LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961
lakewooducc.org
lakewooducc@gmail.com
Date: June 25, 2023
Scripture Lesson: Galatians 3:26-28
Sermon: The Forgotten Creed
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
This past week many people were riveted by a tragedy claiming the lives of those aboard a vessel which sank to the bottom of the sea.
Fifty miles off the coast of Greece, a fishing trawler with a capacity for 400 passengers may have been carrying up to 750 passengers when it sank after being stranded for several days awaiting assistance after making repeated distress calls for help. The ship finally capsized and sank. Aboard were immigrants from Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan who had paid up to $8,000 per person to be taken to Europe to seek a way to make a living. At the moment, it appears that there are 104 survivors and that all of the women and children aboard the vessel perished.
Or maybe the sea tragedy that had you riveted this past week was the ill-fated deep sea submersible Titan, missing for 4 days, carrying 5 passengers who had paid $250,000 each to see the resting place of the Titanic, some 13,000 feet below sea level. The search for the submersible included resources from several countries and covered an area of 10,000 square miles and 13,000 feet into the sea. Evidently, the vessel imploded and all 5 lives were lost.
Two horrific tragedies. At sea. Involving loss of life. Very similar. And also very different. And which captured the attention of the global community to a greater degree? I’m sure it was that submersible. I know I was checking the news constantly. Is it because it involved the infamous Titanic? Was it the glitterati that peopled the vessel? I’ll admit it, I was not tracking the news stories about the immigrants lost in the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece.
Somehow, we humans have a way of turning differences into divisions. And then making hierarchies that reflect those differences and divisions. That fishing boat had poor, struggling brown people on it. Expendables? Who were trying to escape an unlivable situation and make a better life for themselves and their families.
But the submersible, it had wealthy people on it. People who were prominent and successful and noteworthy. Yes, two were brown, from Pakistan, but on the top tier of that society. Not worrying about how to sustain a family and how to go on living like the Pakistanis on the fishing vessel. The people on the submersible were rich and famous and were notable because of the way our culture chooses to place different value on different kinds of lives and people.
Some years ago, I had a Black colleague tell me that in St. Petersburg, a Black life does not have the same value as a white life. Period. Money not withstanding. And we have seen this as prominent Black people have been treated in a degrading manner by police and other officials around the country.
Somehow, racism and sexism persist. Degradation of people who are not cisgender persists. In our culture. In western culture. In Christian culture. In some indigenous cultures, people who are ‘different’ in some way are esteemed. They are thought to be special. Holy. Maybe with special powers. But that is not the way in this culture. Different, I have been told by another Black colleague, different means other, and that means less than.
Different means other. And we turn that into ‘us’ and ‘them’. The ones who are like us, whom we trust and respect, and the ones who are not like us – whom we do not trust and respect. Because they are less than. Foreign doesn’t just mean different, it means less than. The whole system of difference and division, us and them, is often driven by fear – fear of being left out, fear of being less than, fear of not having enough, fear of not fitting in, and other fears as well. But we readily turn differences into division. And then there is competition and hostility that emerges.
Things were not so different in the context of the New Testament. We have inherited much from Greek and Roman civilization in Western culture. So, that should not be a surprise. Society was set up according to a caste system that included status based on citizenship, financial resources, ethnicity, gender, and religious affiliation. And so it is that Jewish men regularly prayed:
Blessed art thou who did not make me a Gentile;
Blessed are thou, who did not make me a woman;
Blessed art thou, who did not make me uneducated [or a slave].
[See The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism by Stephen J. Patterson, p. 32.]
Distinctions around race, religion, class, and gender are nothing new!
This is the context in which Jesus lived and offered his ministry. This is the context in which the apostle Paul sought to spread the gospel after Jesus’ death. Paul’s focus was on attracting and welcoming Gentiles, non Jews, into the communities of followers of Jesus. This invitation had certain issues – yes, one was diet. Jews kept kosher. Were Gentiles who became part of the Jesus community to keep kosher? And more importantly, another issue was circumcision. Jewish males had to be circumcised to be part of the Jewish community. Were Gentiles who became part of the Jesus communities to be circumcised? This was a major consideration in the time of emerging Jesus communities. And could be a significant obstacle to church growth! This was an issue of much contention among the circumcised leaders of the Jesus movement.
Paul decided that circumcision was not necessary to be part of the new communities that were forming around the Jesus tradition. The argument about justification by faith associated with Paul was about circumcision. Paul believed you could be justified by faith, you did not need to be circumcised, to be part of the Jesus community. We can see the issues of difference, division, less than, written all over this debate and this issue.
In the midst of all of this, we find the lines that were read today from Galatians:
Each one of you is a child of God because of your faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.
Scholars who analyze ancient texts have determined that in these verses, Paul is quoting a baptismal creed that was probably being used at the time. After studying the original language and the way Paul wrote, the creed that has been teased out of these verses may have been:
For you are all children of God in the Spirit.
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
For you are all one in the Spirit.
There is a wonderful book about all of this written by Stephen Patterson, a scholar of the Bible, early Christianities, and religion in general, called The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism. Patterson is a professor at Willamette University and very involved in Westar Institute which spawned the Jesus Seminar that studied what can be known about the historical Jesus. Before Willamette, Patterson was a professor at Eden Theological Seminary, a seminary of the United Church of Christ.
I heard Patterson give a lecture about the forgotten creed at a Westar Event a few years ago. It was so exciting. The book is very good and I recommend it if you would like to know more.
To me, it is very significant to learn about one of the first creeds of the people who followed Jesus and what was important to them:
For you are all children of God in the Spirit.
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
For you are all one in the Spirit.
Now, let’s remember that the society of Greek and Roman origins was a caste system. It was extremely stratified. There were classes. And there were slaves – largely the spoils of war. And there were serious restrictions on the rights of women relative to the rights of men. So, this:
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
was not just symbolic, poetic language. This creed wasn’t lofty and dreamy. It wasn’t flowery metaphorical language. It was radical revolution. These phrases were related directly to the prayer of the Jews cited earlier, the three parallel dyads, and this creed was a direct commentary on the most ingrained divisions that defined society.
And notice what this early, maybe first, forgotten creed does not mention. The creed was used at baptism to mark new life in Christ. And Patterson points out that this creed does not mention the attributes and character of God. It says nothing about the character and nature of Jesus Christ and how he saves people from their sins through his crucifixion and resurrection. It says nothing about heaven or eternal salvation. It talks about people, here and now, and the foundation of human identity which is not in our differences, but in our sameness – we are one. The creed is a testament to solidarity.
This creed is one of the earliest statements about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and part of a community of Jesus. It was a statement of solidarity with others as children of God. Regardless of heritage or characteristics or status in society. A child of God. And so each and every person was sacred. All have this in common. And that created a commitment to solidarity, to oneness.
This was as far out then as it is now. And it wasn’t long before the church developed new creeds and left this one largely behind. So Patterson calls his book, The Forgotten Creed.
I think it is well past time that the church remember this creed. Recite this creed. And recommit to this creed. And work at remediation of all the damage that the church has done by ignoring and denying this creed.
Could the church of Jesus Christ say –
There is neither democrat nor republican?
There is neither city dweller nor rural, small town dweller?
Could we say there is neither first world nor developing world?
There is neither rich nor poor?
There is neither white nor Black nor brown nor Asian?
Could we say there is neither east nor west?
Could we say there is neither trans, nor straight, nor gay, nor cis?
All are one?
Sociologists and statisticians tell us that the Christian church is largely behind the culture wars in this country. The church has veered far from it’s origins.
And since this is Pride month, I want to comment briefly on the division of gender and the related topic of sexuality. In that early baptismal creed, there is reference to no Jew or Greek, slave or free, and then, male and female. The last phrase, the connector is ‘and’, not ‘or’. It’s not male or female, but male and female. Patterson offers a very interesting perspective on this phrase. Apparently, this goes back to the understanding of the creation story in Genesis. It was thought that God originally an earthling. This earthling was nongendered. But for procreation and social relations to ensue, there was the need to have two genders, so this earthling was divided into two, male and female. So the last phrase of the creed, There is no male and female, is a reference back to the origin stories in Genesis when a human was an earthling, maybe androgynous, but not gendered. This is the recalling of an ideal state because with gender, difference, turned into division and subjugation, as it usually does. With gender came the power dynamics of male dominance borne out in society and in the church.
Patterson cites how in the first communities of Jesus women were prominent as leaders. They were really living out the creed despite the social context that strongly mitigated against that. Baptism, new life, really meant a different orientation of values and relationships. It was about being one. In solidarity. Everyone a child of God. That was the primary identity of all who were baptized.
But oneness is not sameness. When we are rooted in this fundamental oneness, then we can talk about diversity without diversity leading to division and hierarchy. With a basic foundation of oneness, as human beings, we can explore and examine our differences without fear and without creating constructs that stratify and glorify one construct over another. Oneness makes it possible to celebrate diversity, to share differences, with appreciation and not fear. It makes it possible for us to learn about each other and from each other in a way that is mutual and fosters interdependence not hierarchy and subjugation.
This Pride season is a time to celebrate differences. It is a time to appreciate who we are as human beings in all of our diversity and difference. It is a time to appreciate the wide spectrum of identities and proclivities of our amazing species. And for people who follow Jesus all of these differences and divergences are grounded, rooted, in our oneness as children of God. This solidarity leads us to appreciate, celebrate, and value who we are in all of our rainbow diversity. And the oneness, this valuing of each and every person, expresses itself in respect, dignity, and equal rights for all. That is what the church should stand for in society.
For you are all children of God in the Spirit.
There is no Jew or Greek,
there is no slave or free,
there is no male and female;
For you are all one in the Spirit.
This oneness is radical. It is revolutionary. And we need to reclaim this forgotten creed. This abandoned creed. For it is needed to save the church. And to save the world. The basic premise of our Christian faith is: WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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