Pentecost 7, 06/29/2008

Sermon on Romans 6:12-23, by David Zersen

12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the 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. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)

EMBRACING THE GOOD STUFF

I know it's politically incorrect to say that radical Islam has a point, but it does! It's great fun for media pundits and the average Jill and Joe to take on outsiders and demonize them so that there is no question that they are a source of evil. It's called "scapegoating," and many are very good at it. Once we've identified the source of evil as being outside of us, we don't have to worry about whether we ourselves are not also tainted. Too many of us like to do this with Islam, and, perhaps with other all too convenient targets.

One of the complaints that radical Islam tends to offer is that the U.S. media barrages Muslim cultures with imagery that all too often portrays lewd, violent and immoral behavior. While no culture has cornered the market on purity, it is certainly true that what we like to call freedom in the U.S. allows us to produce visual messages for the world that even many of us find objectionable. Still, when we wring our consciences and ask why there is so much trash in the visual media, it is worth remembering that when polls are taken to rank quality in media, the majority of Americans regard the Jerry Springer Show as among the worst we have to offer. I take that as a sign that we have not all lost our values, even if freedom of expression allows us to place totally worthless material on our screen.

In spite of this, the Muslims do have a point.

And St. Paul would agree with them!

Today's Epistle lesson is one of the most powerful passages in the New Testament. I like to believe that even if I weren't a Christian, I could still regard this verbiage as insightful and moving. In essence, Paul is saying, "Why do you spend so much time glorifying a world you are trying to leave behind. Get over it! You are part of a new creation in which your full attention could be given to glorifying the good and the beautiful. What would that look like for you?"

Playing at being good

I confess to having had a long fascination with representatives of the Radical Reformation who believed that Luther and Calvin had not gone far enough. These people wanted nothing to do with "invisible" Christians who played at being good by going through the motions of baptism or confirmation or other church rituals that in so many cases did not lead to righteous lives. They wanted to be "visible" Christians who made real the words of the Sermon on the Mount by renouncing retaliation in all forms, refusing to take oaths because their word could be trusted, and encouraging one another in holy living.

In more recent years, rising out of the Methodist movement's concern for visible discipleship, Holiness Churches arose that made intentional Christianity the focus of their life together. So convicted did some of these groups and their leaders become that they decided that entire sanctification or perfected lives could be achieved by those who strove to rise up to the full stature of Christ.

Sometimes these "radicals" (people striving to go back to the roots of early Christian practice described, for example, in Acts 2) challenge other Christians and say they seem merely to be playing at being good. And one can rightly ask Martin Luther why he spent so much time on celebrating what God did for us in Christ (justification), and so little time exploring the dimensions of the Christian life? Of course, there are good historical answers for that. In one sense, Luther was dealing with motivation, the impetus for behavior, and he just didn't live long to get around to dealing with the sanctification issues which the next generation sought to explore.

Another significant theological issue, however, is that Luther worried about placing too much emphasis on performance because that was the very trap from which he was trying to emancipate Christians. He therefore spent a great deal of time glorifying God's free gift of grace. It is out of this context that the famous quote to Melanchthon comes. Melanchthon was worried about too many petty scruples and Luther wrote, "Sin boldly and let grace abound." Often criticized as the very thing against which Paul warns in our text, Luther was really saying, "Grace is so overwhelmingly wonderful that we simply need to move on with our lives, frail and faulty as they sometimes are, celebrating God's forgiving love."

Working at holy living

I think it's clear that there are pitfalls in both directions. You can spend too much time focusing on behavior and begin to question whether it's good enough to deserve God's acceptance-in which case you've really lost your way. Or you can spend so much time celebrating God's extravagant kindness that you never turn around and let it propel you forward in the world dying to experience some real Christian love.

Think for a moment with me about why a film like Pay it Forward has such a positive impact on viewers. Even though it's a secular story, there is a reason why it moves us.

A 7^th grade school boy played by Haley Osment wins a prize for developing a class project that tries to reverse the trend of everyone wanting to get "paid back' for things they have done. From a theological standpoint, Trevor was the Christ-figure in the story who said that seeking rewards for righteousness was a dead-end street. Instead, he proposes that people think of three ways to "pay things forward," an encouragement to create positive initiatives that improve people's circumstances. So many exciting things develop from this approach that people begin to rally around Trevor. Finally, in one of the final acts of self-giving as Trevor sacrifices his life to help someone, a profound understanding develops that this is really the direction in which life should be moving.

Why is this story so touching to us? Instead of attempting to celebrate the sleazy and trivial which ennoble no one, there is something within us that wants not just to play at being good, but wants desperately to embrace a life which brings out the best in others.

The famous prayer of St. Augustine applies here: "Oh God, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." While it is true that a focus on holy living can be misplaced if one points the finger of pride back at himself or herself, the fact is that we are never fulfilled as human beings unless we are allowed to discover with Paul what it means to offer ourselves as those who have been brought out of death to life.

Recently I met with the bishop of a large Lutheran church in Tanzania who told me that at Christmas he likes to send all the retired pastors a small monetary gift just to assure them that they are appreciated and not forgotten. In their culture, the church's monthly pension amounts to $50, so a Christmas remembrance of $30 is a substantial gift. Often, the bishop said, they respond with very emotional letters testifying to their surprise at being remembered so graciously. It reminds me of Paul's last words in this text, "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ." William Barclay reminds us that Paul is using two military metaphors in this language. On the one hand, the word for "wages" is opsonia, what a soldier earns by being faithful and doing his duty. On the other hand, the soldier sometimes receives a charisma, an undeserved testimony of the emperor's kindness. This is what the bishop was sharing. And this, Paul says, is what God has given us in Jesus Christ.

When we reflect on this, on the fact that we have been brought from death to life, then we can remember with Paul that there is no benefit in those things that led only to death.

Instead, we who are a part of the new creation can forget about demonizing and scapegoating others and, instead, seek to embrace the good stuff, the stuff that makes for rich and mature lives.

If instead of summoning so much energy to get even, or pursue a lust, or restrict the potential of another, we were to embrace the opportunity to affirm or forgive someone, what might that mean? What impact would it have if daily we reminded ourselves that we are the baptized family of God?

How might the tawdry and cheap things of our world become dead to us if we look for ways to remind ourselves that we are no longer under the law, but under grace?

Could we worry less about what is politically and socially correct if we think about the blessings we release when serving the new order becomes our passion?

Do you know already how you intend to let God's goodness move you today?

Prof. Dr. Dr.;President Emeritus David Zersen
Concordia University Texas
Austin, Texas

E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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