"Clothe yourselves with Christ
and there will no longer be
Jew or Greek
Slave or Free
Male and Female

For all will be one
In Christ Jesus."

So writes the Apostle, Paul,
Attempting to heal
the fragmenting church in Galatia.

That was a province in Asia Minor.

We would now describe it
as being an area
above the south-central Turkish Coast.

It wasn't all that far
from Paul's home in Tarsish,
so he knew them,
had traveled there on one of his journeys,
and had there established a faith community
- a church.

Now he has heard
that this congregation is threatened
with fragmentation.

People are listening to competing leaders
each describing a different law,
a different code, by which to live.
Jewish Law
Greek Law
Anatolian Law
- the law of self interest and greed.

Conflicting cultural pressures
are becoming determinant
of the nature of the Church
and the very survival of the community
and its work are, therefore, threatened.

Paul has delivered to them
a more excellent way,
and he is quite angry with them
that they seem to have forgotten.

In fact, he begins his letter to them
with the words,
"Stupid Galatians".

One good reason for reading
the letters of Paul
is to experience his passion for the faith.

another good reason is to learn
from the trials of the faith communities
in the process of growing up.

Such challenges and pressures
seem universal in the progress of development
of faith and of faith community
of whatever time and place.

We have a job to do here on earth
and not all that much time in which to do it.

Some are educators, some homemakers, some teachers,
some are distributors of products people need,
some are physicians, health care providers,
or workers of many kinds,

but we can't be a good any of these things
until we are good at knowing
who we are
as a community of people before God.

In addition, the world always sends us
mixed signals
and little helpful advice
about how to choose between them.

Often, what the world teaches
- the laws of human interaction
portrayed in our media,
demonstrated by powerful people,
and driven by greed, suspicion,
fear and prejudice -
diminishes us as humans
and destroys possibilities
of living together faithfully;
and God weeps.

By next Sunday we will be into July
And near Independence Day,
so I have been looking for an illustration
of the formation of a just community
in the midst of conflicting messages
within the stories of our formation
as a nation.

And I found a wonderful example of such
in the letters of Abagail Adams.

She never gave a speech,
she never wrote a book or a pamphlet,
she never had the opportunity to vote,
but, like Paul, did she had passion

and, did she ever write letters!
and they made a difference.

She was the wife of President John Adams
and mother of President John Quincy Adams,
so she knew lots of powerful people,
and she wrote letters to them all
right as the issues of independence
from England
and the nature of the new community
were being debated in the colony.

There is an interesting article about her
in the current issue of "Maryland Humanities."

In it Abagail is reported to have believed
that England had dictated laws
out of corrupt self-interest,
and therefore she supported independence.

She wrote her letters
attempting to define what would help people
to build a just and good society.

In 1775, she wrote to her husband, the president to be
(as opposed to her son, the president to be),
"I am convinced that man is a dangerous creature
and that power, whether invested in many
or a few, is ever grasping.

The great swallow up the small
and he who is most strenuous
for the Rights of people,
when vested, when clothed, with power,
is as eager after the prerogatives of government.

"How, then, can we form a better government," she asked,
"than we have already had?"

"All seem only to look after their own interests.
I feel anxious for our Monarchy or Democracy,
or whatever it is to be,
that justice and righteousness
become the signs of our time."

Paul had an answer
to being vested, clothed, with power.

"Vest yourself, rather, with Christ,"
he said in today's Epistle.

Remember when Elijah
in that Old Testament story
was translated into heaven
in a golden chariot
and his cloak fluttered to the ground?

Elisha, his successor, picked it up,
put it on,
and became God's prophet in Israel.
He walked to the nearest waddi,
struck the water with his staff
as had Moses before him
and the waters parted.

We gain power
by cloaking ourselves with something.
Make it Christ, crys Paul.

Abagail Adams had lots more to say
about the formation of community.

"By the way of a new code of Laws," she wrote,
"I desire you , John
to remember the ladies
and to be more generous and favorable to them
than your ancestors."

This was one feisty lady!

"And, If we mean to have heroes, statesmen
and philosophers,
we must have learned women as mothers,
for is it not of great importance
that those who are to instill
the first principles in our children
be themselves suitably qualified
for that trust?"

And, one last example of forming community
in accordance with a higher vision:

In 1797, Abagail sent her black servant's child
by the name of James
(yes, undoubtedly named for the saint)
to the town school
to learn reading, writing, and ciphering.

The people of that good New England Town
were scandalized.

She replied to them,
by letter, of course,
saying, "You are attacking the very principles
of liberty and equality
which we have just so hard won."

Abagail Adams
from her particular time, place, and station
and with whatever power and skill she had been given
worked for a godly vision
of life together in this new country.

So, how can we
discover a vision for human community
in our own time and place?

How can we keep from being driven,
as if we were slaves with no options,
by the competing complexities
of our culture?

How can we learn to take time for what is important?
time to perceive a vision,
- time for each other, time for God?

Like the Galatians,
we are confused and mis-led.

How are we to wear power
in our own spheres of influence?

and, isn't it true
that from our various and so-called lofty places
we note people here and there
who lead a simpler life
of grace, peace, and service?

and, do we not envy them?
do we not envy them?

"Clothe yourselves with Christ," says Paul,
and there will no longer be division,
dissension, fragmentation,
envy, fear, prejudice, violence

Show Christ to one another always,
and Christ will be everywhere we are,
and a community of faith
will appear, in the words of Zechariah,
out of which God's promises will flow
and wash all the inhabitants of his holy city

and the Church, you, we,
will become Christ
to the world.