The Father sent his Son into the world to break the tyranny of sin over us.  He did so, to bring us into the circle of his communal life. We participate in this community as we are baptised into Christ sharing in his dying and rising in newness of life together (Galatians 3 7).  The Father also sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts enabling us to experience his communal life together as Abba’s children. That means our communal life is more than a good idea.  In the Spirit, we share together in God’s communal life of joyful love. 

In this new community, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). In NT times, people were counted worthy according to these social distinctions.  Males had more value than females and free more than slaves.  And Jews felt they were of more value than Greeks. But in the new community, these have no place in giving worth.  People have worth simply because of Christ plus nothing. We are wholly taken up with Christ as all and in all. Fully attentive to Jesus, we are freed from traditional, hierarchical systems of worth. 

Jesus radically undercuts all our reckonings of worth and gives the only worth that counts. And so, in his new community, we rethink human identity and worth.   We see each one as Abba’s son and daughter in Christ dearly loved and highly valued.