An End to In-Groups--October 30, 2025

An End to In-Groups--October 30, 2025

"But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the Law and the Prophets, the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus..." (Romans 3:21-24)

When we actually read or hear the Good News of Jesus on its own terms, it sure does reframe the ways we see things--and the way we see ourselves.

Take these words from Paul's letter to the Romans, for example, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday as we (Lutherans) celebrated Reformation Sunday. The apostle does a bang-up job changing our perspective on what the Gospel is really all about.  

In Paul's own day, a great many folks reading (or hearing) his letter for the first time brought a big, worrisome question on their minds: what makes me acceptable (or not) to God?  And of course, there were plenty of competing answers out there to be found.  Some in Paul's audience were certain it had to do with belonging to the right "in-group." If you came from the right heritage, spoke the right language, knew the right culture and customs, and kept all of those well enough, then you could reasonably claim to be acceptable to God.  Some were confident that their ancestry in the family line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the key; others believed that following the food restrictions or ceremonial rituals like circumcision was what made you belong.  In other words, some folks listening to Paul's letter were convinced that being acceptable to God was an us-versus-them kind of thing: if you're on the inside, you've got God's favor, but if you are an outsider on the margins, tough luck.  But Paul doesn't talk that way, does he?

Others in the house churches where this epistle was first read were convinced that God's acceptance depended on performance--how well did you do with keeping the commandments, how frequently did you break them, and how significant were the infractions?  This, of course, led to a lot of folks playing that oh-so-tempting game of "Your-Sins-Are-Worse-Than-Mine," where some would put the worst possible spin on what "THOSE people" were doing, while putting their own transgressions in a more respectable light.  The goal of this alluring exercise is--yep, you guessed it--once again, to create a category of "acceptable" people like me, whose sins are minor, piddling, and trifling, and another abominable category of "unacceptable" people, whose sings are dastardly, malevolent, and unforgivable.  See how it works?  If I can tell myself that MY sins aren't disqualifying--they're really not so bad, right?--and then persuade myself at the same time that those OTHERS are guilty of far worse things by comparison, I fool myself into thinking that I'm acceptable to God by sheer comparison.  At least I'm not like THEM, right?  And we're right back to imagining that our acceptability to God is an us-versus-them thing once again.  And that just ain't right--not according to Paul (who knew something about being an outsider who was welcomed in, since he had been Chief Enemy of Christianity for a good while before Jesus got a hold of him).

Paul insists that God's acceptance of us--what we sometimes call "justification"--doesn't depend on being in the right group, carrying the right credentials, or having a better morality score than somebody else.  It never has depended on that, Paul says!  Even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the very founding pillars of the ethnic group of Israel--weren't made right with God because of their DNA, their culture, their language, or their heritage.  And even Moses the great Lawgiver wasn't accepted because of his comparative grades on rule-following.  They were all accepted by grace, as a gift, and that gift can only be received by sheer trust in the Giver.  And for that matter, they were all lacking perfection points in the holiness department, just like all the rest of us.  According to Paul, God has never been in the business of grading us on our performance or checking our pedigree as the basis for accepting us or not.  His way of saying it here is, "there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."  See?  No dividing up the world into acceptable, lovable "insiders" and disgusting, detestable "outsiders." Only the same free gift of grace, no matter where you came from, no matter your cultural heritage, and no matter your past performance. All of us have fallen short and missed the mark, and all of us are presented with this gift of acceptance from God through Christ.

All of this is to say that if our understanding of the Gospel comes out as "Christianity versus... " somebody else, we've lost the plot. If we think that the Good News is "Join US so that God will love you because you won't be one of THEM!" we have misunderstood what makes it good and news. No, genuine "redemption in Christ Jesus" breaks down the us-versus-them nonsense once and for all. Paul says this was never an us-versus-them kind of thing. In fact, it's not even been an us-versus-God or a them-versus-God thing, either. God has chosen to take the side of all humanity, so to speak, in Christ, and is there's a side God is against, it is God's commitment to stand against our sin and blot it out through Christ, not counting it against us anymore.

In fact, the Scriptures insist all of us would have been outsiders on our own, but God has just up and declared that we are not only "acceptable" in a hypothetical sense but that we are indeed accepted and welcomed in, all as a gift of grace through Christ. All we can do is trust that the gift has been given, but not as though it's the quality of our trusting or the fervency of our believing that makes us acceptable.  We can only trust that what God has already given to us by grace really is ours.  We don't have to try and elbow somebody else out so that we can take a spot from a limited number of empty seats in God's good graces.  We can admit that we've all blown it, without comparing my sins to yours, and then we can also believe the promise that we've been accepted by God apart from our achievements, group-member bona fides, or religious performance.  It's all been through Christ, and it's all been a gift.

Could we dare to believe it's true?

And would we let that truth reframe the way we see other people, so that we quit making everything into a competition or a battle of Me-and-My-Group against You-and-Yours?

That might just change everything in this new day.  Let's find out.

Lord Jesus, enable us to trust the promise of your grace with no more need to pit ourselves against someone else.