What are the biblical texts that are constantly rolling around in your brain? For me, one of those texts is today's reading from Galatians 3:23-29. It's one of the passages that has become one of the “keys” I use to read the Bible. Scripture interprets scripture and Galatians 3 helps me do that. In this passage, I see questions about what faith, the law, and life are all about. I find myself sitting in awe at the phrase "justification by faith." And I feel joy knowing that I am a child of God. But I’m a bit terrified at what exactly that means. I see in these verses a challenge to live a life that is much easier said than done. Not every piece of scripture we find rattling around in our brain is going to, necessarily, give us answers. Instead, these texts might continually challenge us as we figure out what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

Paul, in the two and three decades after Jesus' death and resurrection, was on a mission to form Jesus communities throughout the Roman world. He believed that Jesus' was about to return to earth so he tried to create communities that related to each other "as though they were in the very presence of God.*" Paul created "outposts of life 'in Christ'" which were communities living as what he imagined life with God looked like. Our lives, in Christ, change the social distinctions in our community. Human relationships would be re-oriented. Those at the lower social statuses would be brought up while those with higher social status would come down. Through baptism and faith, we would be leveled out by God.

Paul, in verse 28, does something very subtle. In a series of binaries, he shifts from "or" to "and." In Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. In the letters scholars believe Paul wrote, he appears to regularly critique the male and female binary within the church. Women were identified as house church leaders, interpreters of letters, prophets, and leaders of prayer. The binary deep within Roman culture was broken down through a universal call grounded in spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. Leadership, for Paul, was not limited by gender. For him, the Cross has already replaced our divisions with a different story. God loved all of us too much to let us experience life alone. Our unity with God is a unity that should be reflected in our treatment of each other. The binaries and distinctions we put into place are not necessarily from God. But God’s call to listen, follow, and cling to Christ is a call that trumps all.

*The Rev. Jane Lancaster Patterson, Commentary on Galatians, Working Preacher.