The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for February 10, 2008

Texts: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7/Romans 5:12-19

Title: “And It’s Free”

              Where is God?  What is God up to today? Theology, the exploration of divine matters, is a highly speculative discipline.  God, who is the subject of theological inquiry, frustrates all attempts to grasp his essence or trace his providence. Theology humbles the best minds and exposes the poverty of the most diligent efforts to explain how God might be active in this or that event impacting our lives.  The theologian, though armed with an exhaustive knowledge of his Bible, and well versed in the work of other theologians and philosophers who have labored in his discipline, has no independent means at his or her disposal to validate any statement he or she might make about God. Unlike those who labor in the field of Mathematics, Physics, or Chemistry, any statement he or she makes must all ways be qualified. There are no laws of theology to which he or she can turn to support the argument he or she wants to make.

              There once was a man who would very likely challenge just about everything I have said thus far, not necessarily because anything I said was incorrect, but because of his convictions that he had been given special access into the mysteries of God others were denied.  Mind you, he would never be heard to claim that he possessed his particular gift owing to his personal worthiness or intellectual powers; instead he viewed himself as merely a vessel God had chosen to employ for his holy purposes. It was his faith at work in him, the apostle Paul believed, the very faith that God had placed on his heart that equipped him to speak with the authority he claimed.

              While theologians have challenged some of the declarations Paul made on matters pertaining to God and Jesus Christ, Paul was the first to give the church a thorough accounting of what God had accomplished by sending his son, his only son, into the world. Furthermore, you may search the writings of Paul and you will not find a more complete statement of the core beliefs upon which Paul’s faith was founded than that found in his letter to the church at Rome.              

               The letter to the church at Rome stands above all the other of his letters as his master work.  Written quite late in his career, the letter, unlike his letters addressing specific issues arising in faith communities he founded or mentored, surveys the entire terrain our lives under God are given to explore.

              The portion of the letter before us this morning offers perhaps the best summary of the challenges and the possibilities that are ours as people of faith. As to the challenges that engage us as children of God Paul does not equivocate.  Paul believed the challenges could be traced back to just one reality, sin. Paul was quite clear on the origins of sin.  But did he get it right? 

              Theological attempts to explain the origins of sin within a world created by a loving God have been far from fruitful, though many follow Paul’s lead tracing it back to our ancient ancestors’ fall from grace in the garden. Inasmuch as Paul was reared as a Jew he knew the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the subject of our first lesson. He knew the curse under which the hapless couple lived.  Evicted from the garden, Eve would suffer pain in childbearing. Adam would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.      

              This sin and death that our ancient forbears introduced into the world by their disobedience was a curse the children of God were forced to live with.  Moses, the greatest of all prophets couldn’t remove it.  The faithful prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel couldn’t remove it. 

              So far-reaching was the consequences of Adam’s sin, according to Paul, that death “exercised dominion” through sin.  The eyes of any Jew who read, or heard read, Paul’s letter would have fastened onto that word “dominion.”  Had not God appointed the man and woman he created to exercise dominion over creation?  Could it be true that death reigned, that the children of God were deprived of the prerogatives they were created to enjoy?

              The prophets of God all the way back to Moses were constantly reminding the children of God of the opportunities they forfeited through their sin. As a consequence of their sin, the children of God wandered in the wilderness for forty years before entering the Promised Land God had allotted them. As a consequence of their sin, the children of God got the monarchy they demanded, this despite the fact that God warned them of the peril they faced by installing a king to reign over them. As a consequence of their sin the children of God saw their kings defeated in battle, their lands occupied by foreign armies, and themselves deported to foreign lands. 

              Anyone who read, or heard read, Paul’s letter to the church at Rome could cite specific instances from their own experience where death exercised dominion. Keep in mind that the persecution of Christians in Paul’s day was very common.  We know from his letters that Paul was beaten and nearly killed on more than one occasion. Any follower of Christ was looked upon with suspicion, and could be hauled before the authorities on the least pretext.

              While we would likely not use the same language Paul used, the experiences that prompted him to speak of the persistence of sin are experiences not uncommon to us. While people may disagree about the specific origins of sin, its reality is something no person of faith can deny.

              Paul speaks of us as being estranged from God and God’s purposes, an affliction that Paul argued was not confined to one person or group of people, but an affliction that caused judgment to descend on creation universally. In Adam’s fall from grace all fell. Please note that Paul did not exclude himself, but acknowledged that the life he lived earned him no exemption from the bondage in which all creation lived.

              Paul’s diagnosis that estrangement from God is the root cause of humanity’s bondage is not widely accepted today. The idea that all troubles in the world, many in the world would strongly resist labeling it “sin,” are attributable to estrangement resulting from one man’s action, would be viewed as quaint, even laughable.

              War, injustice, inequality, racism, and all the other ills under which societies labor, it is argued by many, have nothing to do with an ancient curse visited on humanity because of disobedience, but arise through the competitive strivings of human beings to possess more of the earth’s finite resources than they need. The persons who hold that view, or similar views, regard societal ills and the breakdowns they occasion as givens, problems to be fixed as best we can using the available resources at our disposal.

              Paul proposes an alternative way of looking at world and its future. Paul would argue that war, injustice, inequality, racism and the rest are manifestations of death’s dominion, a dominion whose limits were exposed and superseded as a new dominion under Christ was established.

              Paul had only to look around him to see how stubbornly death reigned. Mocked and ridiculed as a troublemaker, Paul knew that both the political and religious authorities were looking for the slightest pretext to lock him up or worse, yet Paul was steadfast in proclaiming that one event had radically altered the future to which humanity could aspire.  No, it had nothing to do with human enlightenment or initiative.

              God had done something human wisdom could never be able to replicate. God sent his son Jesus, the Christ, into the world to inaugurate a new era. This he did, according to the Apostle Paul, not by arranging a dialogue between enemies, not by guaranteeing that all persons would possess the goods and opportunities required for a happy life.  Instead, Christ’s coming, according to Paul, ended the estrangement the disobedience our ancient ancestors created.  Paul summed it up this way, “Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”  

                Justification means simply that the estrangement each of us experience within ourselves, between ourselves and others, and between ourselves and God, has, by virtue of Jesus’ coming, been healed.  Not our reward for personal merit or good deeds, Paul is quick to declare, in fact, that the justification that Jesus makes available is a totally unmerited demonstration of God’s love for us. “For just as by the one man’s (Adam’s) disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”  What Christ bought with his obedience comes free to us.

                I began this sermon by talking about how God frustrates all attempts to grasp his essence or trace his providence. I went on to suggest that theology, God talk, humbles the best minds and exposes the poverty of the most diligent efforts to explain how God might be active in this or that event in our lives.

                The apostle Paul had a theological perspective to share, a perspective the church, over time, has embraced as its own. According to Paul, in Adam’s disobedience sin was born and thereafter spread across generations as human being lived in estrangement from the God who created us. In Christ’s obedience sin and death were defeated; the estrangement they bred was healed.

                Now you know as well as I do that people are not won to faith by theological argument, even that which is as profound as what Paul offers. Paul could write beautiful letters and talk for hours about the defeat of sin and death and the estrangement it caused, but Paul realized that his eloquence was all for naught if he couldn’t first convince himself, and then others, that what he said was true.

                The challenge Paul faced, and a person like me faces, when attempting to make a convincing argument that our estrangement with God was healed through Christ, or that the reign of God is actually taking form in our midst, [the problem we face] is that the evidence to which we can point that estrangement has ended, or that the reign of God is taking form, is overshadowed by the all too immediate evidence around us that sin and death are very much alive.     

                Theology is validated, demonstrated to be on the mark, through the lived experience of people who can validate it and demonstrate that it is on the mark.  We validate Paul’s claim that Christ ended our estrangement from God and each other by living as people who are no longer estranged from God or each other. But can we do that?  How?

                 Paul was able to validate what he said and wrote with the way he lived his life.  Soon people became attracted to him by what he said and wrote and found much to commend the way he thought and lived.  And so on and so forth, until a lot of people were carrying on in a way to suggest to the world that the world’s estrangement from God had ended, that despite all evidence to the contrary God was present and active in the world. 

                The church struggles to get its message across because people like us have yet to be convinced that the resurrection of Christ purchased our freedom from sin and death. If we can’t in the end bring ourselves to believe that what Christ did in the resurrection really means anything than why bother with the faith?  Why bother with the church?

               If we can’t bring ourselves to believe that what Christ did in the resurrection means anything, do we really have anything to offer a world that knows, or cares, nothing about the resurrection?  Something to think about.

                 The grace that comes to us in Christ is a free gift conferred by a loving God.  It is the gift that built and sustains the church. It is a gift that has, and continues, to transform lives. And who’s to say that our transformed lives can’t transform the world?    

                    “We know only too well [Mother Theresa was quoted as saying referring to her work in the slums of India] that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean.  But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” The powers of sin and death may be overcome some day in a grand intervention by God, as some believe, but that must not excuse us from making the effort to add our drop to the ocean, that must not excuse us from making whatever effort we can to make the reign of God more apparent where we live. AMEN

PRAYER

                    A Sabbath has come and we have come, come, O God, prompted by motivations we can’t always name.  We come prompted, perhaps, to please you, or please someone in our family or friendship circle.  We come prompted, perhaps, for the opportunity to mingle with friends or family.  We come prompted, perhaps, to hear good music, to hear your Word read, to enjoy the peace and solemnity of the space in which we gather.

                  A Sabbath has come and we have come, come, O God prompted by motivations we can’t always name.  No, O God, we are not always in touch with the reasons we have come, but we have come, and we are glad we have come, praying that through the intercession of your Spirit our reasons for coming may become more clearly defined. Grant, dear God, that in our walk with you we may learn and grow into the stature you created us to have.

                 Lord Christ, our brother, we know your story, but little appreciate the full magnitude of what your coming to earth means for the history of our world. We live in a world that to our eyes seems unredeemed, a world where the values you taught and lived do not often apply.  We have witnessed neglect, cruelty, and mayhem and struggle to imagine how the world could be any different. Yet we know you came to earth to make a difference, and we know you made a difference.  May the difference you made among the people you touched, give incentive to us to make a difference as well, beginning at the margins where the need is greatest.  

                 O God, we thank you for our brother Paul and the vision that inspired him to look deep into your heart.  We pray for vision in the church today, vision to reach beyond our own self-imposed limits, vision to risk the discomfort of attempting new ventures or reassessing attitudes to which we have been committed.  Called to ministry, may our vocation find expression in deeds that bring Christ from the church building into the community. 

                Lord, we continue to reflect with gratitude upon the great outpouring of support we have received from across the church, an outpouring that came gloriously to expression in our service of rededication. Blessed to witness the breadth of love and compassion our partners in ministry maintain for us, may our minds and hearts be challenged to think of the church, the body of Christ, in new ways. And may our new ways of conceiving of the church be for us a launch point as we identify new ways to serve even as we have been served.

               O Lord, abide with those who feel called to serve this nation in its highest elected office. Subjecting themselves to the rigors of schedules that force them to neglect other parts of their lives, we pray that you will grant strength equal to the challenges they face. We pray that the people with whom they meet, the interviews they grant, and the debates in which they engage will help them to clarify their ambitions for office.  Through the intercession of your Spirit, O God, may they helped to prioritize their goals to align with your holy will.           

              Living God be with all those who represent our nation to the citizens of foreign lands.  May all who serve in our Armed Forces, our embassies, and our aid agencies by their conduct honor the oaths they recited upon entering government service. Challenged to uphold our nation’s values as we face adversaries who mock the values we hold dear, may those who represent us not succumb to pressures to violate the principles upon which our republic was established.

              Father, we now lift before you our petitions for those who have special needs, praying your blessing on Mary Ann, Pam, Rudy, Joyce Peacock, Shane, Wayne, and Jeffrey who are under treatment for cancer.