Who Are We "In?"

 2 Pentecost, Cp7, June 22, 2025
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a  Psalm 42
Gal. 3:23-29   Luke 8:26-39
 

Lectionary Link

St. Paul wrote that to be "in Christ" meant that this was a surpassing, persuasive, and favored identity to other identities such as gender or ethnic or socio-economic ones. And it might behoove us to asked what it means to be "in Christ?"

In is a preposition of location, which in our external world means having specific environment in the landscapes of our lives. But figuratively we know that the preposition can have other nuances. Being in America certainly means physical location but it also means having other identity trappings which come from our national heritage, having specific history, and many national symbols which are meant to unify us as being Americans in America. And we know that such symbols have relative effects of actually getting all of us to act as though we are one, E Pluribus Unum.

Being in Christ in the locative sense, can have poetic meaning, consistent with another deutero- Pauline, writing phrase, "Christ as All and in All." If Christ is the Eternal Word of God, such Word is so expansive and present in language users as to support the poetic notions of "Christ as All and In All."

If I were to say, I am in America and America is in me, it would mean that I am possessed by the powers of the symbolic identity with which America encodes my life experience.

For Paul, Christ was in him, and he was in Christ. This was a belief in an dynamic mutual and reciprocal perhaps mystical or spiritual relationship which for Paul was initiated in his divination experiences of the Risen Christ being revealed in him. And it was to this experience of being in Christ, and knowing Christ within oneself that was the cornerstone of what Paul called "his Gospel."

Perhaps the entire biblical tradition is about convincing people about the best place to be "in," that is, the best place to found one's personal and social identity upon. The Hebrew Scriptures were written to persuade people to be in a covenantal relationship with the One Holy God, and not be drawn away from this special Oneness to follow the many lesser gods and goddesses of their Canaan environment.

Elijah the prophet acted in the power of being "in" the One and Holy God of Israel, and he prevailed in the holy ritual showdown against the priests of the god Baal on Mount Carmel. But his great victory in the ritual showdown against the prophets of Baal did not defeat King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Elijah who acted in and through the power of the Holy One, fell into fear for his life, and he felt alone, and he ran away to escape the wrath of King Ahab. What was true for Elijah is true for all of us; fear of the current threatening situations, can make us forget what being in the power of the Holy One means, particularly when it seems as though the Holy One does not always seem to intervene for us in the ways in which we want.

St. Paul believed in the covenant of the Law of Moses as a guardian. The Law was a reminder for us to be in the Holy One, and to live our lives accordingly. But in experience, the Law was often experienced to be like a bad parent continually reminding us of our failure without providing the actual ability to live the recommended behaviors of the law.

This is where St. Paul discovered the covenant of becoming "in Christ," and Christ becoming known, "in him." This experience could be known by having the "faith" of Christ, that is, the faith that Jesus had in God as his Parent, was the same faith that each person made in the image of God could know.

St. Paul believed that being "in Christ," was a protective identity to have because Paul also believed in a vast invisible hierarchy of other identities and other principalities and powers in heavenly places. The Devil, fallen angels, false gods, demons were all part of the cosmology of evil for Paul in his setting.

In the Christ-ophany which Paul had, he knew his life to be whispered and changed even as he often knew himself to be harassed by the forces of evil and darkness, even by the demon that he attributed for a personal weakness which would not go away. In Paul's confession of the Risen Christ, he confessed him to be far above all principalities and powers of darkness in heavenly places.

As this spiritual cosmology came to be presented in the narratives of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus is seen to be the one above the principalities and powers of darkness in his role as a whispering exorcist of the diabols who tortured the inner lives of people. Jesus is seen in a "public health" role within the Judaic purity codes which involved labeling the clean and the unclean. In the purity codes, swine and demons had the designation of being "unclean." A person could only be made clean by prescribed ritual processes, by purification rituals for personal and social public health.

So, Jesus as the one above principalities and powers, commanded the unclean spirits to enter the unclean swine, who carried the unclean spirits to what they feared the most, into water. Water is the symbol of a purifying force against the unseen beasties of germs and unclean spirits. Water was prominent in a sacred rituals of purification including, Christian baptism.

The Gospel for us today is to live the identity of being "in Christ," and this is the place to live amid all the other powers which would tempt us to forget this primary identity of our lives.

St. Paul's life was "whispered" by the Risen Christ to become a person freed from the inner power of his own hatred and discord. We too need to be "whispered," exorcised by the Christ identity, so that we might maintain the very best lives of love and justice in the midst of the many terrible counter-powers of life. Let us endeavor to live "in Christ" as Christ has promised to live, "in us." Amen.