The Cost of Being Clothed in Christ
From our Epistle this morning: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal 3:27).
Good morning, Church! I love Sunday sermons that serve up a healthy portion of bible study—especially when our theology and the gift of one’s reason supersede the literal reading of the biblical text. I begin with Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
There is no getting around it. Paul, their founding missionary, is testy. He accuses the churches of Galatia of being foolish and asks if they’ve been bewitched by rogue missionaries. He was once welcomed as their messenger of God, but now he feels betrayed because they have fallen victim to a first-century conspiracy theory that mandates circumcision for the Galatian Christian converts. Why does Paul care so much about the Galatians’ foreskins? Because he thinks they are being misled into believing that in order to become Christians, they must first become Jews by undergoing the rite of circumcision. Paul is having none of it.
His theological argument rests on Abraham, who received the covenantal promise and blessing from Yahweh long before he himself was circumcised. Paul implores the Galatians to understand that their conversion is enough, that their embrace of Christ has already placed them among the Chosen. They don’t need to “prove” themselves by undergoing the knife. This is what Paul means when he refers to the “yoke” of the law. In Galatians, the word “law” refers to circumcision. Paul instead offers these new converts a gift: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (3:26-27). His argument is that because of their belief, their faith in Christ Jesus, they have naturally been adopted into the family of Abraham.
In the next verse, we arrive at a powerful benediction: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Do note the use of conjunctions here. It’s subtle but telling. The first two couplets are binary—this OR that—Jew OR Greek, slave OR free. But the third couplet indicates a pairing—male AND female, a this AND a that.
Paul’s vision of a human nature restored in faith and baptism harkens back to the original creation stories in Genesis, when the first humans are created in the image of God. Male AND female: the defining and distinctive feature of human nature is not what separates the male and female genders but what unites them: the fact they are “of the same substance” and have been shaped in God’s image. In other words, the defining and distinctive feature of human nature is not gender but rather creation in the divine image.
Dr. Phyllis Trible, a preeminent feminist biblical scholar theologian, wrote that in both creation accounts the Hebrew word ‘adham is a generic term for humankind. “Not until the differentiation of female and male, ‘adham was basically androgynous—one creature incorporating two sexes.”1 The Hebrew, Greek and Latin all agree: before the human creature is declared to be two, scripture includes the detail that the human is made in the image of God. There is no “them” until they are announced precisely as male and female in the divine image.2 What this means for Paul is that when we’re shrouded in the baptismal clothing of Christ Jesus, distinctions of race, class, and gender are irrelevant.
The offer to clothe oneself with Christ is extended freely, with no strings attached, and grasped by all who receive it through sheer grace. But the life to which these new Christians are called entails costs. Christ is not merely draped over us like an outer covering but also knit into the fabric of our very being. We, like Paul, no longer live, but Christ lives in us. If Christ lives in us, then Christ also loves in us and through us.
Why am I focusing specifically on gender as it relates to this passage in Galatians? It’s because of the cost shouldered by our transgender and non-binary siblings who are family or members of the Cathedral Congregation—many of whom are sitting in the nave or watching on-line. And before you tune me out because you’ve had it up to here (point to top of head) with this political wedge issue of bathrooms and girls’ sports, please hear me out. An entire community of faithful, loving Christians has been cast out of the church, or worse, their own families, for not being worthy of God’s kingdom.
The biblical support for this exclusion is the first creation story in Genesis: God explicitly created two biologically different genders that cannot be changed or reimagined and should follow strict rules around gender comportment. To be clear the bible says nothing about transgenderism being wrong or sinful.
This issue is especially relevant now. One, because it is Pride month; and two, because the Supreme Court just last week upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors; and three, our nation’s two largest religious denominations have reiterated their belief that marriage is only valid in God’s eyes between a man and a woman. This theology implicitly erases non-binary people by supposing that no such people exist. Their argument is that the normalization of transgender ideology and same-sex marriage represents a rebellion against God’s design for male and female.
Many of you have heard me teach and preach this before: God’s revelation to God’s people did not end with the formal canonization of the bible in the year 382. God did not get out of the revelation business once this library of books was published. No, the Holy Spirit is alive, and moves and breathes within its pages. This is also why Richard Hooker’s 16th century theology of the three-legged stool resonates with us Anglicans. God gifted us with reason—a heart, mind and soul—to wrestle with and study scripture; to have permission to love God with our minds and to push back and disagree with respect. Of course, we believe in the authority of the Old and New Testaments, but this does not mean most Episcopalians read the bible literally or consider it inerrant.
I would also argue that we Episcopalians are not binary-minded people. We do not see the world as black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. It may be easier to live with and preach absolutes. But it is neither authentic nor realistic. Or world is not beige or grey—we live among a spectrum of colors, just as there is a full spectrum of humanity and gender in God’s creation. I like to think of our communal existence as a tapestry.
In the hands of a skilled weaver, the tapestry displays extraordinary artistry and fine detail. Its images are created by the master weaver in an interplay between the infinite colors and textures of different threads. But the back of a tapestry is a mess—it is covered in knots and loose ends—much like all of us.
In my pastoral ministry I personally know five families whose children have accepted themselves as transgender. I know a handful of adults who have sacrificed a great deal to accept and present to the world who they truly know themselves to be. Do you think that these people woke up one day and said, “My life is not hard enough. I think that I will come out as transgender. Gee, that sounds like fun!” I can assure you that they did not. Their lives were turned upside down and inside out. And as for the parents in these families, they did everything in their power to understand and accept, for the simple fact that they love their children and wanted to keep them alive and thriving no matter the societal costs to them.
You may or may not agree with my interpretation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians or the first creation account in Genesis. That’s okay. There is always room for healthy debate. What’s not okay is to demonize or call anyone a sinful counterfeit. My friends on the other side of the debate argue that from a scriptural worldview, a person can never thrive or flourish apart from living in harmony with God’s original design in creation, arguing, “The liability for sin occurs when one embraces the gender that is contrary to their biological sex.”3 I will go to my grave fighting against this version of ontological theology. I believe we are clothed in Christ who lives in us and because of it, Christ also loves in us and through us.
This theology proves difficult when we are confronted with Christ’s transformative grace and the new, inclusive realities to which we are called because of our faith. This is perhaps when more fundamentalist, binary thinking causes one to draw back in discomfort and fear. Instead, I invite our faith partners to wrap themselves more tightly in their baptismal promises and weave God’s love into the imaginations of their hearts. To become not only Christ’s living image but also his loving image. Amen.
1 Womanist Spirit Rising, A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, Harper Collins, p. 74. Tribble’s essay first appeared in Andover Newton Quarterly, 1973.
2 Greene-McCreight, Kathryn, “Galatians,” Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, p. 94
3 https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-transgender-fantasy