The Pesky Postulant

📖 Galatians 3:23–29 (NRSV)

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 justified 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.

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If you’ve ever tried to follow every single rule in the Bible, you know pretty quickly it’s not a checklist you’re going to ace. (No shrimp? No mixed fabrics? Absolutely not.) But in this passage from Galatians, Paul isn’t tossing the law aside — he’s reflecting on how the arrival of Christ reshapes our relationship to it.

For early followers of Jesus — many of whom were Jewish — this was a live, urgent question: what does it mean to belong to this new movement? What role does tradition play in a faith rooted in grace?

Paul uses the metaphor of a disciplinarian — someone who guarded us until we were ready. Not because the law was bad, but because it prepared the way. Now, in Christ, something has changed. Faith isn’t a matter of tribal belonging or strict boundary-keeping. It’s a matter of adoption, of inheritance, of being clothed in Christ and called children of God.

As a postulant in the Episcopal Church, I can’t help but hear echoes of the baptismal covenant in all this. Paul isn’t just describing a private spiritual experience — he’s making a bold claim about community. Baptism knits us together. Not by making us the same, but by making us one.

And that vision? It matters right now.

We’re living in a world unraveling at the seams. Our country teeters on the edge of war. Political divisions are calcifying. Fear is being weaponized. And amid all of that, the Church is called to be something different — not by shouting louder, but by loving deeper.

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons?”
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people?”
“Will you respect the dignity of every human being?”

We answered: I will, with God’s help.

That work doesn’t begin when we feel “ready” or when we’re ordained — it begins at the font. It’s not abstract theology. It’s real-world, inconvenient, courageous love.

“There is no longer Jew or Greek,” Paul writes. “No longer slave or free, no longer male and female.”

If he were speaking into our world today, maybe he’d say:
🟣 There is no longer citizen or refugee.
🟢 No longer straight or queer.
🔵 No longer conservative or progressive.

Not because our differences are erased — but because in Christ, they no longer divide us.

This doesn’t mean we pretend the world is healed when it’s clearly not. It means we live as if the healing is real, because we’ve seen it in Jesus — and we’re willing to be part of it, one act of love at a time.

So if you’re wondering what it means to be “the Church” this week, especially when everything feels too big — start where you are. Say the inconvenient thing. Show up for the hurting. Practice messy, incarnate love.

Because in Christ, we don’t just belong.
We belong to each other.

And when that gets hard — when it feels like too much or not enough — I try to come back to the moment I stood at the font, or the altar rail, or in a small group of people asking hard questions.
And I remember what I said.

I said I would, with God’s help.

Stay pesky,
E