Seventh Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 16A

Romans 8:12-25

In this part of his letter, Paul ceases talking about the spirit of the flesh and our bondage to sin and goes on to describe who we are now that we are led by the Spirit of God.

Born into the Spirit of God, we are children of God.

As Lutherans, we usually don’t describe ourselves as “born-again”. It’s a phrase that church culture wars have co-opted. But we are born-again through our faith in Christ. God destroyed the power of sin and freed us. We are, as Luther writes, “born again by God the Holy Spirit to be new creatures….”[i]

Paul describes this new life as one lived in “the spirit of adoption.” (v. 15)

I cherish this promise because in it, God reminds me that our family in faith isn’t only we who worship here at Ascension. Because of our adoption, we are siblings in Christ “across cultures, races, nationalities, genders, ethnicities and even political divides.”[ii]

We are adopted into a family alongside the Davidson County Lutherans up around Lexington and Thomasville who responded to the economic impacts there by planting a community garden called The Vine. The garden is planted on the property of St. Luke's in Tyro and maintained by members from the local Lutheran congregations and the produce is donated to the local food pantry.

We are adopted into a family alongside our siblings at the Dwelling in Winston-Salem where Pastor Emily Norris is building community through relationships with people there who don’t have housing. The ministry has a shower trailer that provides access to clean water three days a week and community meals to fill empty tummies.

And we are adopted into a family alongside our siblings at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Greensboro. Their congregation has the distinction of being where Pastor Earlene Miller was ordained in 1979. Miller was the first Lutheran African-American woman ordained in North America. In addition to a tradition of raising up leaders for the Church, their congregation has an urban teaching farm that brings together local volunteers, university students and area nonprofits to feed their neighbors.

These siblings of ours are transforming their communities into grace places where others now experience the abundant love of God for them.

Paul goes on to call us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, God’s own Son. Remember, Paul was addressing citizens of an empire where Augustus called himself a god and his son Julius therefore was the son of a god.[iii]

The idea that everyday people, like you and me, would be children of God alongside the Son of God was preposterous.[iv]

But that’s the Gospel, right? The foolishness of the cross is that God loves us so much that Jesus took on all that was ours and all that was given to Jesus is given to us. God made us God’s own children right alongside Jesus.

Of course, sometimes we forget that being united with Christ includes being united with him in the suffering and rejection that he suffered. Paul’s own life testifies to that. He was afflicted and then arrested, imprisoned and martyred. Our life of faith does not shield us from suffering, and yet Paul continues to reassure us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.” (v. 18)

That is a potent promise in these present times when suffering is right in front of us, whether it is people we know whose jobs have disappeared or whose pay has been cut; whole families who have been diagnosed with COVID; or teachers and students wrestling with the tremendous uncertainty that waits for them in the new school year. And that doesn’t even include the suffering we already knew: families grieving the deaths of loved ones from accidents or disease; others undergoing surgeries or treatment for illnesses; relationships falling apart. And it doesn’t touch the suffering caused by the -isms and phobias that plague us — the suffering we cause when we deny someone else’s created and beloved identity because of the color of their skin, their gender or their sexuality.

It would be easy to let the sufferings in these present times rob us of the promises of our faith and fool us into believing that God is not here with us. But Paul reminds us of the truth that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us” and he urges us on with “eager expectation.” (v. 19)

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for new life, where we are born into your Holy Spirit and adopted as your children.

Open our hearts and eyes to see the whole of creation as our siblings and celebrate the family of God everywhere.

Encourage us to remember Paul’s words and trust your steadfast presence in our lives, even in these present times.

Fill us with joyful and eager expectation for what is coming next.

We pray in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. Commentary on Romans. 120.

[ii] Israel Kamudzandi. “Commentary on Romans 8:12-25”. Luther Seminary. Workingpreacher.org

[iii] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (Kindle Locations 8652-8653). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

[iv] ibid

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 15A

Romans 8:1-11

Paul opens the next part of his letter to the church in Rome with this declaration: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”

He is writing to the church there, and has been describing the pervasive power of sin, not merely our individual actions or omissions, but the powers and principalities that work against God and draw us away from God. And he has already said that because of sin, it is impossible for us to do what is right on our own; our only defense against sin is Christ.

And so he says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”

This is the theology of the cross on display. When we are brought low by our failures and our shortcomings and our inability to live according to God’s Word, we are brought to the cross.

But we aren’t left there in our despair. Instead, the foot of the cross becomes the same holy ground where we meet Jesus.  And it is in Jesus Christ, that we come to know that God loves us. Each and every one of us.

God loves us so much that God raises us up to new life with the Son, and makes us a new creation. God gives us new life in Christ; everything old has passed away. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

In verse 2, Paul says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

A death by a thousand cuts is a death that comes from an endless succession of smaller injuries. Living under the law of sin and of death, each sin slices into us. But in Christ, death is put to death and we are freed.

Freed from the violence others do to us:

Freed from the hurt from years ago;

from resentment that has festered;

from the disappointment that has gnawed at you.

And freed from the harm and injury you bring on yourself:

Freed from the grief over a missed opportunity;

from the guilt or shame because you hurt someone or wronged someone.

from the anxious thoughts that you cannot be good enough or smart enough or strong enough.

In Christ, we are freed to rest in God’s love, poured out for us. For each and every one of us.

Hear Paul’s words again, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”

Now. Today. Not in the bye and bye, but here today while you are still living, Christ delivers you from sin and death and there is no condemnation.

Instead of a condemned sinner, you are a beloved child of God.

We know that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to sin. Paul would not have had to deliver his tongue twister in chapter 7 if sin was not still in the world. He tells us we will continue to be stuck between knowing what is right and actually living what is right. But the promise we have is that, in Christ, we will have the victory.

Instead of living in the flesh, now we live in the Spirit.

Lois Malcolm writes that “living in the Spirit is precisely about living out of God’s creative power in our lives.”[i] She says, “The Spirit is God’s energizing power in our lives, continually working good out of whatever is happening to us or around us.” [ii]

As we hear Paul’s words for us this morning, I invite you to find two pieces of paper. I am going to ask you to write down two things.[iii]

First, write down the thing you feel worst about.  The thing that drags you down or haunts you. That thing you carry with you. You don’t have to share it with anyone. Just write it down.

And then throw it away, saying:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”

These words are for you.

And now that you’ve done that. I have another invitation.

On the second piece of paper, write down what you are now free to do because you are not shackled or burdened by condemnation. Your success or failure does not determine your value.

When Jesus meets the crippled woman in Luke 13, he tells her, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment."  (Luke 13:12)

When he meets the woman accused of adultery in John 8, he tells her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way,” (John 8:11)

And when he heals the Gerasene demoniac in Luke 8, he tells him, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” (Luke 8:38-39)

How will God’s creative power take shape in your life? What act of courage or generosity might you make or what action might you take when you have confidence that God sees you and calls you beloved and free? In the words of poet Mary Oliver, “What will you do with this wild and precious life?” What will you do now that you know you live in God’s love? How will you respond to the much that God has done for you?

Let us pray…

Loving and creating God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who creates new life for us and delivers us from despair.

Show us how to live in your Holy Spirit, freed from sin and death.

We pray now in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

[i] Lois Malcolm. The Holy Spirit. 61.

[ii] ibid

[iii] From David Lose. “Dear Working Preacher” on workingpreacher.org. Luther Seminary. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1571, accessed July 11, 2020.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 14A

Romans 7:15-25a

Somewhere in my childhood I learned the song that says, “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, Guess I’ll go eat worms.” There’s more to the song but those words came to mind when I read that Martin Luther described himself as “a poor stinking bag of worms.”[i]

According to Luther, Paul leaves no one on neutral ground when he declares,

All [humanity is] ungodly and wicked, and in their wickedness they suppress truth, hence they are deserving of wrath.[ii]

This is not how we typically talk about ourselves or others but this chapter in Paul’s letter to the Romans demands that we pay attention to our sin-soaked world.

Remember, for Paul, sin is a pervasive force in the world actively rebelling against God and God’s ways;

it is not merely the bad choices or moral failings any one of us commit on any given day.

In verses 18 to 20, Paul explains the futility of free choice in a sinful world.

18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:18-20 NRS)

This is the bondage of the will, that even when we will to do what is right, we are deceived. We cannot, apart from Christ, accomplish the good that we want.

Until this week, I had not known that scholars debate how we should hear the “I” in this passage. New Testament professor Walter Taylor outlines five of the possibilities: [iii]

First, some think that Paul was talking about himself and his dissatisfaction with God and the law, in a diary-like entry of his pre-Christ perspective. But that reading requires that we reconcile his claims in Philippians 3 where he boasts of his accomplishments in the flesh, (4-6) and Galatians 1 where he describes his prior life persecuting the church. (15-17)

A second interpretation is that the “I” equals the Christian. But then, how do we reconcile Paul’s own words in the previous chapter where he tells us that Christians have been freed from their enslavement to sin?

A third possibility is that the “I” refers to Adam and the humanity brought about by Adam. In Romans 5 Paul describes the old and new creations and the consequences of the actions of both Adam and Christ.

And yet another view is that “I” is the sinner viewed by the person who is now justified, like a character in a television show having flashbacks to the ways things were.

Taylor’s final suggestion is supported by James Dunn’s reading of Paul in The Theology of Paul the Apostle: that the “I” is in fact the present-day Christian, living in the “already -- but not yet.”

This is also where, I believe, we get Luther’s own simul iustus et peccator “at the same time justified and yet a sinner.”[iv]

“Saint and sinner” does not mean, as Paul has already decried, that we continue sinning willfully, but that we surrender to Christ, fully aware of what we cannot do.

The story of Cain in Genesis 4 describes Eve’s firstborn and a confrontation with God where God tells the man, “Sin is crouching at your door.” (Genesis 4:7, NIV)

We don’t like to talk about sin and we especially don’t want to examine the power sin holds over our own lives and its place in the systems we live under. But our ignorance of it doesn’t diminish its power or reality. Sin is crouching at our door.

It has the power, as God tells Cain, to make us “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” (Genesis 4:12 NRS) It has the power to poison our relationships with each other, to infect the body of Christ and to weaken us. And the law is no help, because, on our own, we cannot fulfill the law.

But we have the remedy: Christ, our deliverer.

When Paul asks in verse 24, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 NRS), he knows the answer. And so do we.

As Luther writes,

since God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his, making it depend on his choice and not mine, and has promised to save me, not by my own work or exertion but by his grace and mercy, I am assured and certain both that he is faithful and will not lie to me, and also that he is too great and powerful for any demons or any adversities to be able to break him or snatch him from me.[v]

God has rescued us!

And in Christ, we are no longer poor stinking bags of worms. In Christ, we are planted in the House of the Lord (Psalm 92), in the land of faithfulness, to flourish and bear fruit.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Amen.

[i] Martin Luther.  “Admonition Against Insurrection.” (1522).
[ii] Martin Luther, “Bondage of the Will” (1525) in Luther’s Theological Writings. 169.
[iii] Walter F. Taylor, Jr. “Commentary of Romans 7:15-25a.” Workingpreacher.org, Luther Seminary.
[iv] Martin Luther. Romans. 114-115.
[v] Martin Luther, “Bondage of the Will”. 193.