Message: Heirs in Christ, Clothed in Christ
This week, I gave a talk about South Dakota to a group of people I knew only a few. It has been 20 years since I have lived in South Dakota. I have spent more of my life away from that part of the world than I did growing up there. Yet, the prairie and the hills of my memory are home and where I feel connected to people. I have records of family connections to the land that was parcelled up and claimed during colonisation of the Midwest while the native populations were moved on and contained in reserved lands. The land of Dakota Territory (part of the Louisiana Purchase) was explored by the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806. Some of the church buildings I have preached in Scotland are older than any structure even the unearthed ‘prehistoric’ native dwellings in South Dakota.
The people who settled in the place I grew up came from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Scandinavia, Germany, and the many other places they left seeking a better life and even refuge from situations like the Highland Clearances. Place names bear the memories and the families of people who came there as those claiming lands and those settling upon the land.
People living in new places and among different people retain a bit of what brought them there – where they had been – but in a new place are becoming something different than where they once were. After years away from hometowns and countries of origin, people change and life changes them. Were I to have stayed in South Dakota, I would be a different person in some respects because the community and culture around me is shaping who I am becoming. My ancestors who left Scotland, England, Wales, Norway, Germany, and The Netherlands bore only glimmers of who they were once in the place of their birth, however, their lives became interwoven with a new place and new people.
For some in the church today (22 June 2025) is Sanctuary Sunday, aka Refugee Sunday, and for congregations where people have sought refuge and sanctuary from where they have fled today marks the whole church family recognising those throughout the world who seek safety, a better life, and refuge in a world of war, poverty, destruction and struggle. While not all people know what it is to seek refuge or a fresh start, as people seeking to follow God’s ways we remember the stories and witness in the bible of wandering peoples, displaced people, people seeking a home, people on the margins and oppressed people. We recall Jesus’s teaching of welcoming and the early church’s witness to people often overlooked by the world yet loved and sought by God.
Paul wrote to many scattered communities and even visited many of them, as did other apostles and followers of Jesus. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote about how they were to live together and share in life now that things were changing for them. People were believing in Jesus Christ, being baptised and receiving the Holy Spirit, learning the ways of Jesus, and sharing with others who they were now in Christ. Many of the communities, congregations, gatherings of followers were local to the area but also had people from varying backgrounds and cultural groups. As our 21st century world is, there were very few places that had not seen foreigners or differing tribes or clans living in the same communities. This reality as is often the case creates tension and culture clashes. As we see in our own country and throughout the world, when people come with difference be it in culture or look, we humans are prone to divide and diminish the value of the other seeking to assimilate them to be ‘just like us’ or make them feel unwelcome.
Paul wrote into a 1st century culture clash on a local level to what we see playing out on the global scale and in our nation. Paul’s words were not to the culture at large, though, but to the people who were baptised and seeking to follow the way of Jesus. Paul’s letters were to those who knew the law of God’s covenant with the people of Jewish decent as well as those who had been adopted into the way of Jesus who were outside (the Gentiles). Paul found himself well aware of the rules and the traditions that kept groups of people in their tribes and clans yet reminded them of the totality of God’s love for the whole world that welcomed ALL who followed Jesus into the household of God’s grace through faith. Paul used the words ‘clothed in Christ’ and children of God along with being ‘heirs according to the promise’ connecting them to Abraham’s covenant with God no matter if they were Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. Paul wrote: ‘for all are one in Christ Jesus.’
Sadly, Paul saying it doesn’t make it so as we know from human and even church history. Saying we are being clothed in Christ, walking in the Way of Jesus, having faith and even walking in the Spirit does not remove our human capacity to divide and conquer. Living in faith is an ongoing, daily work in being clothed and transformed day-by-day. Oneness in Christ is lived out imperfectly yet we continue to be called and drawn to live into who God is restoring in us.
My state history is proof of the church not even being one in Christ Jesus and sharing God’s love with the stranger without weaponizing the gospel. Local communities have divisions and divides that cannot seem to be bridged. Nonetheless, we are still called to be clothed in Christ, to become more like Christ, to wear the ways of Christ in the world, and to bear witness to others how we are being transformed inwardly day by day into heirs of Christ, the one who came into the world to show God’s love, to seek and save the lost and show us all the way to life in all its fullness together as children of God who is love.
On this Sanctuary Sunday, my heart breaks for those whose life is in peril because the place they call home is not safe and war looms or economic hardship destroys. My heart aches for the atrocities carried out by people claiming land at the suffering of others and building a nation which would not have welcomed their own ancestors who sought refuge. My heart seeks to be wrapped in Christ Jesus that I may be strengthened to walk each day asking how I am to be more Christlike and follow Jesus. My life years to be clothed in Christ so that God’s love and way is known in how I live no matter how imperfectly.
Our identity should be in Christ whom we have come to know in our lives through the stories of faith and through faith inspired by the Holy Spirit. Our identities may be varied because of where we were born, to whom we were born, in the world events we have experienced, in the part of the world we live, even what labels we choose or have chosen for us, but always we receive from God as heirs and beloved children as we have wrapped ourselves in Jesus’s way as we follow him.
Thought for the week from Roots for Churches:
After several years of discernment, selection and training for ministry, the day of ordination as a deacon in God’s church had finally arrived. The candidates had been instructed to present themselves dressed for the great event in their clerical shirts and collars.
As one ordinand stepped out of the retreat house, already feeling apprehensive and self-conscious, a woman with a pram stopped her and said, ‘Oh good, you’ll be able to help me!’
‘Er, I don’t know about that,’ the nervous deacon-to-be stammered, fearing some deep theological or pastoral dilemma for which she felt ill-equipped. But it turned out that the harassed mother just needed to know how to find the main door of the church!
It is true that clothing can be very much linked to identity. A nurse travelling home from work may be called upon to give first aid, and this may not be an unreasonable expectation.
Hundreds of years ago, one of the teachers of the Church, Saint Athanasius, tried to explain the role of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in the salvation of humankind. I’m sure he had a phrase from this morning’s Epistle in mind – ‘you have clothed yourself with Christ’.
He goes on to explain that Jesus comes to bring about a radical change in us. We no longer have to strive to obey the letter of the Law of Moses but will instead experience a change in the depth of our being. The law will be deep inside us, motivating us and regulating our behaviour from within.
How is this achieved? Athanasius infers that Christ took our old and shabby coats of flesh and wore them himself, even to his death on the cross. By wearing them, he renewed them and perfected them by his perfect obedience to God. God affirmed this when Jesus was raised from the dead.
Now Jesus offers us back our coat, which he has fully accepted and transformed so that it is also his coat, and we can be proud to wear it.
This coat doesn’t just mean a change in outward appearance, however. By being clothed in Christ we are changed from within and should endeavour to display that change in our everyday lives. Someone once said that since Christ has given us his coat, we should wear it well. When people look at us, they will expect us to be changed and to become more Christ-like day by day.
Wearing Christ’s coat isn’t meant to be a superficial transformation. We need to become worthy of it by our practice, too: by prayer and worship, receiving God’s grace in the sacraments and by acts of love and compassion.
Are we comfortable in Christ’s coat today, is it a good fit? Are we wearing it well so that others see Christ in us?
© Roots for Churches Ltd (www.rootsforchurches.com) 2002-2025. Reproduced with permission.
Galatians 3:28 Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal -Fiona Kendall (Sanctuary Sunday material)
This passage follows Paul’s explanation to the Galatians of the purpose and relevance of the law in the context of faith and the covenant made by God. Paul has been at pains to show that the law serves a purpose but that the purpose is limited. Far more significant are the promise made by God to his people and the fulfilment of that promise in the grace which comes from Christ, which frees God’s children from sin. So who are the “children of God”? Verse 28 could not be clearer: no one group has a greater claim on God than another. “Children of God” cuts across cultural, social and gender divisions. The outcasts and non entitled - Greeks, slaves and female – are on an equal footing with those occupying a privileged place within society. Our position before God has nothing to do with our social standing, nationality, gender or tradition. Our acceptance as children of God derives from our baptism in Christ: a free choice open to all.
Prayers from Church of Scotland Weekly Worship:
Prayers
Opening prayer (from God With Us)
May God walk with refugees as God walked with Abraham.
May Christ protect those who were forced out of their homeland
as Christ experienced displacement since His birth.
May the Holy Spirit lead and comfort those who are willing to lose everything,
but keep the faith. Amen
Prayer of thanksgiving and confession (written by Veronique who is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo.)
Heavenly Father,
I bow my heart to You and pray.
I give You thanks for all You have done.
Thank You for being my refuge and my strength.
Thank You for Your goodness in my life.
When I wake each morning,
I praise Your name.
I give thanks that no matter what the circumstances,
I can count on You to shelter me
and to give me strength.
Almighty God,
merciful Father,
I, a poor, miserable sinner,
confess to You all my sins and iniquities,
those known and unknown.
I'm not perfect
and I fall short every day of my life.
Thank You for Your mercy.
In Jesus name, Amen.
The following prayers have been written by refugees and people seeking asylum who come from rich and diverse prayer traditions. They were collated and published by the Jesuit Refugee Service.
Call to worship
The Lord is knocking at the door of our hearts.
He wants to enjoy intimate fellowship with us.
Oh Lord, help me to develop everlasting relationship with You.
I receive You in my heart today.
Lord, I want to enjoy fellowship with You in the name of Jesus.
Holy Spirit, help me to experience God's presence.
Prayers of gratitude / thanksgiving
I will keep trusting and believing in God
and I will keep holding on to God's promises
knowing that it shall be well with my soul.
I refuse to be discouraged.
I receive spiritual encouragement to go forward.
Lord, everywhere I go, I will not be alone
because You are always with me.
I declare I am courageous,
no matter what I see or hear,
I will not give up, in Jesus' name.
Lord, remind us of the precious and constant thoughts You have for us,
entrusting our identity and our self-confidence in You,
rather than in ourselves, our circumstances, or the culture that we live in.
Thank You for Your word and unending love for us.
In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
Father God, help us to value life as much as You do,
and to be good stewards of not only the bodies You have crafted for us,
but the short time here on earth You have given us to do Your will and glorify You.
Lord Jesus, You break down the walls that divide us;
walls of hostility that blind us to one another.
You died that we may be one.
Thank You for Your great and merciful love,
we trust You.
Prayers for others / intercessions
We pray that God will increase our faith
and make us stronger in Him,
that nothing in this world will separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Saviour.
I pray for all those going through tough situations,
that God will intervene and visit them;
that they will experience divine encounter
and their burdens be lifted off their shoulder,
as they cry to God for help, just as in the time of Jabez.
We pray that God will be close to all who are persecuted
because they believe in the Lord.
May God console those who are suffering
and living in fear of religious persecution.
Lord Jesus, be with the unjustly accused and illegally detained.
Give them courage to face the beatings,
patience to bear the lies,
and hope to see beyond the bars and the barbed wire.
I pray for all nations at war.
May God give us peace.
Help the war in Russia and Ukraine to come to resolution.
We don't want to be suffering or panicking.
God, release peace into the world.
I pray for leaders in government and positions of authority,
for religious leaders all over the world,
and for heads of families.
I pray that they may all have strength and peace.
I pray for those waiting for decisions from the Home Office on their asylum cases,
that they can have peace, knowing the Lord is at their side.
I pray that the Lord will give consolation
and make the waiting time feel shorter.
I pray that the Lord in infinite mercy,
may look after those who cannot afford food and are reliant on food banks.
I pray that God meets the need of all creation.
Blessing (from God With Us)
May God bless us,
our God, who called the world into being,
who breathed us into life,
who provides us with new strength.
May God bless us,
our God, whose love does not know borders nor walls,
whose justice will come.
Our God, who casts down the mighty from their thrones
and lifts up the lowly.
May God bless us,
Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen
Blessing (from Pray Now: Stories of Encounter)
May God bless us with encounters
that turn strangers into neighbours,
that turn fear into friendships,
that turn hatred into hospitality,
that turn pain into peace. Amen