Galations 3:23-29

LUKE 9:18-24

10:30a.m. Service

Sermon – June 24, 2007

“All of you are one in Christ Jesus”

(To the kids.) I need the kids to help me explain today’s first Bible reading to the grown-ups. (The kids gather in front of the altar.)

Want to know what life was like ‘way back before Jesus came? Well, let’s get into our “way-back machines” and go way back in time and find out. (I put my hand on top of my head.) Everyone do what I’m doing and we’re going to twirl around clockwise. Ready? (We twirl around and then stop.) Wow, we’re way back in the days before Jesus and – this is terrible! Everyone’s all divided. All the men and boys have to go on this side of the church and all the women and girls have to go on that side. Everyone! If you’re a grown-up with a child of the opposite sex, you can stand in the aisle. Just look at an Orthodox synagogue today if you think I’m making this up.

This is terrible! We’re all divided! But there were other ways people were divided then, too.

Everybody who was born in New Jersey on this side of the church, everyone who was born somewhere else on the other side! If you’re the only grown-up accompanying a child, and you were born in different places, you can stand together in the aisle. This is terrible! We’re all divided again!

Now, everybody who’s over 35 on this side of the church, everyone who’s under 35 on the other. If you’re an over-35 grown-up with a child, or if you don’t want to tell your age, you can stand in the aisle. This is terrible! Back before Jesus, we were all divided in all kinds of ways!

Anybody want to go back to after Jesus came? Let’s get in our “way-back machines” and hit the “fast-forward” buttons and come back to the present! (We twirl around the other way.)

Oh Thank God! Now everybody can sit where they want to sit, with the people they want to sit with.

All this is possible because of Jesus. As Jesus’ friend St. Paul said, “All of you are one in Christ Jesus.” All the divisions that divided people before Jesus came are wiped out. Can we say this all together, “All of us are one in Christ Jesus.”

The Rev. Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, New Jersey