In his letter to the Romans, Paul presents the gospel of Jesus Christ and explains God’s unmerited gift of forgiveness that we call grace. Remember how last week I said that Christian faith is not “if/then” but “because/therefore”? Well, Paul begins this twelfth chapter, “Therefore….”
Because of the grace, justification and faith that happens by God’s saving work for the whole world, therefore we are entrusted with a responsibility to live out of our faith and show God’s love to the world.
And beginning in this chapter, he describes what living by faith in Christ looks like in our daily lives:
It looks like a cross-shaped life and a cross-shaped church.[i]
It is a life, individually and as a congregation, that is shaped by love, following Jesus in loving both his followers and the crowds, without reservation, and, at the last, loving even his enemies, and praying for them, while he hung on the cross.
Because of the grace, justification and faith that happens by God’s saving work for the whole world, therefore we are entrusted with a responsibility to live out of our faith and show God’s love to the world.
And beginning in this chapter, he describes what living by faith in Christ looks like in our daily lives:
It looks like a cross-shaped life and a cross-shaped church.[i]
It is a life, individually and as a congregation, that is shaped by love, following Jesus in loving both his followers and the crowds, without reservation, and, at the last, loving even his enemies, and praying for them, while he hung on the cross.
Paul sees the Church – the ekklesia – as the practice field for living out this covenant of love.[ii] Now, practice fields aren’t always pretty to look at; they can be muddy and sodden with rain, or sunbaked and hardened, but they are where people learn to work together and where you discover how your gifts complement one another.
Discipleship, and especially the church, is about how we come together and live out this new life that we have been given in faith. It is the life that we have promised to support Hudson and his parents in, a life shaped by our baptismal promises and affirmed again this morning.
In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther explained that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies us – or makes us holy, preparing us for this life of faith in action. But it still takes practice.
Some of you know what sharing highs and lows means. It’s where you name a time where you saw God active in your life recently — a time of celebration, an accomplishment, a place where you encountered the Holy. And you name a time when things weren’t so great and maybe you wondered where God was in that moment —disappointment, illness or when trust was broken. Sharing highs and lows is a faith practice.
One of my highs last week was when a neighbor who I hadn’t yet met came over and finished mowing the grass when he saw I’d stopped because the belt on our mower broke; this week one of my highs was getting to celebrate my mom’s birthday with her and Curt.
But I’ve had lows too, like many of you, watching the havoc in Texas and Louisiana as the floodwaters rose, and then finding out my seminary classmate’s husband died on Wednesday in Wisconsin, two days before their son turned four.
Practicing finding God in our everyday lives, and not just on mountaintops and in Spirit-filled places like churches, teaches us to pay attention and to recognize God is with us during school and work, play and rest, joy and grief.
It also helps us reflect on how we have responded to the world around us, and whether we have embodied the love that Paul describes here. To measure whether we have served others, and persevered in prayer; whether we have overcome hate and evil with good.
Importantly, here, too, it’s not “if/then”: “if I got it right, then God will love me.” But “because/ therefore”: “Because God loves me, therefore I want to respond to others with love, with peace and with joy” and thankfully, “God loves me even when I mess it up.”
Paul knows what a life filled with evil, hatred and zeal against God looks like. He persecuted the church himself before his conversion. Here he is inviting “believers to live differently and to live out their calling both within the faith community and the wider society.”[iii]
It is the faith-filled lives that are on display when congregations from the northwest suburbs of Houston go into the city’s flooded sanctuaries to help them begin mucking out;
when interfaith leaders from California and Pennsylvania deploy on spiritual care response teams with the Red Cross to care for the people in Texas and Louisiana, and
Discipleship, and especially the church, is about how we come together and live out this new life that we have been given in faith. It is the life that we have promised to support Hudson and his parents in, a life shaped by our baptismal promises and affirmed again this morning.
In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther explained that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies us – or makes us holy, preparing us for this life of faith in action. But it still takes practice.
Some of you know what sharing highs and lows means. It’s where you name a time where you saw God active in your life recently — a time of celebration, an accomplishment, a place where you encountered the Holy. And you name a time when things weren’t so great and maybe you wondered where God was in that moment —disappointment, illness or when trust was broken. Sharing highs and lows is a faith practice.
One of my highs last week was when a neighbor who I hadn’t yet met came over and finished mowing the grass when he saw I’d stopped because the belt on our mower broke; this week one of my highs was getting to celebrate my mom’s birthday with her and Curt.
But I’ve had lows too, like many of you, watching the havoc in Texas and Louisiana as the floodwaters rose, and then finding out my seminary classmate’s husband died on Wednesday in Wisconsin, two days before their son turned four.
Practicing finding God in our everyday lives, and not just on mountaintops and in Spirit-filled places like churches, teaches us to pay attention and to recognize God is with us during school and work, play and rest, joy and grief.
It also helps us reflect on how we have responded to the world around us, and whether we have embodied the love that Paul describes here. To measure whether we have served others, and persevered in prayer; whether we have overcome hate and evil with good.
Importantly, here, too, it’s not “if/then”: “if I got it right, then God will love me.” But “because/ therefore”: “Because God loves me, therefore I want to respond to others with love, with peace and with joy” and thankfully, “God loves me even when I mess it up.”
Paul knows what a life filled with evil, hatred and zeal against God looks like. He persecuted the church himself before his conversion. Here he is inviting “believers to live differently and to live out their calling both within the faith community and the wider society.”[iii]
It is the faith-filled lives that are on display when congregations from the northwest suburbs of Houston go into the city’s flooded sanctuaries to help them begin mucking out;
when interfaith leaders from California and Pennsylvania deploy on spiritual care response teams with the Red Cross to care for the people in Texas and Louisiana, and
when a teenager planning to go to next year’s Youth Gathering in Houston watches the footage from the floods and tells her dad, “We’ve got work to do.”
Truly, we all have work to do. The cross is a reminder of the suffering that God accompanies us in and a stronger reminder still of God’s victory over it. By our baptism in Christ, we are washed clean and given new life each day, to live cross-shaped lives and be a cross-shaped church.
Let us pray…
Holy God, Our Redeemer,
Thank you for the gifts of grace and faith that you have given us;
Help us follow Your Son Jesus and love our neighbors and community without restraint;
Empower us by your Holy Spirit to persevere and practice a living and loving faith in our actions and our words.
Amen.
Truly, we all have work to do. The cross is a reminder of the suffering that God accompanies us in and a stronger reminder still of God’s victory over it. By our baptism in Christ, we are washed clean and given new life each day, to live cross-shaped lives and be a cross-shaped church.
Let us pray…
Holy God, Our Redeemer,
Thank you for the gifts of grace and faith that you have given us;
Help us follow Your Son Jesus and love our neighbors and community without restraint;
Empower us by your Holy Spirit to persevere and practice a living and loving faith in our actions and our words.
Amen.
[i] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (Kindle Location 822). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[ii] ibid Kindle Location 728.
[iii] ibid Kindle Locations 669-670.
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