GALATIANS 2-3 (REIMAGINED)
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. Galatians 3:28 NRSVUE
I reimagined Galatians 2-3 as a letter Paul wrote to the churches of America today for a sermon I gave at Paradox on August 2, 2025
1:2-5
To the Christian churches in America,
Grace and peace to you in the eternal name of Christ and the human name of Jesus! Even though seas, and language, and time separate us, may we always remember we are united in God’s unending love. Forever and ever, Amen.
1:6
Now that that’s out of the way, allow me to speak truthfully: I am aggravated by how easily you abandoned the way, the truth, and the life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to flee recklessly to the comfort of infantile religion.
1:7-9
May God curse any human being who proclaims the name of Jesus Christ and then profanes that sacred Name with the erroneous claim that Jesus Christ desires our strict devotion to a set of religious rules or to a collection of religious doctrines or to national patriotism or to a specific political party.
1:10
I do employ such harsh words against you so that I may be popular, or edgy, or woke, or so that I may gain a large number of clicks on Twitter or X or whatever you call it now.
No.
I tell you these things because I am a servant of Christ, and I cannot stay silent as I witness Christians in America attempt to wrap their feeble little arms around the Name of Jesus Christ and squeeze it down to the size of an American flag.
1:11-12
My sisters, my brothers, and my friends, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not an American flag, or any nation’s flag for that matter. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a set of specific religious beliefs or any rules, laws, or regulations for that matter. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not even the Christian church, or any one religion for that matter. For all of these creations are the work of human hands and human minds.
However, the Gospel of Jesus Christ always has been, always is, and always will be a gift from God. Which means the human inventions of flags and borders and religion simply cannot contain this eternal Gospel completely. Which means the Gospel exists in the air we breathe, in the joy we share, in the tears we shed, in the rain that falls, and in the food we eat.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is God is love and this love existed long before you were born and this love will continue to thrive long after you are dead.
2:15-16
And while this love is so often professed in your weekly pulpits this love is so rarely practiced in your daily patterns. To illustrate this, may I ask you, do you believe in the church doctrine Salvation by Faith?
This doctrine originated five centuries ago from the German theologian Martin Luther, who championed the latin phrase Sola Fide, which translates to English as “By Faith Alone.”
Luther composed this doctrine because of his anger that the church of his day was selling God’s forgiveness. Outraged by this audacious claim to own the forgiveness of God, Luther preached God’s forgiveness could not be purchased. Instead, God gave forgiveness freely to all of us regardless of how much or how little money we possess, and our task then is to trust in God’s forgiveness.
Sola Fide became the cornerstone of the Reformation and revolutionized the way people thought about God, the Christian tradition, and humanity. This doctrine exposed church leaders as fragile men pretending to be in charge of gifts that never belonged to them in the first place.
Martin Luther introduced Sola Fide over 500 years ago now,
and the overwhelming majority of Protestant Christians say they believe in this doctrine today.
2:18
But when I look at your behavior, I see so many of you falling to that same temptation that Sola Fide warned us about: You seek to claim ownership to the things which belong to God. So many of you falsely claim America to be God’s chosen nation. So many of you preach salvation can only be found in your church. So many of you audaciously insist God’s salvation is for a select few.
2:19
Why do you tell people God can only love them if they follow rules which rob them of pleasure? Why do you tell people God can only redeem their life if they swear blind allegiance to your specific set of doctrines?
I have lived that life my friends, I too have taken God’s billions and reduced it to pennies. I will tell you living in that way feels like death. And it was not until I could accept this living death that I could begin to glimpse the sheer wonder of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2:20-21
For when Jesus Christ walked among us, He did not exist merely to die as part of some unobservable cosmic transaction. Instead, Jesus Christ showed us how we might trust God’s love in the face of oppression, taxation, betrayal, and death.
And if you have ever tried to follow the way of Jesus Christin light of the sufferings of our existence, then you know following His example often feels backwards, often feels wrong, or often feels too permissive.
But this, my friends, gets to the heart of Sola Fide. When we live by faith alone, we live in a way that trusts the counterintuitive directions Jesus Christ leads us to find love in life’s most difficult situations. And yes, this trust leads us to places which are irrational. If the Gospel led us to obvious places, then Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection mean nothing, for human beings will always follow the path of least resistance unless we consciously choose otherwise.
3:1-5
Which is why I am so aggravated when I see you behavior today: You all look like idiots when you wave your American flag as you sit on your mountains of wealth and sing “God Bless America” at the top of your lungs. May I rudely interrupt your chorus and ask, “How is this not the most obvious path? How has Jesus Christ led you in a counterintuitive direction if you wind up back at the place where you believe God’s blessing is in wealth, military might, and world dominance?
Do you really think God’s favor is found in how rich a country is? Do you really think God’s love is dependent on nuclear stockpiles? Do you really think God’s devotion is limited to one political party?
If the answer is, “Yes,” to any of these questions, then the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a waste of time!
3:6-9
Remember the story of Abraham when, in the middle of his family’s difficult struggle with infertility, God led him out into the moonless night and said, “Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them! So shall your seed be.”
And, with starlight in his eyes, what did Abraham do? He believed God. In his suffering, he chose to trust that somehow, someway, there could be either meaning or a resolution in a life of infertility. And that trust, Genesis tells us, led Abraham into righteousness. Or, in Christian terms, Abraham’s trust led him into salvation. Not his money, not his military, not his doctrines, not his citizenship, and not his religious rules.
Abraham trusted God and God led him into a life that was good even if that life included the heartbreaking experience of infertility.
This is why, a little earlier in the story, God gave Abraham a vision about the kind of life God wanted Abraham to lead. God said to him, “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed!’ Notice how God did not say, “Your will be blessed by God more than anyone else. Instead, God said, “Your family will be a blessing to everyone you encounter!”
So when you Americans warble your little tune, “God Bless America,” I say you look like idiots because you voice a desire to become the exact opposite of who God wants you to be! You should sing a song entitled, “May America Bless the World!”’ or “May We Bless All People on Earth!” God called Abraham to this counterintuitive direction and God continues to call us in that same direction today.
3:10-14
To give you an idea of how radical this counterintuitive direction actually is, let’s consider the book of Deuteronomy. This book contains a sermon delivered by Moses to the children of Israel right before his death. About halfway through this sermon, Moses states a simple rule: “…anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” This law about a corpse on a tree does not allow for a lot of gray area. You either die on the ground like a normal person or you die on a tree, like a freak, under God’s curse.
And just when everything appears to be obvious, Jesus Christ comes along, as the very incarnation of God mind you, and what does he do?
HE HANGS AS A CORPSE ON A TREE!
Why on earth did God do this? To remind us that the Gospel moves in the most counterintuitive direction even when our religion, our Bible, and our nation adamantly states God is moving in the most obvious direction.
If your belief in God leads you to believe that God loves you more than everyone else then you are not trusting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If your belief in God leads you to believe that God loves your nation more than all other nations then you are not trusting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If your belief in God leads you to believe that the goals of capitalism are the goals of God, then you are not trusting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You are not living Sola Fide!
3:16-18
A skeptic may object to the words in this letter and say, “But Paul, God spoke to Abraham specifically about his blood descendants. This implies God prefers to claim a small group of people as ‘God’s chosen people’!” Therefore, the skeptic argues, we should strive to become God’s chosen people, a people who are set apart from the rest of the world by our beliefs, our religion, or our country.
While the skeptic’s argument may appear to hold water it falls apart rather quickly when we look closely at the text. For God did NOT make a promise to Abraham about his “seeds. God made a promise directly to Abraham about his “seed.” Singular.
I believe, and I trust, and I live my life by the understanding that this singular seed is Jesus Christ who, paradoxically, existed before, during, and after the lifetime of Abraham.
For most of my life, I trusted in the religious rules of my tradition. I believed strict adherence to our laws set us apart and made us worthy in God’s eyes to be the recipients of eternal law. In my mind, our blessing to the world would be found in the way we lived, in the Sabbath we kept, in the food we refrained from eating, in the temple we revered, and in the festivals we celebrated.
But now that I am older, I see the fatal flaw in my thinking. For God did not give the law to Abraham, the patriarch of our tradition. God gave the laws to Moses who lived 430 years after Abraham. God called Abraham to bless the world, and God, apparently, did not believe Abraham needed the law to do it. So why do we insist that our rules or doctrines will save us today?
3:19-22
Upon reading this letter, a Christian in America may deduce that I am advocating for the elimination of the United States or for the demolition of local churches or for the burning of all established doctrine or the desertion of the Bible and all of the rules in it.
I am most certainly not.
3:23-24
What I am advocating for is that we might lower the United States of America, our local churches, our civic laws and religious rules, our fragile egos and even our Bible to their proper place while simultaneously elevating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the highest level of trust within our lives.
These imperfect human inventions of nations, congregations, beliefs, and rules are necessary for us to function as a society, but these same human conceptions become idols when we put them on the same plane as the gifts God gave to us.
Jesus Christ invites us to transcend these human inventions so that we might learn to trust love in the most difficult situations.
3:25-26
In the nineteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus, God leads Moses in a counterintuitive direction when God describes what makes a nation holy. According to Leviticus, God deems a nation to be holy when that nation welcomes immigrants with open arms, treats them as one of their own citizens, and even loves them as much as they would love themselves.
Notice how God offers no caveat as to whether these immigrants arrived with documentation or not.
If you trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you will never arrive at the conclusion that God loves you more than another human being because of your citizenship, religion, or behavior. Instead, your trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ will lead you in the counterintuitive direction to an ocean of compassion for every immigrant who seeks refuge within your borders. This is full belief in Sola Fide.
3:27
And so my brothers, my sisters, and my friends in the American church, I’m asking you to lower your flags, and to let go of your need to be superior to one another. Instead, put on the clothes of Christ and trust God’s hand as you begin to walk in counterintuitive directions.
3:28-29
For in Christ Jesus, there is no longer documented or undocumented, there is no longer American or Canadian or Mexican or Kenyan, there is no longer Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Jew oh Hindu, there is no longer rich or poor or middle class, there is no longer gay or straight, cis or trans, binary or non-binary, there is no longer democrat or republican or independent, for all of you are one in the immutable love, grace, and salvation of Christ Jesus and heirs to the promise of Abraham to bless all nations, all people, and all things with your short and beautiful time on this planet.
Amen.