Lives To God
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
Proper 7/ Ordinary 12 A/ Pentecost +6
Romans 6:1-11
Theme: Living the life of the resurrected Christ
“1What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
What does it mean when we read in Paul’s writings that we have died to sin and how exactly does that play out in the way we live on a daily basis?
Let’s take a look at the question on a purely concrete level. What happens when someone dies? Can they continue to interact with their surroundings? Can they continue to contribute – in whatever form they have in the past? Are they able to continue in the activities and relationships they were involved in while alive? Remember, this is in purely concrete terms, not metaphysical, not emotional or spiritual.
I think we all understand the answer to the questions to be a solid ‘no’.
In our passage this morning, Paul is addressing the question in the face of some teachings – diametrically opposed to each other – that were cropping up in the wake of the spreading of the Gospel.
On one extreme, we had the Legalists. Those who believed that, despite what Jesus said and taught, there was still a requirement within the living out of our faith that we had to keep certain laws – having to do with marking our bodies, with diet and dress and actions and activities … in truth, the laws in question reached into every aspect of the lives of those who held to them. It was, according to them, necessary to adhere to the letter of the law in addition to believing that Christ was the Messiah in order to obtain salvation.
At the other extreme, there were those who believed that, in a response to the Law being proclaimed null and void, and grace becoming the arbiter of salvation – that is, the way by which we obtain salvation – rather than through adherence to the laws of Moses, and since grace is made available to us even when we sin, then if we sin MORE, we would receive even MORE grace – more forgiveness, more love, more faith, I suppose. The central idea was that it was not necessary to follow any given set of moral guidelines; all that was necessary was to believe that Christ was the Messiah and that was enough for salvation.
Both extremes reveal a lack of understanding of what the Gospel was about.
The first, legalism, ignores the power of grace freely offered to transform a life and virtually eliminates the reconciliatory act of God by demanding that completing a predetermined set of requirements is a prerequisite for admission into the ‘in’ club. You do, look, act, speak, and sound like we do, and you are ‘in’. It can be said of first century Pharisees and twenty-first century fundamentalists of any given stripe. It shuts down the movement of the spirit to be expressed in as many ways as there are children of God.
The latter, antinomianism, ignores the Gospel’s call to living a life of meaning, of impact, of making a difference and of BEING different from the prevailing culture. It is deaf to the demand of the Gospel to live a life of holiness, of living away from, out of, beyond and above – sin. It actually calls for a life that in some ways revels in it – not because that is a good thing in and of itself – it recognizes that sin is wrong, and can be destructive, but because of a stunted understanding of a central truth of the Gospel – that God loves us even in the midst of our sinful lives – despite them – and carries that truth to an illogical extreme – where the ‘trigger’ for God’s love is sin. And that is not the case.
God’s love would exist whether sin existed or not, whether evil had entered into the world or not. It was, after all, God’s love that prompted creation to begin with.
So Paul is arguing against both extremes. And the central point of his argument is the resurrection of Christ. It is through just that resurrection – a definitive event – a pivotal event – the form in which the sacrifice of Christ is spoken of – he spells it out in verse 10 – “once for all” – the grammar used conveys the sense that it is of such universal impact that the only way to describe it is that it is a once-and-for-all-time event, never to be repeated.
But beyond that, it is an event that is central to our understanding of what Christ’s claim is on our lives. Paul writes that just as we died with Christ in our baptism, we also rose with him to a newness of life – it is part of the baptism litany in some churches to include that phrase as the baptismal candidate is lowered into the water and is then lifted out of the water.
It brings a degree of significance to the act of baptism that reminds us that we are not only expected to live a changed life, but that we are to live the life of Christ himself.
So the question quickly becomes: do we?
Do we face down injustice, do we defend the oppressed, especially the religiously oppressed? Do we ask the questions that get people thinking about what it means to truly love and serve God? Do we befriend the sinners and tax collectors – or their modern-day equivalents, or do we limit our relations to be solely with ‘respectable people’?
Do we extend ourselves? Do we open ourselves to ridicule regardless, if doing what is right might result in that? Do we go out of our way to help the needy, the hungry, the homeless and the poor?
Five years ago today, Eddie Heath stood here and spoke of God bringing something about that was beyond our ability to even imagine. There was a newness in what we were embarking on together that I think all of us were yes excited about, but also more than a little apprehensive about. Looking back on the last five years, I have to agree with him. Speaking for myself, these five years have flown by. When I look around the room and see your faces and think back on what it felt like to see you and not know you then, and what these last five years have done to allow us to get to know and love each other, to sit together and joke and laugh and eat and learn and argue and cry together; to gather in emergency rooms or labor and delivery rooms, or intensive care units, to wait through surgeries or to meet in funeral homes, the newness of life that it has meant for ME has been a wonderment. Yes, there have been a boatload of new experiences, but that kind of comes with the territory.
The newness of life that Paul is speaking of goes beyond even that; he is speaking of the kind of life that comes from a changed heart and a changed mind; the kind of newness that comes from an entirely different place in the motivational well of our souls: the newness of life that is born of unselfish, redeemed and redeeming love.
What does this mean for us, for
It means that we are called to examine our reason for believing what we believe and for doing what we do – to keep our finger on the pulse of the heart from which our actions are born – and to make SURE that the source is the wellspring of eternal love – the heart of God.
Let’s pray.
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