Romans 8: 18-25, page 800.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from the bondage of decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what one already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Sermon
Celebrities are a big deal in the developed world today; this tendency is something I don’t completely understand, but am captivated by. I don’t know how newsworthy this kind of thing is, but it was certainly all over the news this past week: that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have new twins. People.com, always with up to the minute celebrity gossip reported yesterday that the labor and delivery were relatively painless, that:
During the labor and delivery, the couple "were talking, they were together," "It was an epidural, so [Angelina] was awake and speaking and laughing. They were happy."
By Pete Norman and Peter Mikelbank
Originally posted Sunday July 13, 2008 02:35 PM EDT
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Photo by: Kevin Winter / Getty
Though we inhabit the same world, I won’t assume that all mothers who give birth can relate to Jolie’s experience. This inability to relate, I assume, is not confined to this particular birth experience, but, for many of us today, Jolie and Pitt don’t represent what is normal, but what is abnormal. They don’t look like us, they don’t dress like us, they don’t act like us, and they don’t deliver babies the way we did, do, or can expect to. Their relationship is different in that they now have several children but they are not married. They are beyond rich, beyond famous, beyond what we would call normal, and the birth of their new twins highlights their abnormality more than ever.
Birth, as Paul knew it, was something very different from Jolie and Pitt’s experience this past week as well. He was a Roman Citizen, though was not “Roman” in the sense that the congregation he addresses in his letter was “Roman,” but the experience of giving birth was relatively universal at that time. Private hospitals on the coast of France and epidurals were not reserved for the rich, but were unavailable to everyone as mothers gave birth naturally in the home with midwives and not doctors. We can assume that in Rome, as in all ancient cultures and still many cultures today, the rate of infant mortality was high, as was the chance of a mother dying in labor without the benefit of modern medicine. But the variable we do not take into account was the excepted practice in Romans society of exposure, as the choice to raise a child lay not in the hands of the mother, but in the hands of the father who would examine the newborn and choose whether to raise it or leave it to die, often on the street. The Romans thought it was strange that some nations subsumed by their empire would raise all healthy children, that Egyptians, Germans, and Jews exposed none of their children but raised them all.[1]
Paul must have seemed foreign to them, indeed, as he also seems foreign to us, but his words in Romans chapter 8 must have seemed strange; he writes, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
We can assume that the women in his congregation would have known exactly what he was talking about, that childbirth is not a time for laughter and conversation as it was for Jolie, but is a time of fearful suffering, great pain, and worry.
As they struggled for hours, risking their own lives and the life of that child who would be born, they, unlike Jolie had with them also a great worry – that all this work, all this pain, could be for nothing should the father choose not to raise this child.
As Paul elevates this image of the mother, using it as a divine image to explain the pain felt by all people, all of creation, we can assume that he not only sought to give an adequate metaphor for the new Kingdom that is coming, but sought to challenge the patriarchal assumptions of Ancient Rome – that the choice or decision made by a father was not akin to the divine working of God in creation, but the delivery of a new child by a mother, this glorious and unavoidable act was.
In this passage for today Paul elevates an image that we shy away from or try to avoid through the miracles of modern medicine. He lifts up an act that so many want to make less tedious, more convenient, and less painful – but Paul claims that the length of time, inconvenience, and even the pain of childbirth all appropriately describe the way God is working in our world.
I have no personal experience with childbirth, so for some perspective I called up my Mom to ask her for some help. She told me that childbirth is painful, but that is in the moment necessary and unavoidable. That if the mother stops pushing, if out of a fear of the pain the mother stops and tries to go backward, both the mother and the child will die. That it takes courage to face that pain, that it’s scary because you are in that moment completely and there is no going back. So you do it, and in the moment when you hold that child in your arms you know exactly why you do it.
I, like many in this congregation, will never have the privilege of giving birth, but we all can relate as we all live in the midst of a changing world, and for the most part, we don’t like or understand it.
We don’t like it when people stop going to church.
We don’t like it when people argue with us, challenge our beliefs, or try to change who we are or the way things are.
We don’t like it when our neighborhoods change. When people from other countries choose to move into a country we consider “ours”, and then seem to choose not to assimilate into our culture but choose to speak their own language and worship their own gods.
We don’t like it when people choose drugs, attempting to escape pain or boredom. We worry about the young and adults who turn to drugs and face addiction, not growing up into maturity, but running from it.
It seems as though the world has chosen the wrong path, and as a result of sin and bad decisions we feel pain. But Paul does not present the new creation as though it were a matter of choice, Paul does not portray creation as a Roman father who makes a decision to choose or not choose a newborn child, but as an expectant mother, giving birth to the new creation whether she chooses to or not.
We are used to choice. But the choice between obedience and disobedience does not paint the picture of creation in Romans. Paul does not liken the pain creation suffers to a Roman father who faces a choice, but a “creation” who like a pregnant mother, “waits in eager expectation” for the joy that is to come.
From this perspective Paul writes, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” that though we experience pain, we do not suffer needlessly, but suffer knowing that our hardships are a part of the glory God is doing even now.
It is God who governs our existence, and it is hope and not disappointment that defines who we are as the people of God.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” and as we feel the pain of this childbirth what do we expect?
Out of sadness, regret, depression, disappointment we may expect the worse. Thinking that all pain and discomfort is to be avoided, we assume we have done something wrong to deserve this hardship.
But we are the resurrection people, who believe that out of the grave comes new life, and so we encounter hardship, not as pain to be avoided, but like birth pains, leading the way to new life.
We are the resurrection people, and so we encounter our mistakes, not as lost opportunities, not as wrong turns that have lead us off course, but as a part of an unavoidable process God is working in us and in the world.
We are the resurrection people, and so we look out into the world, not as disappointed judges of the failings of society, but as the hopeful trusting people of the God whose plans will not be thwarted.
We are the resurrection people, who like an expectant mother know that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us, because we are a people with a reason to hope.
Amen.
[1] Paul Veyne edu A History of Private Life, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), 9
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Where is the Good Soil?
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Let anyone with ears Listen!
Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since there is no root, this one lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, this one quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the one who hears the world, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it. This one produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Sermon
In this passage Jesus is having a problem that I would love to have – that when I come here to preach on Sunday morning the crowds would be so great that I would have to sit out on a boat to avoid being consumed by the growing crowd on the shore.
But while I know that is not our problem this Sunday morning, in this church, like many churches, there was once a problem of space – the congregation outgrew the old worship space that is now the fellowship hall and so this new sanctuary was built to facilitate the growing congregation.
As a seminary student I learned that church growth is a slippery concept, that it’s elusive, and can’t be simply tracked back to one reason or cause. We want facts though, things that we can do or change, forces that we can control. We see that some churches prosper when led by certain pastors, while others don’t. Or that those churches with a certain theology or worship style attract people, packing worship services with excited people, and we begin to wonder what we’re doing wrong.
I grew up in a church that grew dramatically, especially under the care of one particular senior pastor. While this man was the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, membership increased in ways you wouldn’t believe, to the point that the occupancy of the sanctuary had to hold much more than twice what the old sanctuary did, as membership had increased into the thousands.
In so many ways I was intimidated when my former pastor asked me to lunch after graduating seminary. For me, as a child who had witnessed the church grow and expand, this man was larger than life, surely the most intimidating model for ministry I could imagine. After lunch I asked him what words of advice he had for a young man seeking a call to a church. I asked something like, “as far as having a successful ministry goes, your time at First Presbyterian can’t really be beat. What’s your secret?” His answer surprised me, and really, the fact that he would have lunch with me at all surprised me, considering how most senior pastors rarely take the time to meet with anyone, much less a young aspiring minister. He said, as he looked me in dead in the eye with a gaze I had to look away from, “Joe, you have to know what is in your control and what isn’t, and when it comes to being a minister, there isn’t really that much that is in your control.”
In him I saw a man who had earned the right to pat himself on the back, but I then realized I was face to face with a man who knows the wisdom of the parable of the sower.
In this parable we hear about a farmer who has gone out to sow seed. The farmer seems careless, sowing seed along the path where birds would eat it up, on rocky places where the plants would sprout quickly, but with shallow roots that the sun would scorch, other seed scattered among thorns that would out grow the plants and choke them out – seed going all these places besides its intended destination, among the good soil.
This parable describes a farmer, but surely not a farmer who knows what he’s doing. There is no mention of plowing the field, irrigating or fertilizing it. The farmer seems to carelessly sow seed without thinking much about the maximum yield of his field, depending on a miracle for any kind of harvest at all.
Modern farmers don’t depend on miracles, but plan ahead, plowing, irrigating, and fertilizing – minimizing waste by sowing with some precision, recognizing that minimizing waste means maximizing profit.
But Jesus admires this less economical farmer, and he interprets his parable far away from the crowds so that only the disciples hear; the disciples, who, in a way, are like sowers, sowing the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
We know that they found good soil, as the church that began with 12 disciples has today grown to billions, spreading the Good News over the whole world. We assume that they must have been skillful in casting their seed out over the earth, finding that good soil.
But Jesus doesn’t offer us a parable about a farmer who tended a field with precision, who counted the seeds he had wasted among the path, the rocky soil, and the thorns. Jesus offers a parable about a farmer who sows his seed and leaves the rest up to God.
My pastor knew that First Presbyterian Church grew not because of him, but because the seed he sowed fell on good soil, in a city booming with young families looking to the suburbs for a place to raise their kids. That the church he served grew because the city the church served grew, and though he and the church did their job of casting out seed, the harvest was plentiful because of many factors that were completely out of their control.
Like modern farmers we are used to believing that we can control every aspect of production. We can maximize the soil’s fertility, adding in Miracle Grow ourselves, not leaving any part of the process up to chance or up to God.
When we seem to be successful, the temptation is to take the credit for a job well done; and when we seem to struggle, we assume we have done something wrong, we haven’t planned enough. We want to maximize our yields, minimize our waste, and with the opportunity to control more and more, to know more and more, we run the risk of forgetting that ours is a vital, but ultimately small part of the great miracle God has been doing in our world since the dawn of creation.
Our seed must be sown or there will never be a crop, but by no means is the harvest all up to us. We must sow the seeds, but we must also trust that what will grow will grow, and what doesn’t is out of our control.
Likewise, parents have no choice but to sow seeds of love and guidance to their children, but at some point parents are also called to trust, not attempting to control something that is no longer, and maybe never has been in their hands to control.
Jesus entrusted 12 people with the future of the church, 12 people who launched a campaign of evangelism that changed the whole world. The mainline church in the United States worries over losing members, but even if we get back down to just a dozen we may be in the exact position God wants us to be.
We are not in control of the harvest, so go throw out your seeds with joy, giving thanks to God.
Amen.
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Let anyone with ears Listen!
Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since there is no root, this one lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, this one quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the one who hears the world, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it. This one produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Sermon
In this passage Jesus is having a problem that I would love to have – that when I come here to preach on Sunday morning the crowds would be so great that I would have to sit out on a boat to avoid being consumed by the growing crowd on the shore.
But while I know that is not our problem this Sunday morning, in this church, like many churches, there was once a problem of space – the congregation outgrew the old worship space that is now the fellowship hall and so this new sanctuary was built to facilitate the growing congregation.
As a seminary student I learned that church growth is a slippery concept, that it’s elusive, and can’t be simply tracked back to one reason or cause. We want facts though, things that we can do or change, forces that we can control. We see that some churches prosper when led by certain pastors, while others don’t. Or that those churches with a certain theology or worship style attract people, packing worship services with excited people, and we begin to wonder what we’re doing wrong.
I grew up in a church that grew dramatically, especially under the care of one particular senior pastor. While this man was the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, membership increased in ways you wouldn’t believe, to the point that the occupancy of the sanctuary had to hold much more than twice what the old sanctuary did, as membership had increased into the thousands.
In so many ways I was intimidated when my former pastor asked me to lunch after graduating seminary. For me, as a child who had witnessed the church grow and expand, this man was larger than life, surely the most intimidating model for ministry I could imagine. After lunch I asked him what words of advice he had for a young man seeking a call to a church. I asked something like, “as far as having a successful ministry goes, your time at First Presbyterian can’t really be beat. What’s your secret?” His answer surprised me, and really, the fact that he would have lunch with me at all surprised me, considering how most senior pastors rarely take the time to meet with anyone, much less a young aspiring minister. He said, as he looked me in dead in the eye with a gaze I had to look away from, “Joe, you have to know what is in your control and what isn’t, and when it comes to being a minister, there isn’t really that much that is in your control.”
In him I saw a man who had earned the right to pat himself on the back, but I then realized I was face to face with a man who knows the wisdom of the parable of the sower.
In this parable we hear about a farmer who has gone out to sow seed. The farmer seems careless, sowing seed along the path where birds would eat it up, on rocky places where the plants would sprout quickly, but with shallow roots that the sun would scorch, other seed scattered among thorns that would out grow the plants and choke them out – seed going all these places besides its intended destination, among the good soil.
This parable describes a farmer, but surely not a farmer who knows what he’s doing. There is no mention of plowing the field, irrigating or fertilizing it. The farmer seems to carelessly sow seed without thinking much about the maximum yield of his field, depending on a miracle for any kind of harvest at all.
Modern farmers don’t depend on miracles, but plan ahead, plowing, irrigating, and fertilizing – minimizing waste by sowing with some precision, recognizing that minimizing waste means maximizing profit.
But Jesus admires this less economical farmer, and he interprets his parable far away from the crowds so that only the disciples hear; the disciples, who, in a way, are like sowers, sowing the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
We know that they found good soil, as the church that began with 12 disciples has today grown to billions, spreading the Good News over the whole world. We assume that they must have been skillful in casting their seed out over the earth, finding that good soil.
But Jesus doesn’t offer us a parable about a farmer who tended a field with precision, who counted the seeds he had wasted among the path, the rocky soil, and the thorns. Jesus offers a parable about a farmer who sows his seed and leaves the rest up to God.
My pastor knew that First Presbyterian Church grew not because of him, but because the seed he sowed fell on good soil, in a city booming with young families looking to the suburbs for a place to raise their kids. That the church he served grew because the city the church served grew, and though he and the church did their job of casting out seed, the harvest was plentiful because of many factors that were completely out of their control.
Like modern farmers we are used to believing that we can control every aspect of production. We can maximize the soil’s fertility, adding in Miracle Grow ourselves, not leaving any part of the process up to chance or up to God.
When we seem to be successful, the temptation is to take the credit for a job well done; and when we seem to struggle, we assume we have done something wrong, we haven’t planned enough. We want to maximize our yields, minimize our waste, and with the opportunity to control more and more, to know more and more, we run the risk of forgetting that ours is a vital, but ultimately small part of the great miracle God has been doing in our world since the dawn of creation.
Our seed must be sown or there will never be a crop, but by no means is the harvest all up to us. We must sow the seeds, but we must also trust that what will grow will grow, and what doesn’t is out of our control.
Likewise, parents have no choice but to sow seeds of love and guidance to their children, but at some point parents are also called to trust, not attempting to control something that is no longer, and maybe never has been in their hands to control.
Jesus entrusted 12 people with the future of the church, 12 people who launched a campaign of evangelism that changed the whole world. The mainline church in the United States worries over losing members, but even if we get back down to just a dozen we may be in the exact position God wants us to be.
We are not in control of the harvest, so go throw out your seeds with joy, giving thanks to God.
Amen.
Monday, July 7, 2008
A Struggle for Freedom
Romans 7: 15-25a page 800
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Sermon
The 4th of July is a pretty great holiday. It gives us an excuse to wear clothes that we don’t usually wear, to light fireworks, to cook out, and to be proud of our country at a time when so many people are uncomfortable doing so.
My Mom used to wake us up early on the 4th of July, drive us out to the square where the parade would march by, hours before the parade would actually march by.
She wanted to get a good seat so we could all see the marching bands, fire trucks, politicians, and veterans, all celebrating the birth of our country, only leaving at the sad moment when the men with the trash cans walked through picking up all the garbage the parade had left.
As the veterans would march or ride by, we would all get a face to put on dates and events that can be hard to relate to through only the lens of our history books. In the 4th of July parade we look and see a real face, a vivid picture of heroes to think about for our image of the good guys, leaving our image of the bad guys who they fought against to our own imaginations.
We look to the veterans of WWI and WWII, Korea, Panama, the first and now the second war in Iraq, we imagine their hardship, their sacrifice, and maybe we even imagine what could have happened if they would have lost.
On the 4th of July we celebrate who the wars of our history have made us, honor the people who through their military service got us to where we are in their fight against the forces that this country has stood against.
It is easy to think about the 4th of July with a kind of duality, though, and maybe that is the way it should be – that on this one day we can lift our hats to the men and women who make this country great – though Paul’s letter to the Romans seems to call us to recognize something else.
Just a few days after the 4th of July, just a few days after celebrating all that is great about America, the good of our veterans and the evil of those forces they fought against, Paul calls us not to celebrate all the good we have defended and the evil we have fought against, but the good and the evil that exists within us all.
From the words of the psalmist we know that both good and evil are at work in the world, and that “with a scepter of justice our God reigns over all the earth.” That our God who reigns loves justices and righteousness, and so cannot help but hate tyranny and injustice.
To simplify our humanity is to believe that because God loves us because we are just and righteous, and that those forces that God hates - tyranny and injustice - must be altogether separate from who we are. But Paul’s words stand in the face of this kind of duality, forcing us to see that even within Paul, even within this hero of the faith exists an inner struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, a struggle that may have forced Paul to ask himself how our God, a lover of justice and a hater of sin could go on loving him given the existence of both good and evil within his very body.
On the 4th of July we rightly celebrate our inclination to justice and freedom, our stand against the sins of the world with parades, cook-outs, and fireworks – but Paul calls us to see that all the pomp and circumstance does not represent all sides of our existence – and so he asks us to consider the parts of our lives that don’t deserve the parade, those parts that we would rather turn our backs to.
Revealing a part of himself, showing his weaknesses with an honesty that in no way resembles the politicians of our time, Paul writes, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”
In a society where leaders admit that “mistakes were made,” but are reluctant to take responsibility for making them, Paul’s honesty is shocking. If he were running for office he models a losing campaign according to the standards of today. We don’t want a leader who shows this kind of weakness, this kind of regret, admitting to a war raging in his own mind making him a prisoner to the law of sin. How could such a person lead us, we might ask? How could a human like this lead our country where we need to go, epitomizing all that is good about us, minimizing what is bad rather than calling attention to it, sweeping the sins under the rug or leaving them on the street for someone else to pick up.
In some ways it’s not really what we would call the patriotic thing to do, certainly not the normal thing for a leader to do. We have to wonder, if this is who Paul is, how could he ever be the person who God has chosen to take us where we are supposed to go – how could this broken man be the one who God has called to lead us onward to the Promised Land?
Paul rightly knows his own limitations, and knows also his role to play. He is not independent, not secure in his own means; he does not even stand on his own feet but asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
A temptation Paul does not fall prey to is one that seems entrenched in our own society. We want to celebrate what is good, reluctant to draw attention to what isn’t. We want the history of our country to be like one long 4th of July parade, highlighting the evil forces we have defeated, though we know that our history is not only one of evil abroad, as it is also a history of sin within.
But we hide this side of ourselves, assuming hiding our sins from God and each other is the only way to deal with the fact that though our values and intentions are good, “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
I have to believe that this reality Paul describes is not only his own, but all of ours, that we are all asking, “who will rescue me from this body of death?”
This is our reality, the truth that we cannot lead ourselves, cannot save ourselves from the prison that sin holds us to, and so we fear that if God knew how sinful we truly are God would surely hate us, that if we admitted to ourselves our selfishness and foolishness we could not go on. Shortsightedly we assume that the only solution must be to celebrate what is good and turn our backs to the reality that we are in fact both good and sinful.
But Paul, though he surely was kissing his political career goodbye, is brave enough to admit to the sin within him.
Through Jesus Christ Paul learned something that so many have forgotten, that God’s love did not depend on the people of God, that God will not stop loving humanity when our sinfulness comes to attention. Paul saw that the love of God continued on, that even as the people of God called for Jesus to be crucified God still went on loving.
And so, this radical love set Paul free from his prison, and he could claim all of himself, not just the parade of great accomplishments, but the trash he left behind.
He was set free, not because he deserved it, but because of the love of God made real to him through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-Amen.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Sermon
The 4th of July is a pretty great holiday. It gives us an excuse to wear clothes that we don’t usually wear, to light fireworks, to cook out, and to be proud of our country at a time when so many people are uncomfortable doing so.
My Mom used to wake us up early on the 4th of July, drive us out to the square where the parade would march by, hours before the parade would actually march by.
She wanted to get a good seat so we could all see the marching bands, fire trucks, politicians, and veterans, all celebrating the birth of our country, only leaving at the sad moment when the men with the trash cans walked through picking up all the garbage the parade had left.
As the veterans would march or ride by, we would all get a face to put on dates and events that can be hard to relate to through only the lens of our history books. In the 4th of July parade we look and see a real face, a vivid picture of heroes to think about for our image of the good guys, leaving our image of the bad guys who they fought against to our own imaginations.
We look to the veterans of WWI and WWII, Korea, Panama, the first and now the second war in Iraq, we imagine their hardship, their sacrifice, and maybe we even imagine what could have happened if they would have lost.
On the 4th of July we celebrate who the wars of our history have made us, honor the people who through their military service got us to where we are in their fight against the forces that this country has stood against.
It is easy to think about the 4th of July with a kind of duality, though, and maybe that is the way it should be – that on this one day we can lift our hats to the men and women who make this country great – though Paul’s letter to the Romans seems to call us to recognize something else.
Just a few days after the 4th of July, just a few days after celebrating all that is great about America, the good of our veterans and the evil of those forces they fought against, Paul calls us not to celebrate all the good we have defended and the evil we have fought against, but the good and the evil that exists within us all.
From the words of the psalmist we know that both good and evil are at work in the world, and that “with a scepter of justice our God reigns over all the earth.” That our God who reigns loves justices and righteousness, and so cannot help but hate tyranny and injustice.
To simplify our humanity is to believe that because God loves us because we are just and righteous, and that those forces that God hates - tyranny and injustice - must be altogether separate from who we are. But Paul’s words stand in the face of this kind of duality, forcing us to see that even within Paul, even within this hero of the faith exists an inner struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, a struggle that may have forced Paul to ask himself how our God, a lover of justice and a hater of sin could go on loving him given the existence of both good and evil within his very body.
On the 4th of July we rightly celebrate our inclination to justice and freedom, our stand against the sins of the world with parades, cook-outs, and fireworks – but Paul calls us to see that all the pomp and circumstance does not represent all sides of our existence – and so he asks us to consider the parts of our lives that don’t deserve the parade, those parts that we would rather turn our backs to.
Revealing a part of himself, showing his weaknesses with an honesty that in no way resembles the politicians of our time, Paul writes, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”
In a society where leaders admit that “mistakes were made,” but are reluctant to take responsibility for making them, Paul’s honesty is shocking. If he were running for office he models a losing campaign according to the standards of today. We don’t want a leader who shows this kind of weakness, this kind of regret, admitting to a war raging in his own mind making him a prisoner to the law of sin. How could such a person lead us, we might ask? How could a human like this lead our country where we need to go, epitomizing all that is good about us, minimizing what is bad rather than calling attention to it, sweeping the sins under the rug or leaving them on the street for someone else to pick up.
In some ways it’s not really what we would call the patriotic thing to do, certainly not the normal thing for a leader to do. We have to wonder, if this is who Paul is, how could he ever be the person who God has chosen to take us where we are supposed to go – how could this broken man be the one who God has called to lead us onward to the Promised Land?
Paul rightly knows his own limitations, and knows also his role to play. He is not independent, not secure in his own means; he does not even stand on his own feet but asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
A temptation Paul does not fall prey to is one that seems entrenched in our own society. We want to celebrate what is good, reluctant to draw attention to what isn’t. We want the history of our country to be like one long 4th of July parade, highlighting the evil forces we have defeated, though we know that our history is not only one of evil abroad, as it is also a history of sin within.
But we hide this side of ourselves, assuming hiding our sins from God and each other is the only way to deal with the fact that though our values and intentions are good, “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
I have to believe that this reality Paul describes is not only his own, but all of ours, that we are all asking, “who will rescue me from this body of death?”
This is our reality, the truth that we cannot lead ourselves, cannot save ourselves from the prison that sin holds us to, and so we fear that if God knew how sinful we truly are God would surely hate us, that if we admitted to ourselves our selfishness and foolishness we could not go on. Shortsightedly we assume that the only solution must be to celebrate what is good and turn our backs to the reality that we are in fact both good and sinful.
But Paul, though he surely was kissing his political career goodbye, is brave enough to admit to the sin within him.
Through Jesus Christ Paul learned something that so many have forgotten, that God’s love did not depend on the people of God, that God will not stop loving humanity when our sinfulness comes to attention. Paul saw that the love of God continued on, that even as the people of God called for Jesus to be crucified God still went on loving.
And so, this radical love set Paul free from his prison, and he could claim all of himself, not just the parade of great accomplishments, but the trash he left behind.
He was set free, not because he deserved it, but because of the love of God made real to him through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-Amen.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
He Descended
Matthew 10: 40-42
“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
Sermon
This passage from Matthew comes at the end of a vivid description of the reality the disciples can expect to encounter as they go out into the word spreading the Good News. Jesus, surely not in an attempt at convincing them to become disciples, but in an effort to warn them to the reality of their call, tells them, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
Honest about the magnitude of their mission, the danger and violence they can expect to encounter, he seems to arm them with absolutely nothing saying, “Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.”
You have to wonder how this group of men would stand up against the streets of Atlanta – resembling not a militia of freedom fighters, not a celebrity in a limo, resembling the homeless who line Ponce de Leon, but even then, without a shopping cart or bag filled with meager possessions.
We know that Jesus calls this twelve to drive out evil spirits, to heal disease and sickness, but we wonder how they will do it, and with what?
To think of all they were up against then, and to imagine what all they would be up against now, they seem ill equipped, truly like sheep among wolves.
Then they were up against a great challenge going out into Ancient Jerusalem, armed with nothing much more than a will to make a difference, and thinking about it in our context, it’s hard to say whether they were up against a greater challenge going out into Ancient Jerusalem then they would on the streets of Atlanta.
Today, like during the Civil Rights movement, those who seek social change are often met with fire hoses rather than the flogging that Jesus warns the disciples about; and where Jesus warns the disciples of arrest, we can be sure that the modern jail surely has more to offer her inmates than the ancient jail. But as for the people themselves, we know that the disciples expected to encounter a culture that had hardly heard of Jesus. While most have heard of Jesus in our culture, so many have forgotten, and while they may know where the church is, should they walk through the doors, worship in the sanctuary, how many could remember the words of the Apostles Creed, much less know what the words mean?
Most of us here today know the words, but the meaning can be something different. I have struggled, as I know others have struggled with the words, “he descended into hell,” that we say each Sunday. A couple weeks ago someone asked me if we really mean that Jesus went to hell, a question I didn’t know the answer to exactly, but fortunately I knew the right book to look in. The line, “he descended into hell,” wasn’t added to the Creed officially until the 9th Century, though it was included unofficially beginning in the 4th. Those translations were most likely in Latin, and translating the word “infernus” into English adds another layer of complication.
A great Historian of Christianity, Justo Gonzalez writes that whether we say Jesus descended into “hell” or if we say, as many do, that he descended “to the place of the dead,” isn’t really the point, as “infernus” can mean either. The point, according to Gonzalez, is that, “As one reads the Creed from the declaration that Jesus was born to this point, the movement is clearly downward. The eternal Son of God descends to earth through birth, and at his death continues descending to the lower places.”[1]
This descending nature of Christ then that we affirm in our statement of faith, directly contrasts what is a given in almost every area of our lives. In the Apostles’ Creed, what we declare about Jesus is that rather than climb the latter, rather than elevate himself, rather than associate himself with those who society considers great, Jesus in his life and in his death descended.
From heaven he descended to earth to be among us, we who are human, earthly, and unworthy. Then as a human being, he did not create for himself a palace that he might use to make his way in the world as what we would call a great man, he did not ride through the cities in a parade of extravagance as those Pharos who claimed divinity did on the streets of Ancient Egypt, but lived simply, associating with the poor, the prostitute, the outcast.
So he called his disciples to do the same – to go out into the world like sheep among wolves, not armed, not separating themselves from those who they served, not decorated so that the villages they approached would recognize them as great men, but penniless, without even a bag, or an extra tunic, not independent, but completely dependent on the people they met.
The challenge then became, or the question that I wonder about, is how would the village recognize these divine messengers when they saw them? If they don’t identify themselves as Ancient Israelite society would expect great men to identify themselves, if they didn’t come rolling into town with an armada and a legionaries’ escort, how would the village know what important men were approaching?
The question for us today is no different. If disciples are out there in the world today, if God is sending us messengers of the Good News right now, how will we recognize them if their greatness is not symbolized by the pomp and circumstance we are accustomed to?
We are used to human beings who try their hand at ascension, attempting to make themselves bigger than they are, but divinity as we know it in Jesus Christ is not only known through Ascending into heaven, but also descending to earth, and even to hell.
If divinity then has descended, if knowing God comes through knowing Jesus who has descended among us – and that knowing Jesus comes through knowing these disciples who he has sent, how will we recognize divinity when divinity has descended from the majesty of heaven to the streets of the city?
We know from our passage for today, that any one who receives a prophet, a righteous person, or one of Christ’s disciples will receive a reward far greater than what they deserve, but how will we receive that reward if we don’t know who to give that glass of cold water to, not being able to recognize them from the homeless on the street?
As Christ descended among us redefining our understanding of what it means to be great and important - God, taking the form of not a king, but a servant, not a rich man but a poor man, not at the center of society but on the outskirts – our hospitality, the way we interact with each other, the standards of class that divide rich from poor, black from white, upwardly mobile from downtrodden all must change.
Creation groaned with this kind of change not long ago. In this part of the country, and in so many other parts, as African-American people began to claim their equality in an unequal society, like the disciples they were like sheep thrown out to the wolves. They were met by barking dogs, angry mobs, not with a cup of cold water, but high powered hoses that attempted to beat them to the ground. Their voices were not heard over the roar of a fire hose, and so the sin of segregation that plagued all of society continued on. But imagine if instead of a fire hose, the police offered the protestors a cup of cold water.
We cannot know for sure who Jesus is among us, who he has sent to do his work, who he has empowered to take his ministry onward, but as our passage from Matthew claims, “if we only greet one of these little ones because they are his disciple, I tell you the truth, we will certainly not lose our reward”.
But… it is a reward with a price. Unlike a fire hose that attempts to keep things the way they are, the gift of a cup of cold water is an invitation to see another person in a new way, to hear the Good News of the Gospel, and so to challenge the structures of society that divide us.
By inviting a disciple to a cup of cold water Jesus was calling society to meet a poor man face to face, and to hear the lesson he had to teach.
By inviting those who marched for equality for a cup of cold water Jesus called white society to meet someone different, and to see that Christ shown in their eyes.
It is a radical thing really, a cup of cold water, because it calls us to identify with another just as God identified with us through the descending Jesus Christ, and to be changed.
So we are called to offer a cup of cold water to those who are different. To sit down with the poor, the laborer, the waitress; to quench their thirst, to listen to their dreams and their hopes, and to identify with them as Christ identifies with us.
We are called to offer a cup of cold water to the teenagers and the children of our church. To sit down with one of his own, to quench their thirst, to listen to their struggles, to identify with them as Christ identifies with us.
It is so different from what we often do – to silence those who are different and who call for change with the roaring of a fire hose, but just as Christ descended among us to quench our thirst, so we are called to sit down with each other. We are called to make their struggles our own, to know their story, and to sit down together as equals.
-Amen.
[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Apostles’ Creed for Today (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) 49.
“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
Sermon
This passage from Matthew comes at the end of a vivid description of the reality the disciples can expect to encounter as they go out into the word spreading the Good News. Jesus, surely not in an attempt at convincing them to become disciples, but in an effort to warn them to the reality of their call, tells them, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
Honest about the magnitude of their mission, the danger and violence they can expect to encounter, he seems to arm them with absolutely nothing saying, “Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.”
You have to wonder how this group of men would stand up against the streets of Atlanta – resembling not a militia of freedom fighters, not a celebrity in a limo, resembling the homeless who line Ponce de Leon, but even then, without a shopping cart or bag filled with meager possessions.
We know that Jesus calls this twelve to drive out evil spirits, to heal disease and sickness, but we wonder how they will do it, and with what?
To think of all they were up against then, and to imagine what all they would be up against now, they seem ill equipped, truly like sheep among wolves.
Then they were up against a great challenge going out into Ancient Jerusalem, armed with nothing much more than a will to make a difference, and thinking about it in our context, it’s hard to say whether they were up against a greater challenge going out into Ancient Jerusalem then they would on the streets of Atlanta.
Today, like during the Civil Rights movement, those who seek social change are often met with fire hoses rather than the flogging that Jesus warns the disciples about; and where Jesus warns the disciples of arrest, we can be sure that the modern jail surely has more to offer her inmates than the ancient jail. But as for the people themselves, we know that the disciples expected to encounter a culture that had hardly heard of Jesus. While most have heard of Jesus in our culture, so many have forgotten, and while they may know where the church is, should they walk through the doors, worship in the sanctuary, how many could remember the words of the Apostles Creed, much less know what the words mean?
Most of us here today know the words, but the meaning can be something different. I have struggled, as I know others have struggled with the words, “he descended into hell,” that we say each Sunday. A couple weeks ago someone asked me if we really mean that Jesus went to hell, a question I didn’t know the answer to exactly, but fortunately I knew the right book to look in. The line, “he descended into hell,” wasn’t added to the Creed officially until the 9th Century, though it was included unofficially beginning in the 4th. Those translations were most likely in Latin, and translating the word “infernus” into English adds another layer of complication.
A great Historian of Christianity, Justo Gonzalez writes that whether we say Jesus descended into “hell” or if we say, as many do, that he descended “to the place of the dead,” isn’t really the point, as “infernus” can mean either. The point, according to Gonzalez, is that, “As one reads the Creed from the declaration that Jesus was born to this point, the movement is clearly downward. The eternal Son of God descends to earth through birth, and at his death continues descending to the lower places.”[1]
This descending nature of Christ then that we affirm in our statement of faith, directly contrasts what is a given in almost every area of our lives. In the Apostles’ Creed, what we declare about Jesus is that rather than climb the latter, rather than elevate himself, rather than associate himself with those who society considers great, Jesus in his life and in his death descended.
From heaven he descended to earth to be among us, we who are human, earthly, and unworthy. Then as a human being, he did not create for himself a palace that he might use to make his way in the world as what we would call a great man, he did not ride through the cities in a parade of extravagance as those Pharos who claimed divinity did on the streets of Ancient Egypt, but lived simply, associating with the poor, the prostitute, the outcast.
So he called his disciples to do the same – to go out into the world like sheep among wolves, not armed, not separating themselves from those who they served, not decorated so that the villages they approached would recognize them as great men, but penniless, without even a bag, or an extra tunic, not independent, but completely dependent on the people they met.
The challenge then became, or the question that I wonder about, is how would the village recognize these divine messengers when they saw them? If they don’t identify themselves as Ancient Israelite society would expect great men to identify themselves, if they didn’t come rolling into town with an armada and a legionaries’ escort, how would the village know what important men were approaching?
The question for us today is no different. If disciples are out there in the world today, if God is sending us messengers of the Good News right now, how will we recognize them if their greatness is not symbolized by the pomp and circumstance we are accustomed to?
We are used to human beings who try their hand at ascension, attempting to make themselves bigger than they are, but divinity as we know it in Jesus Christ is not only known through Ascending into heaven, but also descending to earth, and even to hell.
If divinity then has descended, if knowing God comes through knowing Jesus who has descended among us – and that knowing Jesus comes through knowing these disciples who he has sent, how will we recognize divinity when divinity has descended from the majesty of heaven to the streets of the city?
We know from our passage for today, that any one who receives a prophet, a righteous person, or one of Christ’s disciples will receive a reward far greater than what they deserve, but how will we receive that reward if we don’t know who to give that glass of cold water to, not being able to recognize them from the homeless on the street?
As Christ descended among us redefining our understanding of what it means to be great and important - God, taking the form of not a king, but a servant, not a rich man but a poor man, not at the center of society but on the outskirts – our hospitality, the way we interact with each other, the standards of class that divide rich from poor, black from white, upwardly mobile from downtrodden all must change.
Creation groaned with this kind of change not long ago. In this part of the country, and in so many other parts, as African-American people began to claim their equality in an unequal society, like the disciples they were like sheep thrown out to the wolves. They were met by barking dogs, angry mobs, not with a cup of cold water, but high powered hoses that attempted to beat them to the ground. Their voices were not heard over the roar of a fire hose, and so the sin of segregation that plagued all of society continued on. But imagine if instead of a fire hose, the police offered the protestors a cup of cold water.
We cannot know for sure who Jesus is among us, who he has sent to do his work, who he has empowered to take his ministry onward, but as our passage from Matthew claims, “if we only greet one of these little ones because they are his disciple, I tell you the truth, we will certainly not lose our reward”.
But… it is a reward with a price. Unlike a fire hose that attempts to keep things the way they are, the gift of a cup of cold water is an invitation to see another person in a new way, to hear the Good News of the Gospel, and so to challenge the structures of society that divide us.
By inviting a disciple to a cup of cold water Jesus was calling society to meet a poor man face to face, and to hear the lesson he had to teach.
By inviting those who marched for equality for a cup of cold water Jesus called white society to meet someone different, and to see that Christ shown in their eyes.
It is a radical thing really, a cup of cold water, because it calls us to identify with another just as God identified with us through the descending Jesus Christ, and to be changed.
So we are called to offer a cup of cold water to those who are different. To sit down with the poor, the laborer, the waitress; to quench their thirst, to listen to their dreams and their hopes, and to identify with them as Christ identifies with us.
We are called to offer a cup of cold water to the teenagers and the children of our church. To sit down with one of his own, to quench their thirst, to listen to their struggles, to identify with them as Christ identifies with us.
It is so different from what we often do – to silence those who are different and who call for change with the roaring of a fire hose, but just as Christ descended among us to quench our thirst, so we are called to sit down with each other. We are called to make their struggles our own, to know their story, and to sit down together as equals.
-Amen.
[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Apostles’ Creed for Today (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) 49.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Shall We Go On Sinning?
Romans 6: 1-14
What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, we cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Sermon
The image of baptism that this passage paints is not necessarily the one we are most used to. Paul writes to the church in Rome, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death.”
When I think of baptism, death is generally far from my mind. I think of babies, I think of newness. I do think of all that is wrong with the world, but I am also filled with hope because I know that those who are baptized in this church will find their identity, not according to sin, but according to God’s love.
Many though have taken Paul’s theology of baptism literally, and one of my favorite Biblical scholars goes so far to deal with the heart of death and resurrection claimed in baptism that the sermon he wrote for his son’s baptism is titled, “A Death in the Family.” He preached on this same passage in Romans and said, “For [his mother and me], [our son’s] death today is real, not just a symbol or an abstraction. This reality is tempered only by the hope we hold for what this death means. He will cease to exist under the powers of this world, and will be transformed and transferred to a completely new and different kind of existence, with different powers and possibilities for life, with new eyes to see the world, and most important, with a new family and a new Lord. To use Paul’s words, today [my son] will be united with Christ in a death like his, he will be buried with him, and he will be crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be destroyed.”[1]
We don’t necessarily think of death when we see beautiful babies – we think of life. We also don’t think of sin – we think of innocence.
But history tells us, and indeed, Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us, that the meaning of baptism is radical, not polite or expected. And that baptism makes radical demands on our lives as faithful believers, claiming that we are not sprinkled with water, but die to sin, and do not come forth from the waters of baptism to be as cute as possible, but as new creations dead to sin and alive to Christ.
During slavery African-American slaves who lived on the coast of South Carolina and Georgia baptized, not in a church, but in the oceans or marshes just as the tide was going out to sea. These Christians descended into death, or into the water, and as the tide was swept out to sea so their sins were also.
But while these slaves were surely resurrected into a new life, they could not live this new life fully. The water did wash the sin of slavery off their bodies temporarily, but this sin could not be forgotten long – the walk back to the plantation reminded them all that while their baptism marked their hearts, their bodies were owned. While the reality of their baptism lifted their spirit, affirmed their identity as God’s children, this identity could only be partial, as their hands that worked the field belonged to another.
We look back on this time and question the morality of the slave owner, wondering how anyone could claim such dominion over another person. But these owners were not heathens, but Christians, attending church each Sunday, some even preaching the sermon, leading devotionals to their families and their slaves on plantation verandas throughout the South. We know from their letters, their church attendance, their conversions and professions of faith that these owners of slaves were Christians, baptized just as their slaves were – but their conversion it would seem was just as partial. While they honored Jesus in their heart, they honored selfish economic gain with the practice of slavery.
Another scholar of the New Testament, David Bartlett claims that this partial conversion is typical. He writes, “We think that because our hearts belong to Jesus, our bodies, our check-books, our votes, and our property values belong to us.”[2]
We all want to be known as Christians and hope that as our friends and family look at our lives they will know that our master is not sin, but God who conquers sin – that our lives will be a testimony to God’s power – that our actions will preach the gospel in a way that our words alone never could.
In Florida, and now in South Carolina there is an effort to make the reality of conversion known through license plates – that just as Georgia or Georgia Tech fans can personalize their license plates, so Christians might be able to buy plates proclaiming their conversion – but how will this statement be understood if the owner of such a license plate cuts in front of you on 285?
We look back on slave owners in this way – not recognizing the faith that they bore in their hearts, but the cruelty that they bore through their economic decisions. Today, as history is judged through the lens of our 21st Century Christian expectations, we cannot imagine how a follower of Jesus Christ could tolerate slavery, and so, like a the car that bears a Christian license plate, we judge not according to the faith that their heart espouses or the words that their mouth proclaims, but according to their actions – knowing that the license plate may not matter nearly so much as the way you drive the car; as it is according to actions that we expect to see the evidence of death, a death to sin and a resurrection to Christ.
Today, as we examine our lives through the same lens we must ask ourselves the same question – that while we honor God in part through attending church, through confessing our faith, can we “count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”? Will our lives be a true confession of our faith?
Will future generations take into account the belief our words confess to? Or will they judge us by the way we have used or abused our bodies? The way we make decisions based on selfish gain with our check-books, voting not for the good of all people but for the good of our own? Have we lived by the law of love in our hearts or according to laws of economy in our actions?
When future generations look back on our marriages, will they judge us by what we had hoped to do, or by what we actually did? Will they recognize the sacrifices we made at the office, or will they be more concerned with the empty seat we too often left at the dinner table? Will they honor us for our promotions, or judge us for not being there for the big soccer game, swim meet, or concert?
Will our children celebrate our many anniversaries, or will they always remember the slamming doors and arguments? We concentrate so often on the faith that lives in our hearts, but will this faith be known to future generations if it does not live out in our lives? Will the smiles in pictures matter, if our children and grandchildren know that these smiles hide sins of all kinds?
We are a country that claims a strong faith, but will future generations judge us by the number of churches we have built, or by the number of bombs we have dropped?
Claiming justice for all, will we be judged according to our defense of the unborn, or our torture of the accused terrorist?
Knowing that Christ calls us to defend the weak and the immigrant, to seek justice for the poor, will a vote for our business interest honor the foundation of our faith?
These are the questions for today, because these are the questions that Christianity demands. Like slave owners before us, we will be judged by future generations who will ask if we have truly died to sin, or continued to live honoring false gods. But why should we wait for their judgment? Christ did not die so that we could go on sinning, but so that we might be alive in him today.
-Amen.
[1] Stanly P. Saunders, The Word on the Street (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000) 42-43.
[2] David L. Bartlett, Romans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) 61.
What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, we cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Sermon
The image of baptism that this passage paints is not necessarily the one we are most used to. Paul writes to the church in Rome, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death.”
When I think of baptism, death is generally far from my mind. I think of babies, I think of newness. I do think of all that is wrong with the world, but I am also filled with hope because I know that those who are baptized in this church will find their identity, not according to sin, but according to God’s love.
Many though have taken Paul’s theology of baptism literally, and one of my favorite Biblical scholars goes so far to deal with the heart of death and resurrection claimed in baptism that the sermon he wrote for his son’s baptism is titled, “A Death in the Family.” He preached on this same passage in Romans and said, “For [his mother and me], [our son’s] death today is real, not just a symbol or an abstraction. This reality is tempered only by the hope we hold for what this death means. He will cease to exist under the powers of this world, and will be transformed and transferred to a completely new and different kind of existence, with different powers and possibilities for life, with new eyes to see the world, and most important, with a new family and a new Lord. To use Paul’s words, today [my son] will be united with Christ in a death like his, he will be buried with him, and he will be crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be destroyed.”[1]
We don’t necessarily think of death when we see beautiful babies – we think of life. We also don’t think of sin – we think of innocence.
But history tells us, and indeed, Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us, that the meaning of baptism is radical, not polite or expected. And that baptism makes radical demands on our lives as faithful believers, claiming that we are not sprinkled with water, but die to sin, and do not come forth from the waters of baptism to be as cute as possible, but as new creations dead to sin and alive to Christ.
During slavery African-American slaves who lived on the coast of South Carolina and Georgia baptized, not in a church, but in the oceans or marshes just as the tide was going out to sea. These Christians descended into death, or into the water, and as the tide was swept out to sea so their sins were also.
But while these slaves were surely resurrected into a new life, they could not live this new life fully. The water did wash the sin of slavery off their bodies temporarily, but this sin could not be forgotten long – the walk back to the plantation reminded them all that while their baptism marked their hearts, their bodies were owned. While the reality of their baptism lifted their spirit, affirmed their identity as God’s children, this identity could only be partial, as their hands that worked the field belonged to another.
We look back on this time and question the morality of the slave owner, wondering how anyone could claim such dominion over another person. But these owners were not heathens, but Christians, attending church each Sunday, some even preaching the sermon, leading devotionals to their families and their slaves on plantation verandas throughout the South. We know from their letters, their church attendance, their conversions and professions of faith that these owners of slaves were Christians, baptized just as their slaves were – but their conversion it would seem was just as partial. While they honored Jesus in their heart, they honored selfish economic gain with the practice of slavery.
Another scholar of the New Testament, David Bartlett claims that this partial conversion is typical. He writes, “We think that because our hearts belong to Jesus, our bodies, our check-books, our votes, and our property values belong to us.”[2]
We all want to be known as Christians and hope that as our friends and family look at our lives they will know that our master is not sin, but God who conquers sin – that our lives will be a testimony to God’s power – that our actions will preach the gospel in a way that our words alone never could.
In Florida, and now in South Carolina there is an effort to make the reality of conversion known through license plates – that just as Georgia or Georgia Tech fans can personalize their license plates, so Christians might be able to buy plates proclaiming their conversion – but how will this statement be understood if the owner of such a license plate cuts in front of you on 285?
We look back on slave owners in this way – not recognizing the faith that they bore in their hearts, but the cruelty that they bore through their economic decisions. Today, as history is judged through the lens of our 21st Century Christian expectations, we cannot imagine how a follower of Jesus Christ could tolerate slavery, and so, like a the car that bears a Christian license plate, we judge not according to the faith that their heart espouses or the words that their mouth proclaims, but according to their actions – knowing that the license plate may not matter nearly so much as the way you drive the car; as it is according to actions that we expect to see the evidence of death, a death to sin and a resurrection to Christ.
Today, as we examine our lives through the same lens we must ask ourselves the same question – that while we honor God in part through attending church, through confessing our faith, can we “count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”? Will our lives be a true confession of our faith?
Will future generations take into account the belief our words confess to? Or will they judge us by the way we have used or abused our bodies? The way we make decisions based on selfish gain with our check-books, voting not for the good of all people but for the good of our own? Have we lived by the law of love in our hearts or according to laws of economy in our actions?
When future generations look back on our marriages, will they judge us by what we had hoped to do, or by what we actually did? Will they recognize the sacrifices we made at the office, or will they be more concerned with the empty seat we too often left at the dinner table? Will they honor us for our promotions, or judge us for not being there for the big soccer game, swim meet, or concert?
Will our children celebrate our many anniversaries, or will they always remember the slamming doors and arguments? We concentrate so often on the faith that lives in our hearts, but will this faith be known to future generations if it does not live out in our lives? Will the smiles in pictures matter, if our children and grandchildren know that these smiles hide sins of all kinds?
We are a country that claims a strong faith, but will future generations judge us by the number of churches we have built, or by the number of bombs we have dropped?
Claiming justice for all, will we be judged according to our defense of the unborn, or our torture of the accused terrorist?
Knowing that Christ calls us to defend the weak and the immigrant, to seek justice for the poor, will a vote for our business interest honor the foundation of our faith?
These are the questions for today, because these are the questions that Christianity demands. Like slave owners before us, we will be judged by future generations who will ask if we have truly died to sin, or continued to live honoring false gods. But why should we wait for their judgment? Christ did not die so that we could go on sinning, but so that we might be alive in him today.
-Amen.
[1] Stanly P. Saunders, The Word on the Street (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000) 42-43.
[2] David L. Bartlett, Romans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) 61.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Romans 4: 13-5, page 798.
It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed – the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what was promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words, “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Sermon
We are often confronted with our own sinfulness. One of the things that we try to keep secret from ourselves and others, the fact that we aren’t perfect, we boldly confess to in the Prayer of Confession each Sunday morning.
The temptation though, or the temptation for me anyway, is that when I am faced with my sinfulness I feel uncomfortable and I am tempted to say to myself, “Well surely I’m not really that bad.” We want to know that we are OK, but rather than trusting in God’s Grace, we hope that God will be distracted by other people’s sin, or that “their” sinfulness will make our sinfulness seem small in comparison.
We say to God, “Sure I’m pretty bad, sure I’m impure, but at least I’m not as bad as that guy – right God?”
We see this logic play out in the news, as society is divided between good guys and bad guys. If morality was a softball game, and we were picked to go up against the bad guys of the world, I am sure we would be winning by a few runs, their sinfulness surely outweighing our own.
But does our faith call us to different teams, judging each other according to a set of rules? For Paul, the Law stood as society’s law book – the means by which humanity could judge one another, figuring out who was ahead and who was behind. But Paul believed God, through Jesus, was calling us to see each other in a different way.
I saw a glimpse of this different way in a video some folks sent me through email this past week.
It was a clip from ESPN, a college softball game.
In this clip steps to the plate a young woman, barely more than 5 feet tall, batting average of .153, no career homeruns in college, high school, or even before that. Her name is Sarah, and as her team trails by a run she steps to the plate with two strikes already hanging over her head. The pitch, she swings, and off it goes, over the wall. She has hit a home run for the first time in her life, giving her team the lead in this important game against rival Central Washington. The two runners score as the crowd cheers, but they turn to see Sarah on the ground, her arms wrapped around 1st base. She is not able to cherish every second of this important moment trotting from base to base, because in turning 1st her knee gave way, and Sarah found herself unable to finish rounding the bases to score for her home run. She lay there in pain, hugging first base knowing that her career in softball had just ended, and that her only home run would count as a single. Her coach asked the umpire what to do, and the umpire said that if the coach were to substitute a runner for Sarah the homerun wouldn’t count, and her hit would be scored a two RBI single, and if any of the players on her team even touched her, Sarah would be called out. These were the rules of the game.
But then Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace of the opposing team, finding they couldn’t sit by, knowing what it means to see such an important accomplishment be taken away, walked over to Sarah, picked her up in their arms, and carried her around the bases, as Sarah touched second, then third, and finally home to score the first and only homerun of her career.
Liz and Mallory’s act of compassion could have cost their team the game, as Sarah’s homerun secured a 4 to 2 lead. By the rules of the game, they could have waited as the team’s trainer bandaged Sarah’s knee and escorted her off the field, limiting her homerun to a single, leaving their team in a better position on the score board.
They would have had a better chance of winning their game, but compassion led them to do something else. Compassion broke down the wall between two softball teams, as they saw each other, not as competitors, but as something else.
For Paul it was the Jews vs. the Gentiles, the law dividing the two, standing as a means for the Jews to justify themselves in light of the non-Jewish Gentiles apparent unrighteousness.
But Paul knew that faith, like the compassion that broke through the wall dividing two softball teams, would break through the wall between Jews and Gentiles, Slave and Free, Male and Female.
As a persecutor of Christians he prided himself on knowing right and wrong, of building up a righteous life according to stringent observance of the law codes of our Bible. He rested on the Sabbath, was circumcised, he ate what he was supposed to, he said what was upstanding and clean, he gave everything he had to being righteous in God’s sight. He built up a wall against impropriety, unrighteousness, impurity, and against those he believed to be impropriates, unrighteous, and unclean.
But this wall came down as he realized it didn’t really matter when he came face to face with Jesus.
Paul’s faith in Christ was like a wrecking ball to the walls he had built up around himself.
When Paul’s opponents began claiming that those who wanted to be Christians had first become Jews - that those men who wanted to be baptized also had to be circumcised, Paul put his foot down, asking “is this blessedness only for the circumcised?” Claiming that “it was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.”
The rules of the game had to be changed, and as Paul’s faith changed the way he lived, the walls he built around himself, walls of division, of race, of class, of status, came tumbling down, according to the foundation of his faith laid out in verse 25 of our scripture lesson, that Jesus, “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Paul began living by a new set of rules.
I have another story about people breaking down walls, though the stakes in this story are much higher than winning or losing.
A few years ago, Evan Silverstein of the Presbyterian News Service, reported that two Presbyterian participants in an important ministry at the US/Mexico border were arrested, charged with helping undocumented migrants cross the border into Arizona. In an effort to limit illegal immigration, the United States Border Patrol increased security dramatically in those areas where it was safest for people to cross. This increased security drove migrants to cross in rural areas, deserted wastelands where the sun would be hot, water scarce, and nothing in between Mexico and the US but sand and cactus.
The US Border Patrol thought that the length and the risk of crossing in these desolate areas would make desperate migrants think twice about crossing the border - that the threat of death would prevent people from trying to cross, but they underestimated a peoples’ desperation. "There is no shade or water available to the crossers," said Rob Daniels, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which takes in much of Arizona. "They're at the disposal of the elements. They really face an uphill battle of Herculean size." And there are other challenges, including snakes, scorpions and vultures, twisted ankles, dislocated knees, broken bones and severely blistered feet.
In an attempt to prevent another death, two Presbyterians drove a dying migrant to a hospital, where they were arrested for aiding an illegal immigrant. According to some statistics, in the years between 1998 and 2003, 2,600 people died attempting to cross the border. In the hopes of limiting how many immigrants come into our country, in the hopes of keeping the labels on our food, the signs on the street, and the sound on our TV in English, more than 2,600 people have died.
And as I read Paul’s letter to the Romans, as I think about the power of God’s Grace, my sinfulness, and our common heritage in Abraham, the Father of all the Faithful, I know that there is a wall that our Faith has yet to break down.
But at least for these two Presbyterians, like the two softball players, and so like Paul the Apostle, the walls that divided became nothing when they considered the bonds that united them to another.
We seem to be a world divided by walls, oceans, and hatred. We seem to be a country segmented, and distant, but truly, we are a sinful people made worthy by the bonds of faith that join us together.
Faith has torn down the walls that divide us, as it is not by building up walls around ourselves that we are saved, but like Paul, “we are saved by the one who was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
-Amen.
It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed – the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what was promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words, “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Sermon
We are often confronted with our own sinfulness. One of the things that we try to keep secret from ourselves and others, the fact that we aren’t perfect, we boldly confess to in the Prayer of Confession each Sunday morning.
The temptation though, or the temptation for me anyway, is that when I am faced with my sinfulness I feel uncomfortable and I am tempted to say to myself, “Well surely I’m not really that bad.” We want to know that we are OK, but rather than trusting in God’s Grace, we hope that God will be distracted by other people’s sin, or that “their” sinfulness will make our sinfulness seem small in comparison.
We say to God, “Sure I’m pretty bad, sure I’m impure, but at least I’m not as bad as that guy – right God?”
We see this logic play out in the news, as society is divided between good guys and bad guys. If morality was a softball game, and we were picked to go up against the bad guys of the world, I am sure we would be winning by a few runs, their sinfulness surely outweighing our own.
But does our faith call us to different teams, judging each other according to a set of rules? For Paul, the Law stood as society’s law book – the means by which humanity could judge one another, figuring out who was ahead and who was behind. But Paul believed God, through Jesus, was calling us to see each other in a different way.
I saw a glimpse of this different way in a video some folks sent me through email this past week.
It was a clip from ESPN, a college softball game.
In this clip steps to the plate a young woman, barely more than 5 feet tall, batting average of .153, no career homeruns in college, high school, or even before that. Her name is Sarah, and as her team trails by a run she steps to the plate with two strikes already hanging over her head. The pitch, she swings, and off it goes, over the wall. She has hit a home run for the first time in her life, giving her team the lead in this important game against rival Central Washington. The two runners score as the crowd cheers, but they turn to see Sarah on the ground, her arms wrapped around 1st base. She is not able to cherish every second of this important moment trotting from base to base, because in turning 1st her knee gave way, and Sarah found herself unable to finish rounding the bases to score for her home run. She lay there in pain, hugging first base knowing that her career in softball had just ended, and that her only home run would count as a single. Her coach asked the umpire what to do, and the umpire said that if the coach were to substitute a runner for Sarah the homerun wouldn’t count, and her hit would be scored a two RBI single, and if any of the players on her team even touched her, Sarah would be called out. These were the rules of the game.
But then Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace of the opposing team, finding they couldn’t sit by, knowing what it means to see such an important accomplishment be taken away, walked over to Sarah, picked her up in their arms, and carried her around the bases, as Sarah touched second, then third, and finally home to score the first and only homerun of her career.
Liz and Mallory’s act of compassion could have cost their team the game, as Sarah’s homerun secured a 4 to 2 lead. By the rules of the game, they could have waited as the team’s trainer bandaged Sarah’s knee and escorted her off the field, limiting her homerun to a single, leaving their team in a better position on the score board.
They would have had a better chance of winning their game, but compassion led them to do something else. Compassion broke down the wall between two softball teams, as they saw each other, not as competitors, but as something else.
For Paul it was the Jews vs. the Gentiles, the law dividing the two, standing as a means for the Jews to justify themselves in light of the non-Jewish Gentiles apparent unrighteousness.
But Paul knew that faith, like the compassion that broke through the wall dividing two softball teams, would break through the wall between Jews and Gentiles, Slave and Free, Male and Female.
As a persecutor of Christians he prided himself on knowing right and wrong, of building up a righteous life according to stringent observance of the law codes of our Bible. He rested on the Sabbath, was circumcised, he ate what he was supposed to, he said what was upstanding and clean, he gave everything he had to being righteous in God’s sight. He built up a wall against impropriety, unrighteousness, impurity, and against those he believed to be impropriates, unrighteous, and unclean.
But this wall came down as he realized it didn’t really matter when he came face to face with Jesus.
Paul’s faith in Christ was like a wrecking ball to the walls he had built up around himself.
When Paul’s opponents began claiming that those who wanted to be Christians had first become Jews - that those men who wanted to be baptized also had to be circumcised, Paul put his foot down, asking “is this blessedness only for the circumcised?” Claiming that “it was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.”
The rules of the game had to be changed, and as Paul’s faith changed the way he lived, the walls he built around himself, walls of division, of race, of class, of status, came tumbling down, according to the foundation of his faith laid out in verse 25 of our scripture lesson, that Jesus, “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Paul began living by a new set of rules.
I have another story about people breaking down walls, though the stakes in this story are much higher than winning or losing.
A few years ago, Evan Silverstein of the Presbyterian News Service, reported that two Presbyterian participants in an important ministry at the US/Mexico border were arrested, charged with helping undocumented migrants cross the border into Arizona. In an effort to limit illegal immigration, the United States Border Patrol increased security dramatically in those areas where it was safest for people to cross. This increased security drove migrants to cross in rural areas, deserted wastelands where the sun would be hot, water scarce, and nothing in between Mexico and the US but sand and cactus.
The US Border Patrol thought that the length and the risk of crossing in these desolate areas would make desperate migrants think twice about crossing the border - that the threat of death would prevent people from trying to cross, but they underestimated a peoples’ desperation. "There is no shade or water available to the crossers," said Rob Daniels, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which takes in much of Arizona. "They're at the disposal of the elements. They really face an uphill battle of Herculean size." And there are other challenges, including snakes, scorpions and vultures, twisted ankles, dislocated knees, broken bones and severely blistered feet.
In an attempt to prevent another death, two Presbyterians drove a dying migrant to a hospital, where they were arrested for aiding an illegal immigrant. According to some statistics, in the years between 1998 and 2003, 2,600 people died attempting to cross the border. In the hopes of limiting how many immigrants come into our country, in the hopes of keeping the labels on our food, the signs on the street, and the sound on our TV in English, more than 2,600 people have died.
And as I read Paul’s letter to the Romans, as I think about the power of God’s Grace, my sinfulness, and our common heritage in Abraham, the Father of all the Faithful, I know that there is a wall that our Faith has yet to break down.
But at least for these two Presbyterians, like the two softball players, and so like Paul the Apostle, the walls that divided became nothing when they considered the bonds that united them to another.
We seem to be a world divided by walls, oceans, and hatred. We seem to be a country segmented, and distant, but truly, we are a sinful people made worthy by the bonds of faith that join us together.
Faith has torn down the walls that divide us, as it is not by building up walls around ourselves that we are saved, but like Paul, “we are saved by the one who was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
-Amen.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Roaring Lion
1 Peter 4: 12-14; 5: 6-11
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that God may lift you up in due time.
Cast all your anxiety to God because God cares for you.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
And the God of all grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
To God be the power forever and ever. Amen.
Sermon
The author of this passage makes the intent clear – suffering, is not some unrelated experience of the Christian life, but a seemingly central part of it – writing, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.”
There are passages of scripture that help us to avoid suffering, other passages explain suffering as punishment for doing wrong, while other passages, passages like this, don’t necessarily explain why we suffer, why bad things happen to good people, but assume suffering is a part of life, and that while we may not always understand it, suffering is not always without purpose.
Suffering as religious persecution is at the heart of 1 Peter, and while some Christians still suffer for the sake of their beliefs, today we stand on a foundation of believers who did not allow Christianity to die out, but who persevered in the faith though their lives were at risk. Women like Saints Perpetua and Felicitas were thrown to the beasts by the Roman Empire, giving the lion mentioned in today’s scripture passage not allegorical, but literal meaning, embodying evil in a way that makes our flesh crawl, wondering how such a thing could ever happen.
My relationship to lions, like my relationship with religious persecution, is not something I know from personal experience, but through books and magazines.
Browsing through National Geographic this week I saw a picture of 6 female lions chasing a herd of at least 400 water buffalo - all while the male lion napped in the shade of a tree. This entire herd ran, completely at the command of 6 aggressors – these lions, like puppet masters commanded the herd, but not by strings, through the fear that they inspired. As the water buffalo ran, as fear of their hunter gained authority, as their self-control was completely replaced with self-preservation, the lions were able to split the herd apart, isolating one or two sick or young buffalo, and the herd could only watch as one of their own was devoured.
And what could they do about it? They were at the mercy of the lions.
It may be that suffering, like a lion, is unavoidable, and that we can only continue running with the herd, not looking back, knowing that the cost of life is high, that the relationship between predator and prey is a reality that cannot be avoided.
For Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, it was. These two women were thrown to the lions – as defenseless as a young buffalo – they paid the price for their community, a price paid to a bigger and more powerful beast – the lion that was the Roman Empire.
However, history tells us that the Roman Empire eventually stopped sending Christians to the lion’s den. That the road paved by Saints like Perpetua and Felicitas led to AD 313 when the Edict of Milan was agreed, ending persecution under the great emperor Constantine, himself a convert to Christianity.
And so the threat of the lion was no more, though suffering continues to test our faith, and our fear of it has not gone anywhere.
We are the audience and participants in a troubling world, and the news blares in our ears like the roar of a lion, filling us with fear and worry, convincing us more and more each day that the world is getting worse and worse – that terrorism is an ever present evil, that immigration is a plague that this country must free herself from, that society is failing.
We come to this church, seeking another message, but even here it seems we are in the midst of change.
As though it were addressed to us, 1 Peter reads – “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” And like a lion our worries prowl around in the back of our heads and the lion’s roar begins to fill our ears.
The lion roars and the foundation of our faith seems to shake.
We lose faith in ourselves, fearing that we are not good enough, that we are not loved, and out of a fear of rejection we isolate ourselves.
We fear the changes that go on all around us, as the streets get busier, we see faces we don’t recognize, we fear what we don’t know and directed by the roar of the lion we retreat to find people who think and look like us.
Hearing the lion’s roar of economic instability we cling to what we have, finding less and less for others, fearing the time when there won’t be enough to feed ourselves.
The roar of the news reaches our hearts, and out of a fear of crime we stay in our homes, fortifying our neighborhoods with gates and electronic codes, our houses with alarms.
Made afraid by the lion’s roar, we shut ourselves in, attempting to fight our battle alone, not realizing that this is exactly where the lion wants us. Like a buffalo separated from the pack, we are defenseless.
There is another picture that captured my imagination in the National Geographic magazine. It is a picture of a bull, wounded by a fierce lioness, strong with rippling muscles, menacing sharp teeth in full view, now retreating from her pray. The herd, led not by their fear of the lion’s roar, but by something else, formed a wall, and with their horns pointed towards the lioness like scimitars, forced her to give up, and walk away.
Today, we are not free from trials, we are not safe without a fear in the world, but because we believe that God works in all things, we are invited to see our trials as opportunities for the full expression of love.
We may never be without the lion, but we are called to resist our fear of his roar, we are called to resist the temptation to allow his roar to separate us into factions – to isolate us so we are weak in our solitude - we are called to stand together for our unity is required of every trial we encounter.
Should our foot slip, should our hearts wander, should our worries take hold, we must trust that the foundation of this church is not built on the strength of individuals, but on the love of Christ that joins us together.
Trusting the words of the hymn: that “though all hell should endeavor to shake, (our God) will never, no never, no never forsake” us.
To God be the power forever and ever.
Amen.
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