Last Sunday, when the alarm clock on my phone went off, I went into my normal morning routine of checking my email, followed by opening the New York Times. Once again, in all caps at the top were the words we are almost getting used to: mass shooting. This time in Orlando, with 20 believed to be dead. I read the article, but little was known, and I did not have a chance to look again for hours. Between services, I began to see Facebook posts pop up with friends pointing out that this happened at a gay nightclub. And while I heard people talking about it after services, it wasn’t until I had a chance to look at the news a little after noon that I realized that the death toll had grown to 50, the most deadly shooting in American history.

It would be easy to say that there are no words. And in some ways, there are no words that will do justice. But the truth is, my week felt overwhelmed with words and thoughts and ideas coming from everywhere. This mass shooting seemed to touch so many hurtful, divisive wounds that fester in our nation. Terrorism, Islam, gun control, homophobia and violence against LGBT people. Much of what was said I have heard before, but one thing was new to me. I kept seeing people point out that many news outlets and politicians were failing to mention that most of the victims were gay or lesbian, apparently targeted specifically for being at a gay nightclub.

And to be totally honest, I struggled with what to make of this. I understand that it is not honoring to erase who someone was, but at the end of the day, they were people created in the image of God and that is why we mourn their loss. Did these specific markers of their identity matter so much?

On Monday, several of us went to a vigil for the victims held here in Peoria. Jonathan and I wore our collars because this was a time that we believed it was important for people to know that people of faith were grieving the lives that were taken. This may seem simple, even silly, but it quickly became clear that it was neither.It meant something to the people there to know that people in the church mourned the death of gay and lesbian people, and that in itself is heartbreaking to me.

As so many other times, people were surprised and grateful that we were there. People told us stories of how they were kicked out of their church for being gay, surprised to know that there was a church that could accept them for who they were and who they loved.

It was a story I’ve heard way too many times.

Since we’ve come to Peoria, we have been approached multiple times by people asking if they were truly welcome here if they were gay or lesbian. A common struggle is that they had been told that they were welcome, but then found out that their participation was only possible with certain limits – if they weren’t in a relationship or if they were not in leadership. Literally we were asked, are there limits to my participation? Where is the stained glass ceiling for me?

Over and over, these stories make my heart hurt. I hurt for the pain they’ve experienced, but I also hurt because it goes against who I believe Jesus is and what God longs to do in our world, what the church is left here to do. I hurt because it is a failing on our part to live out the love we have been given, and I hurt because it is a loss to us as well. I understand that some may think we talk about this too much, or that it isn’t the most important thing to talk about in the wake of this massacre. I’m not claiming that it is – but it is something we have to talk about if we are to be the church. As I struggled with the passages we read today, those stories kept coming to heart, and I believe that in these Scriptures, we hear a call of who we are to be.

Our passage in Galatians is a powerful statement about who we are, perhaps one of the most powerful explanations of the work of God in Christ. We jump in at the end of a long argument that Paul has been making for a few chapters, and it is important to know what this is in the midst of. This argument was in response to some leaders in the new Christian community who were encouraging Gentile converts to be circumcised, and likely pushing them to follow Jewish laws as well. They were claiming that Jews were superior to Greeks and all other Gentiles. They were claiming this because it was what they had been taught, what they had always known to be true in their religion. And so they believed that the right way forward was for Gentile Christians to become Jewish – to become the thing they believed was better in the eyes of God. Elsewhere we see that Paul was raised with this understanding and for a long time believed it too – he used to be proud that he was a zealous and righteous Jew. But this whole idea has changed for him with Christ. And it changes what he knows God to be doing in the church, what God longs to do in the world.

It is in this context of a response to those who claimed that Jews were superior to Greeks and that all must become Jewish to follow Christ that Paul writes these famous words which were truly world-changing, for no one had ever said anything like them before: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

One reason it is incredibly important to remember the context of Paul’s statement is because our 2,000 year removal might make us think that Paul is simply saying that difference doesn’t matter, that these parts of our identity become unimportant.

To our ears, Jew and Greek and male and female are different, but not necessarily different in value. But these distinctions were not simply differences in the ancient context. Paul is writing against those in the early Christian community who tried to hold up Jews as far superior to any Gentiles. And while we do understand that being free is certainly better to being a slave, we might miss that the same applied between male and female. Being male was superior to being female in all ways. In fact, ancient culture believed that women were not fully developed men, both physically and intellectually. They were lesser, weaker humans, and the idea that they could be equal was unthinkable. In fact, in Gospels that were rejected by the church, female followers of Jesus were transformed into men so that they could be full disciples. But this idea, along with the idea that Gentiles should become Jews, is soundly rejected by the church – because of the vision Paul sets forth here.

Paul makes the incredible statement that the hierarchy that existed with these divisions – Jews over Greeks, free over slaves, males over females – he is saying that this has no place in Christ. In the community created in the new life of Jesus, no one is superior to anyone else. Because of what God has done for us, there are no second-class citizens, no stained glass ceilings.

Now, it is important to remember that this does not mean that people cease to be who they are, or should become different than who they are. Think about the argument in context – circumcised Jews do not magically become uncircumcised and Paul’s whole argument is that there is no reason for Gentiles to become circumcised – thus, they do not become the same, nor should they. Jews and Greeks will remain who they are, and are equally loved as children of God. On the other two divisions, Paul does challenge social norms somewhat in other writings, but these are issues of justice taken on more by later Christians, inspired by the vision Paul set out here.

In Christ, we are all children of God. We don’t cease to be who we are. That too would be a tragedy, as we were each created by God – each different parts of the same body, as Paul will say elsewhere. Our differences, our diversity are as important as the different persons that make up our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But in Christ, our differences no longer elevate some and subject others. Our differences do not separate us – they make us one body which functions because of our different abilities. But even in the body analogy, Paul is clear that no one is to believe they are greater than any other.

In Christ, we are not all made the same, but we are all made new. For each of us, all of who we are is made new, is made whole. We become known by who we are in Christ – children of God. Just as the man in our Gospel passage only knows himself by the name of what is wrong with him, what is robbing him of life, how many of us still carry the identity of shame, of disappointment? How many of us are still known by what we lack, rather than the beautiful and glorious children of God we were made to be? The work of Jesus for that man is the work of Christ for us all – never turning us into robots which are all the same, but restoring us into the unique and special creations that each of us were created to be.

Like the man in the Gospel was clothed, restoring his dignity, when Jesus healed him, Paul says that in baptism, we are clothed with Christ. In the early church, people literally stripped naked to be immersed in the water which represented death to their previous life and as they came out, were wrapped in a single white garment, a symbol of their new identity in Christ.

Today the albs, or white robes, that we wear during worship come from these garments – they are not meant to elevate anyone but rather are worn by laypeople, priests, deacons, and bishops to symbolize that in this community, in the church of Christ, we are all equal because our identity is found in our baptism. Just as wearing the same garment will never make us all look the same, so we are never meant to become the same – but in baptism we celebrate that Christ has created among us a community where all are equal, all are loved as children of God.

What Paul says here is truly revolutionary. No one before had suggested that literally all humans could possibly be equal. It was just assumed that Jews were superior to Greeks, free people were superior to slaves, and males were superior to females. It was how the world worked. It was all anyone knew. And Paul says that this is not what God intends. In this new community, it will be different. Because of the work of Christ we are welcomed into at baptism, all are children of God with the same value and are welcome to participate fully and equally. No one has a higher status, and no one will be a second-class citizen. And this church is to be a glimpse of the kingdom of God – a taste of what God longs to be the reality for all of our world.

This vision of the church has inspired Christians in every age to challenge the world as they know it. This is the vision of who we are supposed to be today as well. We are called to be a community where all are welcomed in as children of God, where all know that they are loved and valued for who they are, where all are welcome at the table and never left to eat only the crumbs. For Paul, three major distinctions elevated some people over others in his time, but we should by no means consider that list exhaustive. If there is any principle of Scripture that I see over and over, it is that whenever the people of God believe that someone is not welcome in the kingdom, God challenges that belief and shows that the kingdom of God is bigger and more open than they could have imagined. And I believe this still speaks to us today.

Look around here. Who are we missing? Who in our community does not know that the love of Christ welcomes them here? Who do we struggle to believe are truly welcome in the kingdom of God? As long as there are any who do not know, we still have work to do.

This is why it hurts each time I hear a person tell me about being kicked out of a church, each time someone is surprised that they might be welcome here. We were made to show the world the community we were created for – where all are welcome, are are equal, all are loved because they are children of God. And this week reminded me that there are still lots of places and people in our world who long to hear that good news, that Gospel.

At Monday’s vigil, our church donated most of the candles that were used to give  our community a tangible way to remember and mourn the fifty who died in Orlando. At Christmas, those candles had symbolized for us the light of Christ being born into our world. And at the Easter Vigil, they symbolized the first light of the new life of Christ’s resurrection. On Monday evening, standing by the river in our beautiful city, those same candles were held by people from all walks of life, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, gay and straight, black and white, rich and poor, some in hands of people who may never darken the door of a church.

And standing there perhaps, in that flame we all shared, the light of Christ burned brightest – offering a glimpse of the world God is working to bring here among us.