One Big Happy Family

Scripture:  Galatians 3:23-29

In Harper Lee’s famous book To Kill a Mockingbird the character Atticus Finch says, “You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family.”  Almost instantly, this idea became adopted as an “old saying” like a modern-day proverb.  The idea that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family may have been accepted as wisdom when the book was published in 1960, but today it is an idea that would be heavily disputed.  Across media, the found family trope has become incredibly popular.  Unless you just stay away from reading books, watching TV shows, or viewing movies then you have probably encountered this.  The found family trope is the belief that one can in fact choose one’s family, and often the main character does just that throughout the course of the story.  One of the strongest examples of this trope is the Fast and Furious franchise, which has included eleven different movies over the course of 21 years.  The whole concept of found family is perhaps best summed up in a line from one of the movies where the actor Vin Diesel’s character Dom says “I don’t have friends.  I have family.”  

The trope of found family is ubiquitous in entertainment media today, but that is likely because it reflects realities of culture today.   For instance, for the past decade “friendsgiving” has risen in popularity compared to the more traditional thanksgiving.  Friendsgiving is all about celebrating and being thankful for the people you choose.  A 2023 survey found that 40% of adults under 40 planned on being part of a friendsgiving celebration.  It would seem that large portions of our culture disagree with Harper Lee and believe you can choose your family.  Of course, the idea is nothing new, and it is in fact biblical.  This morning’s scripture is a prime example.   Multiple times it the New Testament we find ideas put forth like the one in this morning’s scripture.  Being a disciple of Jesus is being part of God’s found family.  The phrase “church family” is commonplace today, but when Paul wrote this morning’s scripture it would have been revolutionary.  In this morning’s scripture we find that not only do we find our family in Christ, but we should find our very identity.  

Many of the letters that Paul wrote were to specific churches in specific cities such as Corinth, Rome, or Ephesus.   Galatians, where this morning’s scripture comes from, is a bit different in that it was written to a region.  Galatia was a Roman province which Paul traveled in and established churches in this area.  This letter was written with the intent of traveling around to multiple churches in the area, and it was written for a specific purpose.  Apparently, some individuals had come to this area with a radically different viewpoint than Paul’s.  These individuals were Jewish Christians who believed that the Old Testament Jewish law applied to all followers of Jesus, and that one could not be a Christian unless they followed specific Jewish rites as prescribe in the law.   Paul strongly argues against this viewpoint, and one of his central arguments is found in this morning’s scripture. 

 The Jewish Christians who were attempting to get the Galatians to follow Jewish customs argued that it was through following the law that one was in right relationship with God, but Paul believed a relationship with God was found through faith.   This is stated in verse 26: “So, in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”  Paul is not just using flowery language.  He is not making an emotional appeal, but rather he is making an legal argument.   We stopped reading at verse 29 this morning, but Paul’s thought continues and in 4:4-5 he wrote, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

Under the Old Testament law, the relationship between God was built upon the law.  The condition of being God’s people is that the Israelites followed the law.  They were God’s people by virtue of having the law.  The Judaizers were telling the Galatians that Jesus did not change this, to be God’s people they still had to follow customs and rites outlined in the Torah.   Yet, Paul was consistently insistent that because of Jesus Christ the equation has been changed.  Through faith in Christ the relationship is not as God’s people, the relationship is now as God’s children.   The relationship is not dependent on following the law, the relationship is dependent on Christ alone.  Moreover, this is because through Christ God has adopted us.   Following the law to be God’s people, is dependent upon our actions, but being adopted by God as a child God, is dependent upon God’s actions.  It is brought about by God’s choice.   We are children of God, because God chooses us, God wants us, God loves us, and God has proven this love through the death and resurrection of his only begotten son Jesus Christ.     
   
God does not want our worship; God does not need our sacrifices.  What God wants is us.   God wants to be your Father.  God, the creator of the universe, the source of all that is good, the being that defines eternity and exceeds infinity, wants you to be their child. The beauty of this foundational truth cannot be overstated.  The simple elegance of it should not be overlooked or taken for granted.  In fact, this truth should be a foundational one for us.  It should go as far as informing who we understand ourselves to be.  Paul put forth the same idea when he wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 
The primary idea here is that our identity is found first and foremost found through Christ.   This means that when we stare at ourselves in the mirror, the person we see, the person we fundamentally understand ourselves to be above all else is a child of God.   This is a point of commonality and connection we share with all others who claim Jesus as savior.  Following or not following Jewish customs was causing division among the churches in Galatia, and Paul impressed upon them that they should look to their identity in Christ above those as Jews or Gentiles.   We are all God’s children and this core, common identity should be stronger than any difference that we might have.  Unfortunately, as followers of Jesus there are a couple of ways we have struggled to get this right.    

One of the ways we misstep is that we confuse what unity means.   What unites us all is that we are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.   Consistently we end up confusing this with meaning, Christians must be uniform in certain beliefs and practices.   This is what gave birth to Christian fundamentalism at the beginning of the 20th century.  Fundamentalism, which still lingers to this day, attempted to define what were the fundamentals of Christianity.  The flip side to this was considering anyone who did not agree with these doctrines fully as not a real Christian.    This confusion is also why every four years when there is a presidential election, a whole bunch of people will shout about how you can not be a true Christian if you vote for a specific candidate.  Unity does not mean uniformity.  What unites us is Christ.   I think John Wesley, the found of the Methodist movement said it best.  Wesley lived in a time when the religious motivated wars and conflict in Europe were only a few generations removed from his time.  Wesley also had some fundamental theological disagreements with his friend and fellow preacher George Whitfield, yet Wesely believed that the saving grace of Jesus was greater than all of these religious differences of opinions.  In his sermon, Catholic Spirit, Wesley preached, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.”

We are part of God’s family, because God wants us to be.   The family of God is big and the family of God is diverse.   The kind of Christian unity that Paul writes about, is not found by ignoring our differences.   It is not found by trying to all conform to one ideal.  It is found by seeing, claiming, and celebrating the vast diversity that is already found in the kingdom of God.  Because I promise you, you are going to spend eternity with people who do not look like you, who do not think like you, who do not believe like you, and who do not quite fit your mold of what you think a Christian should be.   God’s family is diverse and varied already.  Becoming a Christian does not erase that diversity.  Paul’s original audience in Galatia did not stop being Jew or gentile, male or female when they became Christians.  The differences and uniqueness remained.     The secret to Christian unity is to accept and celebrate that diversity.   God has adopted us into God’s family, and that is true of every single other person who professes Jesus as savior.  The secret to Christian unity is that we recognize this and we also choose one another as siblings in Christ.  The church is our found family. 

This means that when we cannot think alike, we choose to love alike.  It means when we encounter someone who does not quite fit the mold we are used to, we  do not seek to change them, but we seek to make space for them by loving them sincerely without question with a love that is deep from the heart.  When someone does not quite what we expect we do not exclude them instead we draw the circle wider still.  We expand our table to make room.  I like the analogy that John Pavalovitz uses in his book A Bigger Table.  He wrote about when there were large family gatherings the solution to fitting everyone was to go the garage and get the leaf which was added to literally make the table bigger.  Pavalovitz wrote, “We made room we didn’t have before.  This was a regular incarnation of the love of God right in the center of our home. . .This is the heart of the gospel: the ever-expanding hospitality of God.  Jesus, after all, was a carpenter.  Building bigger tables was right in his wheelhouse.”

 For me this is the best image of what it means to be in the family of God.  A big table, gathered together in love, breaking bread, telling stories, and enjoying being with one another.  It is a table full of different people, different colors, different opinions, and different lifestyles.   Yet the one thing that unites everyone is that they have a place at the table, this is the place where they belong, this is their family.   And what makes the table in the kingdom of God so special and so beautiful, is that there is always space to pull up one more chair. 

 In the province of Galatia there was division because some people sought to impose uniformity.   Paul wrote this morning’s scripture to offer a different vision of unity, a vision of unity that is based in our relationship with God through Christ Jesus.  We are adopted by God, which means we are siblings with all other Christians.   We are not here, because of who we are, we are here because of whose we are.  So may we find our identity in Christ.  May we claim adoption by God and our place in God’s family.   May that be what unites us above all else.   May we claim all of believers as our siblings in Christ as we celebrate the diversity of God’s family.   And may we draw the circle wide, because there is always room for one more.