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Sermon - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 13th July 2008
St Alban’s Epping 7:00am, 8.00 am & 10:00am
Readings: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The writings of Saint Paul have done more for the development of Christianity than any other person’s. Yet his thoughts and writings have also caused more difficulty than any other person’s. Romans in particular has caused many a heated theological argument. It could be said that many avid Pauline followers have substituted Paul in the place of Jesus, making it “Paulianity” and not Christianity. None the less we must take seriously and study the writings of Paul in the context of his day and age and apply them to our day and age.
The main theme of Romans chapter 7 and the verses that we have read this morning, in chapter 8, is the Jewish Law which is known as Torah. Torah is the first five books of the Old Testament. In it Paul is telling the story of Israel, the story that climaxes with the story of Jesus, in this mornings reading and the way in which it does so is vital for understanding the basis of Christianity.
It is important to see this long and central argument (7:1-8:11) as a whole, before drawing small-scale lessons from its different parts, which by themselves could easily be taken in senses somewhat different from those which the overall context suggests. The passage goes to the heart of the self-identity of the people of God. Israel at its best looked to Torah as the basis of its status as the chosen people of the creator God. Paul has insisted that Torah tells Israel in no uncertain terms that it is instead simply a part of the people of Adam, in slavery to sin and facing death.
Where then can assurance be found? Only in the death and resurrection of the Messiah and the life-giving presence and power of the Spirit. This story must be told again and again as part of the foundation of who the church is. It is not simply a story about how ethnic Israel faced a particular problem and how this problem was overcome. Like the story of Jesus itself, it is the story of how God's people, the church's forebears, had to pass through the anguish that we read about in Romans 7 last week in order that, through the Messiah and the Spirit, new hope might be born.
Torah, he insists, is holy and just and good; it is not responsible either for sin or for death. Indeed, it just goes to show the exceeding wickedness of sin itself that it can as it were make its nest in Torah, condemning rather than giving life. When God acts in Christ and by the Spirit to give life to those indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, Torah looks on with, as we might say, a sigh of relief and approval. Any suggestion that law in general, or the law in particular, were or are shabby, second-rate, primitive, destructive of true religion, and therefore to be abolished, set aside, or treated as irrelevant in the bright new day of a law-free faith, must be ruled out.
Having said all that, we must also insist, against some current attempts to reinstate or rehabilitate Torah either within the church or in wider social and political contexts that the Torah is by itself weak. Not only can it not give the life to which it points; it accents, and indeed accentuates, the sinful and death-bound position, of those who embrace it. There is always a danger within the church that some Christians, eager to insist that the whole Bible is the Word of God, will fail to heed the words of Jesus and Paul and will attempt to live by Torah in matters such as the death penalty or the treatment of people who are different. There are some Christians today, who seem to believe that the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem could still be God's will. Equally, there are some who, no doubt with considerable inconsistency, want to see the Jewish law as in some way normative for Christians today. This is to make the mistake of treating revelation in an out of context fashion.
As Paul's own writings make abundantly clear, what we find in Scripture is above all a narrative: the great story of God and the world and of God's people as the people of God for that world. To say that Torah’s primary role was acted out in an earlier act in the drama than that in which Paul believed himself to be living is not to diminish its God-given role, but rather to celebrate it. To say that it goes on applying equally in the era of Christ and the Spirit is to ignore not only what Jesus and Paul said but, also the story Jesus enacted in his life, death and resurrection, the story Paul took as his starting-point.
Not surprisingly, of course, those who dislike the Pauline analysis of sin routinely despise the Pauline remedy, that is namely, the cross and the Spirit. However, this double answer to the problem remains foundational to genuine Christian understanding and indeed, of course, to genuine Christian living. It is a deep mystery that on the cross God "condemned sin" in the flesh of the Messiah. However, this stands at the heart of Christianity, offering the way forward through the Red Sea, leaving behind the Egypt of sin and death and pointing onward to the land of promise. The victory of the cross over the principalities and powers, with sin and death as their chief, provides a solidly grounded freedom from guilt in the present. There is no need for anyone to collapse into that guilty self-absorption, which passes so quickly into self-hatred. God's love has proved itself stronger than all the powers of darkness. Nor is there any need to fear for the future.
The whole point of Romans 8 is to reinforce the great opening shout: there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. This truth, which always appears surprising even to those who have known it for years, needs constant retelling. God applies the victory of the cross to the liberation of the entire cosmos. Is it too much to hope that this victory might have its effect in the realm of human society, government and law as well as in the hearts and lives of individuals?
Christian assurance is not self-assurance. Some self-assured people happen also to be Christians and some Christians use their Christian assurance to give off an air of self-assurance; but distortions do not invalidate the reality. In some Christian traditions it has been customary, as a sign of humility, to question whether one can ever know in the present life that one is truly saved, just as in some others it has been customary, as a sign of sound doctrine, to proclaim one's certainty on every occasion. Think of the posturing that has recently taken place in Jerusalem at the GAFCON meeting!
It is perhaps significant that the greatest New Testament step-by-step argument for Christian assurance emerges from the deepest wrestling and struggling. It comes as the answer to the cry of despair that awakens echoes across every continent and in every century. Who shall deliver me? God will, through Jesus Christ and by the Spirit. Christian assurance is then built up, on the basis of what has happened in Jesus. On the solid and unbreakable link between the Messiah and his people, of which faith is the sign, baptism the symbol and the Spirit the personal guarantee.
This morning’s reading sees the start of one of Paul's greatest descriptions of the indwelling of the Spirit. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to him.” There is no such thing in New Testament theology as a Christian who does not have the Spirit dwelling in him or her. For the moment it must be noted that there can be no split-level Christianity, no division between those who have the Spirit and those who do not. Christian assurance is always balanced by warnings against complacency. We cannot ignore the way in which the presence of the Spirit produces what we would call "ethical" consequences. It is clear that a person in whom the Spirit dwells will begin to be at peace with God. They will submit to God's will. They will begin to live in a way that is actually pleasing to God. The presence of the Spirit will make a difference not just to how someone feels, but also to how they live.
This central passage is basically about God. The God of whom Paul speaks here is mysterious, as all true speech about God must acknowledge. The purposes of this God are darker and more unexpected than either the devout Jew or the serious pagan, or for that matter most Christians, have allowed for. This one true God is now made known in two complementary and interlocking ways, which call not for intellectual recognition so much as for worship and love. This God has been made known in the sending of the Son, not so that God could remain distant and detached while someone else did the difficult and painful work, but precisely so that God might be personally and intimately present at the point where sin and death had been heaped up to their full height.
To imagine for a moment a world in which incarnation and cross had never happened and could never happen is to imagine a world in which the rumour of incarnate love would either never be heard or be heard as a dream that was daily defied by waking reality. Without the cross of God's Son, the Scriptures of Israel would indeed speak of a God who embodied covenant love, a God who rescued slaves so that they might be a people of praise for the sake of the world. However, it would remain a private story, incredible to the outside world and increasingly puzzling within an embattled and beleaguered Israel. Without the cross, the world at large would continue to believe that might and money were the things that mattered, that sexual pleasure was the highest human good and that killing people was the way to get things done. Alas, in much of the world, even in much of the would be Christian world, these things are still implicitly believed.
It is time for a genuinely incarnational theology to be let loose again upon the world, so that the rumour may become a report and the report a life-changing reality. For that to happen it is vital to grasp as well that the God who sent the Son now sends the Spirit of the Son. A fully Trinitarian theology, calling forth worship, love and service, is the only possible basis for genuine gospel work that will bring life and hope to the world.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
This sermon prepared using the New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol X, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2002.