), is the most segregated hour each week.

            It is rare to find institutions and gatherings that reflect society. Most churches are overwhelmingly populated by one race, one socioeconomic group, or other single identifying marker that draws people to a particular congregation. Even schools in the States (public and private) eventually self-segregate despite some government intervention to have them reflect the societal demographics. Taking a look at school statistics on free or reduced lunch participants is eye opening.

            However, go to a sporting event and you’ll probably see a better cross section of society than what we see in our traditional institutions of society. Funny how Americans can cross all sorts of dividing lines over a game. Maybe sport is the one place we can go and forget about the burdens of society for just a moment and allow ourselves to be who we desire, not who society wants us to be.

            Do you find it a bit odd, society comes together more readily at an NFL or college football game than at a church?

            So, how do we make the church a place of no dividing lines where people come together over the commonality of being recipients of grace and love? How do we become the place longed for in the theme song from Cheers, “you wanna go where people know, people are all the same, you wanna go where everybody knows your name?”

            The first step is overcoming a fear of difference. Granted, the military does a pretty good job of helping to eliminate that throughout our intake training and the diverse workplace in which we find ourselves. But, we can always invite more into our lives allowing us to live a richer and fuller life full of new and stronger ideas and perspectives.

            Those of us in this building have a unique opportunity in our ability to travel throughout Southeast Asia with relative ease and minimal expense, both with work and on personal travel. We should be out there exploring strange new lands, meeting people with wildly different stories from ours who can show us ways to live and be joyful that we wouldn’t think of if we stayed in a bubble of first world comfort. I know my travels from Singapore the last two years have made me a better chaplain and person.

            Join a local club, interest group, gym, etc. Not only will your Singlish improve, you’ll receive grace and love from a community that is open to your difference so that you can see and feel how it would work for others to whom we extend the same hospitality.

            Read about the cultures you plan to visit or those whom you have already visited. This will give you a deeper insight into the culture you have interacted with because you will have an easier time relating to the writer because you have been there yourself. Additionally, it allows us to learn intricacies of a culture in a slow manner rather than the frying pan method we may encounter in our travels, which can get rather overwhelming in certain locations.

            One thing I should have done a long time ago for the chapel is to partner us with a local congregation that has English speaking pastors for a pastor exchange program where we can have a unique and Asian theological perspective here in the chapel on a regular basis. Asian theology is born from the unique challenges and history of this area and it can help us read the Bible in new and exciting ways while also allowing us to practice hospitality to someone quite different from us. I’m currently working to make something like this happen.

            When we work to incorporate these small steps into our lives, we’ll expand our welcoming spirit even more while also strengthening our theology and avoid the stumbling block that Paul addressed with the church in Galatia.

You can listen to sermons from St. Andrew's Military Chapel here.