I’m offering this meditation that I wrote for St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, first published on January 10th, as I wonder about how we can turn the violence of our society around. If you aren’t familiar with Paul’s letters, he is writing to a group of early Christians in a Jewish community who are arguing about whether Gentiles had to become like them, including undergoing circumcision, before accepting them as equals. Paul brilliantly challenges them, and therefore us, to see all people through God’s eyes.
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Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 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. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:23-29 NRSV)
Dear Friends,
Here we are five days into the season of Epiphany, and it’s time to consider… the Tardis. Yes, that British public police call box which Dr. Who famously flies through time and space. (If you’ve never seen the TV show, think of an old public phone booth).
In every episode where a human first opens the door to the Tardis, they have an epiphany. Confronted with the fact that the small blue rectangle is, on the inside, big enough to contain a whole space/time ship, they exclaim, “This is impossible!” They go back outside to check the box size. They come back in and are amazed again. If they accept the Doctor’s invitation to travel with him, they must accept a new reality–where the inside of something can indeed be bigger than the outside.
Where did the creators of a TV series get such a crazy idea? I wonder if they had been reading Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Here, Paul expounds on his epiphany: The religious law he had grown up with, depended on and given his life to is not bad or wrong, he writes to his fellow Jews. But once he met Christ, the door to another reality opened.
In Christ, the constraints of the law fall away. Suddenly Paul sees that there is no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free, no male or female, for all are one in Christ, equal heirs to God’s promise. Like the Tardis, on the outside people are defined and confined by culture, gender, and religion but inside…
Inside each person the landscape of Heaven unfolds, revealing a child of God, interconnected to all creation through Love.
Paul’s invitation to us is this: Come journey with Christ! But if we do, we must clothe ourselves with Christ, put on the reality He lives in. We can’t go back to treating people as if they are bound within little boxes we’re used to.
Stepping through the door into that unknown expanse of Love takes courage. An epiphany may open our eyes to a new Truth, but it doesn’t mean we understand what we see all at once. It certainly doesn’t mean we’re in control. But, oh my friends, how exciting to be invited on the Journey!
It’s the season of Epiphany. Let’s open our eyes wide to the wonder and commit to travel with Christ.
Blessings,
Mtr. Margaret