This passage for today is a bit of a challenge.  It is Paul in some of his best and is not written to read and understand fully in the first reading.  Because he was writing to Christians at the Church of Galatia dealing with some particular problems and misunderstandings or questions that they had in faith.  Remember, this was before any Scripture of the New Testament.  This was where a gathering of Christians were concerned and growing and on the cutting edge, and Paul is writing in response.  Now if we look at the basic breakdown as most Bibles will say in the third chapter starting with Verse 15 of Galatians is the “Law and the Promise”.  And so Paul goes back and forth.  He’s more writing what might be called a “theological treatise”.  And so I could have taken about eight or ten different major ways. 

            I’m going to focus on only one for today; and it doesn’t come until the end of the passage.  And I believe what you’re going to actually have projected will be Verses 23-29.  But I want to start a little earlier and then we will pick up on that projection when we get to Verse 23.  Now a little bit more setting.  You’ll also see maybe a glimpse of where I am going.  It’s called “Theory of Relativity or my Old Uncle Leo”.  And I’ll introduce you to Uncle Leo a little bit later.   

            Starting with Verse 19 of the third chapter of Galatians Paul says, “What, then, was the purpose of the Law?  It was added because of transgressions until the seed, to whom the promise referred, had come.  The law is put in to effect through the angels by a mediator.  The mediator, however, does not represent just one part; but God is one.  Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God?  Absolutely not!  For if the Law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness could certainly have come by the Law.  But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin; so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.”  And starting with Verse 23, “Before this day came, we were held prisoners by the Law; locked up until faith should be revealed.  So the Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.  Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.”   

            And that’s Paul’s tussling with law, grace, living under the Spirit, and there are many other days that we could spend focusing more on that.  But I wanted to precede it with that statement as we come up to the last verse because that is the focus for today.  Verse 26, and this is generic, it doesn’t mean just male gender of sons.  “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  Therefore, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”  May God add wisdom to the reading of this, God’s Holy Word. 

            The question for me, theory of relativity, to whom am I related?  Is it my Uncle Jim, Uncle Bob, Aunt Rita, or old Uncle Leo or my grandparents?  Of course, I’m related to them!  My genealogy tells me so, and many other generations before.  I started to go down one of those pathways of a generation though and someone told me that one of our ancestors was a red-haired horse thief in Kentucky; and I didn’t want to go down that generation anymore.  But it also points out that a good common statement is, today, that you are related to your family no matter what they do.  Some of us can accept that and some of us can not.   

            But based upon that, I created this statement, “In the blood…” and listen for the terms; we’ll explain a little bit more, “In the blood and the water of the human family, we are all equal in God’s creation.  For us to act differently is against God’s creation and God’s law of how we are to live life on this planet.”  The blood and the water—we understand the blood fairly clearly.  At least, let me hope that you do.  From the very beginning of creation in Genesis, God inspired the writer to place these words when God says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”  And know the plurality of the verbs and that’s understandable.  “And let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  Verse 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.  Male and female he created them.”  Both the plurality of God and also the plurality of man in male and female. 

             That’s a powerful beginning!  Simply put, what God is saying, we all have a common root, we all have a common ancestor, a common genealogy, we have one blood that ties us all together.  The whole human race is born of one creator and in one image with one biological connection.  That’s what God is trying to say to us.  Now we fuss with God ever since and we find reasons to divide and separate more than to put together.  But the blood of our veins ties us to all other peoples of all time.  That’s why I believe the commonly used phrase has an intention and a current understanding to say that “blood is thicker than water” is an okay statement at least at the offset.  You’ve heard that said, “Blood is thicker than water”.  People in the same family are related by blood and blood is thicker than any other, and in this case I believe water is meant to be other relationships.  For example, you may have said it yourself, “When my best friend and my brother got in to a fight, I had to help my brother because blood is thicker than water.”  Family relationships trump other relationships.  That’s what it simply means.  It compares the thickness of a family tie.  This is my family, this is my genealogy, and that’s what I owe my allegiance to and my loyalty. 

            And that sounds fine.  Friends will come and friends will go, they say, but your family is always there for you whether you want them to stay that long or not.  That’s another side of family.  So we take that phrase.  But then we can’t look at that, as a human race, and understand why then can we get along better in family?  Our history and our current events tell us that we have problems with this.  Maybe it is because the phrase is wrong in the first place!  Actually, if you look back at the base of the phrase, “blood is thicker than water”, this is what it really means—it is the blood of the covenant.  And the covenant is based in the Old Testament understanding of being found a relationship through a pledge to each other regardless of family inheritance.  The blood covenant is stronger than all other relationships particularly, and here is where water is finally identified, the water of the womb.  Meaning we are all born of our mothers and through that the water of the amniotic fluid.  We are born in and out of water.  That’s what the water means. 

            So it means something in this blood covenant is stronger than our own birth.  In 1 Samuel 20:16-17 in the Old Testament, it’s where Jonathan and David make a pledge to each other that becomes stronger than blood brothers, meaning blood of inheritance and of the water.  It means that David and Jonathan swore to each other that they would love each other for ever in that bond, in that thing that goes stronger than even family connections.  Jesus even used that phrase when he said in Mathew 26, “And He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of it for this is my blood in the new covenant of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”  That’s all steeped in an ancient ritual that is found in the Old Testament where in a sacrifice you would sacrifice an animal and the blood that would come from that, the two who were making their oath and their commitment to each other would stand in that blood and that would seal them.  You can also think of it as maybe you did as a child cutting a finger, touching the blood together.  The whole purpose is to say that there is something rare even in the families that we are born in to which is the opposite of the first phrase that I used for you.  This relationship, born of this union, was to knit people together stronger than anything of earthly connection.   

            So it leaves me for a second statement.  Remember the first one about our human connection because we are all blood of the same creator?  There is that family bond that is there that is our blood relationship with all other humankind.  But in the spiritual family, the blood covenant of Christ unites and binds everyone together to be equal in God’s sight and presence.  For us to act differently is against God’s Holy Spirit’s direction on how we are to live life in God’s Kingdom here on earth and for eternity. 

            The purpose now is to understand that in Christ there is the blood covenant, the shedding of Christ’s blood, which allows for us now to be bound together in a higher plan, if you will, a higher level, an eternal kingdom, not just our families of this earth.  We call that the Church of Jesus Christ and yet, as it says, we are to act differently and to act in a way that is responsible to each other.  If water represents when we are born, the blood of Christ represents when we are united in a new way.  When our mothers gave birth to us, that bound us in one way to all of human family.  When Christ died upon the cross, that binds us together spiritually with all others who accept that binding.  “There is no greater gift, then to lay down ones life for a friend,” is quoted in Scripture.  That is the friendship that is eternal and universal. 

            Remember, our bonds happen in marriage.  We are married to friends, not family.  It is a spiritual union in that aspect.  When two come together to form one in the marriage covenant and they do not understand it to be something greater and spiritual then their original families, they probably will have problems.  In fact, we are supposed to leave our birth family in order to start our own.  That’s how the generations continue on in the physical realm.  But we are also called by Christ’s offer, to leave our families of this earth and become part of the family of God. 

            So this phrase, misunderstood, needs to be understood in its foundation because it has a greater depth.  It also helps parents to understand that they first must follow Christ in their lives before they understand the full implication of their training and raising their children to know the values of their family, yes, but more importantly the values of God in their hearts and their lives.  This is when the water of family is fulfilled fully and completed in the blood of Christ.  So we are meant to be “one big happy family” connected by the water of our birth and the blood of Christ’s covenant of the atonement. 

            So why aren’t we one big happy family?  Honestly, pastor’s will know better than any one else.  I remember a quote from a friend who couldn’t believe how cantankerous some lay people could be.  Now that’s a pastor’s statement; but I like to say as a former District Superintendent, “It’s hard to believe how cantankerous some pastors can be.”  Because we are all equal in that way!  What the church falls into the misunderstanding, is that spiritual connection of the blood of Christ doesn’t take away our sinfulness altogether.  At the end of the 20^th century, Roberta Bondy says that we have an understanding of confusion and disappointment about establishing in the church sort of a utopian, universal acceptance of everything ought to be right if you become a Christian.  We look back in our past and minorities and women and all other different groups, the church has not handled it well simply because we keep forgetting that spiritual bond and fall back to family relationships of this earth. 

            At the same time we may look at it and understand, as Roberta continues on and says, that we need to avoid simply writing off others individually or collectively or consciously or unconsciously as being unworthy of our company as the church.  No matter how good we think our reasons seem to be or even supported by what we understand Scripture to say.  Martin Luther back in the 1500’s in his statement about this passage says, “There is much disparity among people in the world, but there is no such disparity before God.  For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  People in the church tend to forget that.  We believe about grace, and as well we should, but then we wonder why we keep falling down and breaking that covenant that God has given us in Christ. 

            “Let the Jews,” Martin Luther continues to say, “Let the Jews, let the Greeks, let the whole world keep silent in the presence of God.  Those who are justified are justified by Christ.  Without faith in Christ, the Jew with his laws, the monk with his holy orders, the Greek with his wisdom, and the servant with his obedience, all of them shall perish if they try it on their own.”  Or in my own words, “Whether one is born heterosexual or one chooses is secondary to what is primary and that is faith in Christ.  Whether one is born an addict or one chooses to be an addict is secondary.  What is primary is faith in Christ.  Whether one is an Iraqi, an American, whether one is rich or poor, whether one is well achieved or a failure in this life, it’s all secondary.  What is primary is faith in Jesus Christ.”  

            Do you see what I am saying?  The blood of Christ, the covenant is offered in the church, trumps all other activities of this life.  We are to receive each other as brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of our success or failures, regardless of what we look like or act like.  If our faith is in Jesus Christ, that is what binds us together and makes us a family.  For we are to be all people under the law.  Not that we are justified by the law, as Paul says earlier. 

            Now that gets me to my Uncle Jim.  And this is where the personal story comes in. You see Uncle Jim and Uncle Leo and my Dad were brothers.  And they had unique ways of living.  They grew up together in the same community, had the same parents; somewhat took different pathways in their lives.  In fact, old Uncle Leo, he is my uncle who will always be my blood, is now since deceased as are all of these, by the way.  Uncle Leo, though, my famous story is, claim to fame, is that he is the one in the National Geographic article about Uplands in southern Indiana who is pictured walking out of the woods with his little dog and his walking stick and a long white beard and long white hair and being quoted by National Geographic that “he grew up on nuts and berries and he lived in the woods as a child”.  Dad says, “Yeah, he’s nuts!  We grew up in Connersville, Indiana.”  My Uncle Leo lied to National Geographic or twisted the truth a bit.  And you say, there is some more about Uncle Leo that I don’t need to share with you.  In some ways he was a disappointment, but he was still my uncle in that way.  And so in that way, the family connection-ship with the water was strong. 

            But now let me turn to Uncle Jim.  And Uncle Jim was his own different person.  And he lived life his own way.  I don’t know if he learned it in military or he just learned to be a little bit conniving.  He sold a business to my father, an insurance agency.  And I won’t tell you the particulars, but it got bad enough to where Dad’s lawyer told Dad he should bring charges against his brother Jim for the things that he was doing with the business that he sold.  The details aren’t important; what my Dad did is because Dad said, “I can’t do that.  He’s my brother. I can’t take him to court and I won’t do that.”  Mom and Dad took bankruptcy as an option instead of taking Uncle Jim to court. 

            Now for me to say that is difficult, but it is also recognition that you have to accept your blood family, the family of this life, of the water, as our birth as a human family, we take them for better or for worse.  But it also means that there is a greater commitment.  I don’t know where their faith was.  I wish I could have said that.  But I know where Dad’s faith was.  And what he was pledging allegiance is, “I will honor my human family connection but I will also honor a greater one.  And that’s to say, I can not do that because God says I should not take that charge against my brother.”  That’s powerful witness for me and it has stood strong because I believe that is what the church is meant to say.  Yes, we fall.  Yes, we are sinful.  Whether we are in or outside the blood covenant of Jesus Christ, we have to recognize that failure of the human race and our failures as human beings.  But it is how we respond that makes all the difference. 

            And I want to tell you one more story that happened much more recently concerning my mother’s surgery.  And this is where I have been blessed by being a part of both families that I’ve described to you, both understandings that blood is thicker than water.  And that’s when we were gathered around my mother before her surgery on Friday.  And three of my four sisters, the fourth one physically could not be with us but I know she would have done the same.  As being a good son and a pastor at the beside, I said, “Mom, would you like to have a prayer?”  I knew her answer, she said “Yes”.   I said, “Well, I’ll just let any one who would like to say a prayer and then I’ll finish.”  I didn’t think of it this way, but Mom started the prayer without any hesitation.  And that reminded me that both Mom and Dad taught us that there are two families that we are a part of—there is a family of our blood connection of this earth but there is also a family of God.  But then each sister in her own way prayed, without any question or any hesitation.  And it was a great connection.  It allowed me to recognize that it is that which has bound us together, not because they are my sisters and I love them dearly because we were born and raised together.  Yes, that’s there; but now there is something greater.  It’s recognition that the theory of relativity isn’t a theory.  Our relationship in Jesus Christ binds us together and that’s what I felt and understood around Mom’s bedside on Friday. 

            Paul’s first point is that our genealogy of our creation, of our blood relationship through God’s initial creation, is at its best frail and broken.  The best laws of humankind, through that family connection of our first creation, will never save us.  But Paul’s second point is that the blood covenant of Jesus Christ is the saving, united connection for all people.  It is the only gift that will save the human race one person at a time.  It is that gift that we, as the church, must practice faithfully and fully.  For what witness are we to the rest of the world about this saving faith in Jesus Christ if we don’t exhibit it in our own family?  That’s a continual challenge.  It’s not a statement about this particular congregation at all.  But it is a recognition that we must be diligent in how we do treat one another, how we do love one another as the family of God. 

            So, blood is thicker than water, but not as we first supposed.  It is the blood of Jesus Christ that is greater and stronger then even our physical birth.  I want us to take a moment of prayer where first, in silence, you may reflect and give God the thanks for the physical family to which you have been born in to.  And then consider the spiritual family that is provided by the blood of the covenant of Jesus Christ.  Let us share together.  “Precious God, we thank you for your creative power that has made us in your image.  Male and female, you have made us.  You have made us out of the loving creation so that at first, in hope, we might be a family upon this earth.  You gave us a law and we could not abide fully by it, so you came again and gave us Jesus, the Christ.  And we thank you for that greater family, your family of the spiritual realm, of the Kingdom of this earth, of heaven upon this earth.  And we thank you for that gift.  So we simply offer our confessions this morning. If we have not fulfilled a sense of loyalty to our families upon this earth as we are called to do, to not fight against one another but to see our relationship in that way, forgive us.  And as a spiritual family of God, when we have failed to be bound together by your spirit and have chosen to keep separated, divided even in the church, forgive us.  And may it be your spirit that will in time, by your plan and your purpose, reconcile all, all peoples into your presence.  We thank you, that you are God.  It is your love and your covenant in Jesus Christ that gives us the hope and the peace.  In this we ask in Christ our Lord, Amen.”

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Bob Coleman

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