This is part of an old Jewish prayer dating back to about the time of St Paul that was discovered in the Cairo Genizah. Still today observant Jewish men recite a daily prayer thanking God for not making them a gentile, a slave or a woman. Before his conversion to the Christian faith, Paul, then known as Saul, recited this prayer with holy pride. After his conversion, however, he reversed it. In today’s second reading to the Galatians he writes:

The greatness of Paul lies in his readiness to abandon his old belief, even those that were so dear to him, when his newfound faith in Christ so demanded.

As a Jew, the question of those who were children of God and those who were not, those inside and those outside, was very important to Paul. The traditional answer which he learnt from childhood is that the Jews, the children of Abraham, were the people of God. People of other nations, the Gentiles, belong outside of God’s family. In addition, among those inside, some are more equal than others. Men, for example, had special privileges and advantages over women. In the temple worship men worshiped in an inner circle while women occupied the outer circle. But when he came to Christ, Paul realized that the ethnic privileges which the Jews believed they had over the Gentiles, and the gender advantages which men believed they had over women were not part of God’s will and design. He came to realize that in 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 (Galatians 3:28). As a Jew he believed that only the offspring of Abraham were heirs of the promise. But now he comes to realize that “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise”(verse 29).

2,000 years after Paul, many Christians still do not believe that all nations and cultures are equal before God. Many still believe in racial and cultural superiority. Paul challenges us today to step up and allow our faith to shape our ideology. There are many who still believe that people of a lower economic and social class (“slaves”) should continue to be servants even in God’s house. They are to be seen but not heard, to follow but not lead. For those of us who still believe that we are entitled to some special privileges on account of the blood that flows in our veins, or the rung of the social ladder we occupy, Paul’s gospel today challenges us to abandon these ways of thinking, vestiges of a non-Christian past, and step up to the demands of our new faith in Christ.

One aspect of Paul’s teaching that is crucial for the church in our times is that of gender equality. Paul says that in Christ “there is no longer male and female” (verse 28). What does he mean? This question arises because elsewhere we see Paul making rules that apply to women alone and not to men. In 1 Corinthians, for example he instructs women to cover their hair (11:2-16) and forbids them to speak in church (14:34-35). Why would he make these special rules for women after he has told us that “there is no longer male and female?” (Galatians 3:28). Scholars have observed that Paul’s statement on the equality of women and men and his rules for women do not have the same weight. Paul’s statement on the equality of women and men before God belong to the area of faith or Christian principle. His rules to women belong to the area of custom or practical implementation. Custom changes but faith does not. Church custom seeks always to reflect our faith, but never full succeeds. Custom always needs to be updated. Let us today ask the Holy Spirit who leads the church into the fullness of the truth to enlighten our church to a better understanding of other cultures and of women, and to give us the courage to put this equality into practice.