(With Dr. Melissa A. Jackson)

Sophia is a community of freedom.

For most of us, the word “freedom” calls up lots of images, experiences, thoughts, and feelings—many of them likely tied closely to the politics of citizenship. In Galatians, however, Paul writes of a very different understanding of freedom. After opening with the phrase, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Galatians 5 goes on to discuss traditional ritual responsibilities of the Hebrew Bible’s Torah teaching (the “law”), primarily that of circumcision. Paul then asserts that observing or not observing this ritual doesn’t really matter. Instead, “in Christ Jesus . . . the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

In verses 13-14, Paul expands on the nature of this love:

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another [ital. added].For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We should not be tempted, as many are, to interpret Paul’s powerful and provocative words as calling for the end of religious rituals and practices or the end of following Torah instruction. In fact, Paul’s instruction to love one’s neighbor as oneself is a quotation from the Torah, namely Leviticus 19:18 (see also Jesus’s quotations of this same verse in Matthew 19:19 and 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27). Paul is, however, putting any such ritual and practice in its proper perspective. Anything we do, as followers of Christ Jesus, should be governed by one thing only: love.

In today’s deeply polarized society, so many people, including those who speak of themselves as Christians, say and do hate-filled, destructive things, all the while proudly shouting about their “freedom.” The words of Galatians challenge such awful, narrow-minded cries of “freedom,” protesting in stark contrast that freedom, in Christ Jesus, is not any individual’s “right,” but rather is a communal way of being and doing, centered around the love of one for each and every other.

“Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” These words from poet Emma Lazarus, written in the face of rising anti-Semitism, have echoed through the voices of others since Lazarus first penned them in 1883. Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer similarly said, at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” In a 2013 interview, poet Maya Angelou, speaking of the legacy of MLK who himself referenced Lazarus’s words various times during the Civil Rights Movement, offered her variation: “No one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

“Freedom” in Christ Jesus is neither mine, nor yours. It is ours. Freedom from what oppresses our neighbor. Freedom to live abundantly in community. Freedom for which we must work. Freedom for which we must work together in love. God who freely creates created humankind with freedom. At Sophia, you are free—to express yourself, to think creatively and critically, to speak openly and honestly. Free from pressure to conform, you are free to explore and question, tearing down those traditions and systems that hold us captive while building up relationships that bring joy, hope, and peace.

(with Melissa A. Jackson)

Sophia is a community of inclusion.

“God created humankind in God’s image…” Genesis 1:27

Advent season invites us to consider the meaning of the fact that God chose to speak God’s best word to humankind in the person of a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Among other things, the Incarnation reminds us that, we too reflect God’s presence in the world somehow.

The term “somehow” is key. The idea of being like God can and has motivated people to try to attain some level of perfection and to judge themselves for failing. What a silly idea! What would a human being perfectly reflecting God’s image look like? Male or female? Tall enough to center a professional basketball team or small enough to jockey a horse? Blue-eyed or brown-eyed? What talents or particular abilities would such a person have?  Would they sing soprano or bass? Obviously, the very idea of a god-like human perfection constitutes a perverse and egocentric idolatry.

A better approach may involve noting the collective noun in Gen 1:27.  God created humankind, not human individuals, in God’s image.  The text even goes on to specify that bearing God’s image requires both male and female, at the same time.  It could have gone on to say both right- and left-handed, both strong and sensitive, both bold and cautious….

One could read this important text as saying that even approaching a reflection of the vast and wondrous image of God requires the totality of humankind – all those who ever lived and ever will, collectively. In this Advent season, if an image is meant to give an idea of the original, let’s look not only to the baby in Bethlehem but to the humankind all around us, worth so much to God that God came to us to tell us so.

At Sophia, precisely because it takes all of humankind throughout the ages to approach imaging  forth the personhood of God, we do not put bounds on inclusion.  We refrain from identifying specific categories of people whom we welcome into our community because, by doing so, we may inadvertently omit someone or imply that we welcome the persons listed but not others.  In fact, history teaches that as society evolves new ‘out-groups’ continually arise. Any ‘list’ of the included risks becoming outdated.  So, at Sophia we insist on honoring the biblical assertion that all are created in the image of God—without exception. All means all. Each life bears an imprint of the divine in an endless diversity. At Sophia, your uniqueness is a gift to be celebrated in a community ready to receive that gift and be transformed by it.