Leaving Nursery School

Leaving Nursery School

 

Galatians 3:23-29

Clothed with Christ in baptism 

 

3:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.

 

3:24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith.

 

3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,

 

3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

 

3:27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

 

3:28 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.

 

3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

 

 

Growing up is hard to do…there should be a song about it. At almost 71 years of age (!), I still feel like I’m a teenager, at least in my head. There are other parts of me that have taken their own path, but my brain still thinks I’m much, MUCH younger, although the memory recall is on a time delay. That’s not exactly true—some things I recall with immediacy and great clarity—but it’s usually the stupid stuff. You know, like the plotline of a “Get Smart” episode, or the dialogue of the “Summer of George” Seinfeld episode? And who among us of my generation can’t mimic most of the bits from Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail”? But ask me where I put my church keys, or the important letter I just got in the mail TODAY? No luck. Thankfully, I still have a good hold on the scriptures and their wonderful parables and stories, however, my wife says that I tend to mix them up with a little Python or Seinfeld humor, from time to time. Sorry, I tell her, “Missed it by THAT much!”

 

But I digress. Having written a major exegetical paper on one word from today’s text—paidagogos—that’s about all I can think about when I read this. As my sermon title might clue you in, it has something to do with nursery school. Personally, I never went to nursery school, or “preschool,” as it’s known today. I actually never even attended kindergarten, either, but that’s a different story. By the time my youngest brother came along—he’s eight years my junior—nursery schools were busting out all over, even in small towns like Oil City. The Tree of Life Synagogue just down the street had one, so my parents sent my little brother. When asked what he did on his first day, he answered honestly: “Threw crayons at the girls.” As I recall, I don’t think he made it through the whole year of nursery school. Personally, I grieved missing kindergarten, as we moved mid-school-year, and my parents figured it wasn’t worth sending me, knowing I would have to be transplanted later. I heard stories later in elementary school about the fun the kindergartners had had, and that they actually took naps! I tried it a couple of times in Second Grade, and it didn’t go well. I do remember being so tired I fell asleep at my desk in Fifth Grade, but a trip to the school nurse and then my pediatrician discovered that I had some weird form of pneumonia. A couple of weeks in the children’s ward of the Oil City Hospital, and I was good as new.

 

The translation of Galatians 3 I’ve used here translates the Greek word paidagogos as “disciplinarian.” That’s actually a really poor rendering. You want an English word that is much more accurate? How about “nanny.” The paidagogos in Greek society was a man who was given charge over the “character” development of young children of wealthy families. He pretty much raised the kids under his care, but was especially charged with seeing that they were enrolled in the best education money could buy, were protected at all times, escorted from activity to activity, and tucked in at night after all proper hygiene issues had been addressed. This specialized “nanny” figure was also responsible for teaching his charges the various philosophies that would govern their morals and ethics. As you know, the Greeks were philosophical “giants,” and well-to-do children were to be schooled in the thought of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and even the locals who ruminated over such things in the regional acropolis. If it sounds like the paidagogos had to be an intellectual, medical, and “security” jack-of-all-trades, he did. One of the hardest things to do for them was to “set free” the children who had been under their care when they reached a majority age and/or went off to university. There aren’t many historical records detailing if any of these childhood “mentoring” relationships continued into adulthood, even if friendships were formed, but we can guess that some might have? 

 

Probably the reason Paul chooses this “model” for Christian nurture and mentoring is that the responsibilities of the paidagogos were paramount during the childhood phase, but were then immediately cut off when the “child” reached the adult right of passage, be it age or education related. It wasn’t usually a gradual thing. I suppose, to a degree, it could be seen as a Greek, intellectual version of what happened in Judaism when a child experienced the bar mitzvah. Time to move on—you are an adult now, and must be responsible for your own life, and in the case of the Jew, your own FAITH. So it was with the Christian, as well.

 

And Paul is NOT just using this as an illustration of the Christian pathway in life. He seems to be saying that this is a theological truth, as well. Even as all faith experience that came before—including his own Jewish faith—so with the coming of Christ into the world, these earlier expressions of faith—the paidagogos—were no longer needed. Christ BECAME the “adult” faith now presented to the world. It would be easy to fault Paul here for suggesting that these other faith traditions, including Judaism, were now “obsolete,” but I’m not sure this is what he is saying. Instead, he seems to be holding to his Christian theological perspective that in Christ, God is offering the world an “allie-allie in free” introduction to faith, with our sins being forgiven via the fiat of the cross. In Paul’s thinking, so much of these earlier faiths was about how to be absolved of sin and to get on God’s “good side.” In Christ, God is awarding both of these important “statuses” by grace alone. Having been forgiven AND redeemed, positionally by God, the individual Christian is now free to explore, learn, and experience the rudiments of Christian discipleship. Like how the paidagogos was required to detach from the children in whom he had invested so much of his life in so they could “flee the nest,” so the Christian is set free by Christ to LIVE as a Christian, discover and use one’s spiritual gifts, and be a witness to “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth” of God’s love and grace. Nursery school is over, so stop throwing crayons at the girls!

 

Speaking of which, it is next in this passage that Paul writes one of his most radical and powerful sentences: 

 

 

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.

 

Friends, this was written in the first century of the Christian faith! Paul is proclaiming what Jesus modeled for us all: EVERYONE is one in Christ Jesus. Note that he doesn’t say that Jews and Greeks had to give up being either Jewish or Greek, nor would “male and female” have to give up their gender orientation. Instead, he says that Christ is drawing all people into a community of faith—what the late theologian John Cobb called the “Divine Commonwealth”—wherein we can all inhabit common ground, even while maintaining our own cultural, national, and even gender-based territories. Maybe even our own “religious” territories, as well. (This last one may be a bit controversial for some of you, but it’s where my mind is going. After all, how much must Christ be limited? Can not Christ redeem and draw into this Divine Commonwealth ANYONE, even if they—as of yet—don’t “believe” exactly the same things? You tell me.)

 

Perhaps the modern church is stifled because it hasn’t stopped throwing crayons at the girls? (Just recently, the Southern Baptism Church voted more restrictions on women in leadership roles in their denomination…and this is 2025!) Our own denomination split right down the middle over doctrines and rules we use to either “free” or “restrict” what Christ is allowed to do in the church. I’ll bet Christ doesn’t give a flying fig about our doctrines and rules! At least according to this passage, PAUL doesn’t think so! Here’s another scary thought: even as the religious leaders of Jesus’ time sought to maintain their control over the practices of the Jewish faith, so our Christian religious leaders seem bent on using these doctrines and rules to keep their hands on the helm and throttle of the church. Is this an example of the paidagogos not being willing to detach? Are we religious leaders afraid of the kind of freedom Christ Jesus wants to grant to believers everywhere, and in all times and places? 

 

What might a church that was allowed to enter its “adult” life without its dominating paidagogoslook like? Perhaps this is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had in mind when he wrote of a “religion-less” Christianity? Might the adult church live so fully into inclusion and acceptance granted by Christ Jesus that it could invest all of its gifts, resources, and personnel into working for justice and peace in our world, and welcoming the “strangers” into the Divine Commonwealth? I once heard a United Methodist historian recall how, in Wesley’s day, the role of the religious leaders and the local congregation was to BE that paidagogos of the faith, teaching and mentoring children and new adult converts toward a mature faith in Christ. Then, if they received God’s call into ministry, they could be ordained immediately. This historian recounted how we have turned that whole practice around. Now, we invite people to say the “sinners prayer” to invite Christ into their lives “immediately,” but if they then perceive God’s call to ministry, we make them attend years of training before being set apart to do it. What are we more afraid of? Giving up control? It seems to me that Paul is advocating for mentoring the faith, not just “winning souls for Christ.” 

 

The bishops of the United Methodist Church have “unveiled” a new proposed vision statement for that denomination: 

 

The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.

 

I confess I’m not wild about it, because it sounds a bit more like a slogan, offering little actual guidance as to “how to” accomplish the mission, which a good vision should do. A lot of time will be spent “unpacking” what it means to “love boldly,” “serve joyfully,” and “lead courageously,” when we still don’t get “empowered by the Holy Spirit.” Frankly, I think we could get much more practical guidance from the “old” UMC slogan, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors…the People of The United Methodist Church.” Paul’s language in Galatians 3:28 would seem to prefer the “slogan” as marching orders, rather than this new “vision” put forth by the bishops. Here’s another “adulting” statement of faith the late scholar, Walter Bruggemann put forth:

 

The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.

 

Now THAT’S not nursery school language, friends! Is not the church called to speak truth—God’s truth—to a world that often finds “comfort” in falsehoods and empty boasts? Are we not called to walk along with those who grieve until they achieve wholeness and healing? And we most certainly are called to offer Christ’s HOPE to a world that stumbles in hopelessness! Now THAT’S a vision I can get behind!

 

It's graduation day, church. Put away the crayons! Amen.