In his last will and testament, Julius Caesar adopted Gaius Octavius, known as Octavian, his great nephew, as his son and heir, because he had no son of his own. But Julius had already taken time to teach Octavian politics, and had taken the young man on military campaigns, and the year before he was officially adopted, Octavian was made Julius’ “Master of the Horse” in 43 BC which made him the second most powerful man in the Republic of Rome, because Julius Caesar had had himself declared dictator for life – ostensibly because of the constant external threats to the safety and security of the Republic. When Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Octavian inherited Caesar’s fortune, his legions of military, and most importantly, his name. He began to rule the Roman Republic after Julius Caesar’s death, and helped to transition the Republic into an Empire, and was named the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC. Octavian was also known by the name Augustus.
As far as adoptions go, you could say that Octavian – Emperor Augustus – won the adoption lottery.
Now, obviously, Octavian had to learn how to rule, and learn about politics if he was going to be an effective leader. Which is why his uncle had taken him on military campaigns and had immersed his nephew into the life of the republic. When you train people, you have to start somewhere.
Our New Testament passage today comes from Galatians. And Paul writes about how the Law of Moses was a disciplinarian until Christ came. The word that is translated as “disciplinarian” is actually the Greek word “pedagogue,” which as many of you know, in English is related to teaching. The word could actually be translated as “tutor,” or even “chaperone,” because the word is intended to show that the person who needs a tutor, a chaperone, or a disciplinarian is one who needs the extra guidance, not only to teach them, but to keep them safe.
We’ve all spent time with little children, and we know that for those that cannot yet understand, the simplest way to keep them safe is to put up barriers around places where they are likely to get hurt – like the kitchen, the garage, the outdoors. As the kids get older, we start to tell them things that they should not do, like: “Don’t try and grab anything from the stove, it will likely burn you,” or “Don’t run into the street unless you look both ways first,” or “Don’t walk in front of a running jet engine.”
As the kids get older, we also start teaching them right from wrong. “Do not steal, do not lie, do not make any idols. And, as hard as it can be to restrain yourself sometimes, you really must not murder people.”
If we’ve done a good job, then most likely, the child will grow up and have managed to keep most of those laws and regulations. Mainly because we were the tutor, the disciplinarian, or even the chaperone in those situations where the child needed guidance. If we’ve done a good job, then the child will have grown up, and become what society would call a “good person.”
Paul Tillich, a former professor at Union Theological Seminary had this to say about being a “good person:”
People who call themselves Christian – parents, teachers, preachers – tell us that we should be “good” and obey the will of God. For many of them the will of God is not very different from the will of those socially correct people whose conventions they ask us to accept. If we only willed such goodness, they say, we could achieve it, and would be rewarded in time and eternity – but first of all, in time.
What that means, however, is that too often, people confuse doing the will of God with the cultural context of the day. Think of the Victorian age and what it took to be considered a good, christian person then, versus what we recognize as truth today. Or, worse, think of the Spanish Inquisition, and how it was considered the perfect will of God to force people to convert to Christianity at the risk of death. Either convert to Christianity, or have your head cut off with a sword. At the time, this was considered the Will of God, and those who went along with forcing others to convert were considered, “good people.” But I think that we can all clearly see that this is not the way that God wants the world to meet him. Or think of a time in history that is closer to us: World War II, and the Third Reich in Germany under the influence of Adolf Hitler. Good people not only idly sat by as an entire people was rounded up and exterminated, but they had bought into the lie that this violence was not only acceptable, but something that good people do – good Christians do. They either turned a blind eye and tried to ignore what was happening, or they bought into the rhetoric that what they were doing was not only acceptable, but the Will of God.
But history proved them wrong as well.
Laws are made to guide people into an acceptable social contract, where at first we keep the laws to avoid getting caught – or getting hurt – and then later, we keep the laws because we recognize that it is for the good of society. We have moved from needing a tutor, a chaperone, or even a disciplinarian, into being self-disciplined. We don’t need anyone to help us keep the law, because we don’t want to risk our status as “good people,” and therefore, we keep ourselves in check.
Several people have done studies where they have asked people to agree or disagree with statements like, “It is always wrong to steal,” or “It is always wrong to cheat on a spouse.” These statements had corollaries in later questions, which sounded a bit like, “If no one would ever know that you had stolen a million dollars, would you take it?” or, “If you could get away with cheating on your spouse – no one would ever know – would you do so?” The results, of course, were not only interesting, but enlightening. The vast majority of people who responded “yes” to questions like “It is always wrong to steal,” also responded that they would gladly take the million dollars as long as it was guaranteed that they would never face any negative consequences.
Good people, willing to do less than good things, as long as they remained looking like “good people.”
This is what it means to be “under the law.” We might have gone from needing a disciplinarian to being self-disciplined, but we have failed to grasp the greater meaning of the Truth of God’s will in this world. Despite being self-disciplined, we haven’t yet grasped the fact that there is nothing in this world that will make us “good people,” except for the saving grace of Christ’s work on the cross.
The passage from Galatians reads “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” And our Gospel says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
You could say, we ourselves have won the adoption lottery. But we did not inherit legions of troops, nor a vast fortune, or a last name that would become synonymous with power and control like Octavian did. Instead, we inherited so much more – eternal life as Children of God.
The law was there to guide us, to keep us from harm, and to point forward to the time when God would send his son as the redeemer of the world. It was meant to prepare us for the discovery that God’s will on this earth was love, joy, and peace for all God’s people. And that God’s will was to reconcile the whole world to God. The Law pointed to this, but our adoption as children, our inheritance, makes God’s goal our goal as well.
We might not look like “good people” while we do it, and we might look like we are going against the cultural norms, or the trappings of what it means to be acceptable in society. But if it brings about joy, peace, and above all, love among God’s people and the world, then we know that we have fully stepped into spiritual adulthood, and operate out of discernment. Like Jesus, the “firstborn of all creation, the head of the church, and the author of our salvation,” we find ourselves close to God’s heart, and operating out of grace upon grace.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on December 29, 2024.]
