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Romans chapter 7
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
God is not focused on our flaws. The point of grace is that the divine is captivated with who we could become. Welcome to the Commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week.
Speaker 1:Head to commons.church for more information. Good morning, and welcome again to commons. My name is Jeremy, as it is every week, in case you're wondering, but it's great to have you here today. Once again, it is Mother's Day though, and so we hope that you all enjoyed a small gift from us as a token of our appreciation to all the mothers around us. These are handmade local chocolates from over in Inglewood, and we wanna extend our thanks to all of the people who have been mothers to us in a thousand different ways throughout our lives.
Speaker 1:I know that my mom, my wife, and my son's birth mom, all of these women have played extraordinary roles in my life, and so I want to say thank you to them. However, we also recognize that in a community this size, a day like this always brings a mixture of emotions across our various services and parishes. And so there's joy and celebration, but there's also hurt and regret, and we want to honor all of that today. And so we reiterate that even as we celebrate moms, there is room for your story here in this room today. And we do not presume to understand the complexity behind your story of mother.
Speaker 1:Instead, we simply pray that you might sense today the grace of our God, who the prophet Isaiah says, will comfort us as a mother comforts her child. Now, we are also continuing in the book of Romans this week. And so let's look back at last Sunday, because today is chapter seven. But chapter six was all about Paul building this image of baptism. And here at Commons, we have water baptisms coming up in two weeks.
Speaker 1:And if you are at the point in your journey where you would like to be baptized, then we would be honored to walk through that process with you. Because baptism really is this incredibly beautiful image where we go down under the water to symbolize our identification with Christ's death, and then we come up out of the water to symbolize our identification and our entrance into resurrection and new life. And at Commons, we call baptism a means of grace, and that is the traditional language that's associated with this ritual in the Christian story. And by that, what it means is that we affirm that this is more than just a symbol in our baptism. Instead, we acknowledge that along with that symbol, there is something mystical that is happening as God meets us in these moments together.
Speaker 1:And we don't try to explain it in any more detail than that. I think sometimes the more you explain something, the less meaning it actually has. We don't believe that baptism is what saves you. We trust, however, that as we enter into these moments where mundane objects like bread and wine and water are pointed in sacred directions. That this is where God meets us in really surprising ways.
Speaker 1:And, I love this about our tradition, that our most sacred moments in Christianity are made up of the most everyday ordinary objects and experiences of life. And, they are made sacred. And so let me say this about baptism today before we jump back into our message is that when I talk with baptism about people who are interested in it, I often point to my marriage, and not because my marriage is particularly divine. You can talk to my wife Rachel for the details, and she will give them to you gladly. Or because we spend a lot of time in our marriage in hot tubs, we don't.
Speaker 1:And by the way, if you've never seen a baptism here, that's how we do it. We rent a hot tub, and the water is very nice. It's comfortable. No. I point to my marriage because what I have realized after seventeen years of being married to Rachel is that I hardly knew anything on the day we were married.
Speaker 1:I didn't know about myself. I didn't know about Rachel. I certainly didn't know about us. And in fact, I have realized that there was far more I didn't know than I did on that day. What I did know, however, was that this was the person I wanted to figure things out with.
Speaker 1:And if there's anything I have learned about marriage, this is it, that I don't know much. Baptism is kind of like that. You may not know exactly how to articulate what you believe, and you may have still all kinds of questions about theology and history and tradition. You will almost certainly continue to grow and change and evolve your imagination of Jesus throughout your life after your baptism. But, baptism is about saying that this person Jesus, and this story of grace, and this journey of spiritual discovery that you have embarked on, this is the one you want to orient your life around.
Speaker 1:Things will continue to change. And, you will continue to grow, and you will continue to become you after this. But, baptism, as we talked about last week, is about the way you choose to narrate your story. And, that is often far more profound than we realize. Because for Paul, baptism is this image of waking up to a new world that is all around you already.
Speaker 1:And, once you open your eyes and you see what Jesus has done and you recognize that the world has changed around you, you can't go back. And, you can almost summarize Paul's argument like this, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And, that's why Paul is now going to lean into this tension this week between the life we often want to live and the one we often find ourselves living. So let's pray, and then we'll dive into chapter seven this week. God of infinite grace, who has flooded the world with light and love, may we continue slowly to open our eyes to what you have done.
Speaker 1:And as your grace becomes the center of our story, and as we begin to see ourselves full of potential and promise, might we derive a holy dissatisfaction with what is, So that we might press ever farther and deeper and closer in to the source of all that is good in the universe. Lord, welcome our prayers today. And embrace our good works this day. And transform us even as we can form our stories in the light of yours. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Okay. Today is Romans chapter seven. But before that, we need to backtrack just a little bit to the end of chapter six to pick up an idea that I didn't have time to get to last week. But before that, I need to tell you a story.
Speaker 1:You see, this week, I was out for a bike ride with my son, which often do, and we have just gotten one of those new Co Pilot bikes that attaches to the seat post on my bike, so that my son can ride behind and pedal and not fall over when we go, and he loves it. So we have been using this a lot lately. And it's also very funny because as soon as we start on a bike ride, every single time, he will get on and start pedaling, and then he will call out, daddy, can you feel my energy? And I have to confirm that, yes, I indeed can feel your energy. And then he will tell me, I can feel my heartbeat every time it happens.
Speaker 1:And if you know Bo on the go, then this will be familiar to you. This is a show that my son watches. However, on this day, we were up for a bike ride. And we're riding through the neighborhood, and we pass a kid playing on the sidewalk, and this girl calls out, hi, Eaton. And so we ride by, and I ask Eaton, who was that?
Speaker 1:And he responds, oh, that's just a big kid that knows me, and she calls me buddy, and that means she thinks that I'm cute. And I thought that was pretty funny. So I put it on Twitter and we all had a laugh. And then also we had a conversation about the fact that maybe when she calls you buddy, that just means she thinks you're a buddy. And it's probably not a good idea for you to assume that when a girl says one thing, she means something else.
Speaker 1:And I know he's only four years old. Assumptions and consent are a little over his head right now, but I would rather start that conversation early than have to have it later. Still though, was very funny. It was Twitter worthy. However, it did make me think about one of the most famous verses in this letter to the Romans.
Speaker 1:And it's one I didn't have time to hit on last week because in Romans six twenty three, Paul writes, for the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, this is one of the most famous verses in the book of Romans. And ironically, it's also one of the most ignored when it comes to one of our most heated, pun intended debates in Christianity. That is the question of hell. You see, there are actually lots of different ways to think about hell, and we may talk about some of those at some point in the future.
Speaker 1:But the one that we are often familiar with is this idea of eternal conscious torment. This idea that God keeps people alive after they die just so that they can be tortured. And that's a common perspective. I hear it a lot. I understand where it comes from personally.
Speaker 1:I just don't see it in the scriptures. And part of the reason is verses like this, where Paul is summarizing his argument up to this point. And he says, as he has said all along, that sin leads to death. Remember from last week, for Paul, death is the ruler of the world. And death has dominion here, and death comes for all of us as it always has.
Speaker 1:But Jesus has changed things by offering us a way out of that. That seems very consistent with everything that Paul has been saying so far in this letter, except that here, some people will say that when Paul says death, he doesn't really mean death, he means the opposite of death. And that what he really means is that sin leads not to death, but to being supernaturally kept alive and punished forever. Now, that is fine if you wanna say that Paul is using death figuratively here. Language can be used in all kinds of different ways, and I get it.
Speaker 1:But Paul has been talking about death, meaning death, all through chapters five and six. And I actually see nothing here to suggest that death, which is the normal Greek word thanatos here, means anything but death. And if you watched Infinity War, now you know why the big mad was named Thanos. And if you haven't seen it yet, don't spoil it for me. I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1:What I read Paul saying here is that sin has consequence. And, every single one of us are implicated in the repercussions. And, God in grace has provided a way out. Remember this verse? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not die, but have eternal life.
Speaker 1:And look, Paul has some bad news for us here in Romans. And if you stay on a trajectory toward death, you will find it. But for Paul, God is only the source of what is good in the universe. And, God is fundamentally committed to saving us from the worst of ourselves. Every choice you make has consequences.
Speaker 1:But, God is desperately on your side always, helping you to avoid death. Now, from there, Paul pivots to marriage, which is a big swing. And, I'll admit that this is sort of an awkward analogy that Paul is about to give us, but let's try to walk through his thinking in this next section here. Chapter seven verse one, he says, do you not know, brothers and sisters, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives. For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive.
Speaker 1:But, if her husband dies she is released from the law that binds her. Now, short excursus here. He is very clearly talking about Hebrew religious law in this passage. Under Roman law, a woman absolutely could divorce her husband and get remarried whenever she wanted to. However, let's not celebrate Rome as a feminist utopia just yet, because if a woman did this, she would give up all rights to any of the household wealth and property that she had claimed to.
Speaker 1:Point here is that Paul is talking about Hebrew religious law, Torah, not the civil law of Rome, and they were different. However, he continues. He says, so then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. So my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
Speaker 1:So this is a somewhat convoluted analogy, and it is already starting to break down even as Paul writes it. But, here's his basic thinking. If a woman is married to a man, she's bound to him until he dies. And once he does, she's free to move on. So, in the same way, you are married to the law and bound to it, and if you die, you are free from it.
Speaker 1:And that's where the analogy kind of breaks down. Because the law that you're bound to doesn't die, it's you who dies, and you die to sin, which then frees you from your obligation to the law. So it kind of works. I mean, a woman's husband dies, she's free. But I guess if she died, she would be free in a sense as well.
Speaker 1:Except Paul has already argued that if we die in Christ, we are raised with Christ, so it works. His argument here is kind of like to say, we are all wives who died to get out of our marriages, but then we get to come back to life anyway. So all that to say two things. One, don't get too caught up on the frankly misogynistic rules around divorce that dominated Paul's culture. That's not really his point.
Speaker 1:All Paul really wants to say here is that you are not subject to any law anymore. In fact, in Romans 13, Paul will even say, owe no one anything except love. For the one who loves has fulfilled all of the law. That's it. And so that's Paul's point.
Speaker 1:Now, from there Paul goes on to say in the next verse that when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of any written code any longer. And again, this is just Paul saying, rules don't apply anymore. There is now something bigger and deeper and wider that we have tapped into. And, that's important.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes when we read a story about marriage and adultery, and then we read a story about sinful passions of the flesh, we immediately start to think about sex. And there's nothing wrong with thinking about sex. It's fun sometimes. In fact, there's nothing wrong with imagining the implications of this passage when it comes to sex. Sex But is not actually what Paul has in mind here.
Speaker 1:At least not primarily. You see the Greek word here is pathema. And literally what that means is suffering. As in the passion of the Christ. But in the ancient world, your passions were any way that your strong emotions got out of control and got the best of you and caused you to become something you didn't want to be.
Speaker 1:And, if we're being honest here, that is something we should all recognize in our story at times. Where greed has pushed us into deals we weren't comfortable with. Or where loneliness has caused us to compromise commitments that we made to ourselves. Where frustration has turned into anger, turned into actions that we later came to regret. And, I don't know about you, but sometimes the more passionate, the more excited I am about something, the more easily I find myself losing control.
Speaker 1:It happens in my relationship. Sometimes I find that my wife, the person I love most in the world, can get on my nerves faster than anyone else. My son, who I absolutely love to spend time with and play with, can sap my energy much quicker than I thought he could. Even my dog, who loves me more than anything else in the universe, can sometimes drive me nuts at times. And, Paul doesn't want us to be stoic and dispassionate.
Speaker 1:He wants us to be aware of where excitement gets the best of us at times. However, notice here that Paul flips the script on us. Because he starts talking about this passion that pulls us away from the person we are desperately trying to be. And, he moves us toward the spirit that welcomes us to lean into the person we are invited to become. And, there's a big difference there.
Speaker 1:Look at the language here when Paul talks about law and spirit. Rules arouse sinful passions that lead to death. But now, we serve with new breath where the rules are unwritten. It's a very different change in his language and approach between these two ideas. And, this is really Paul's larger point.
Speaker 1:That you can try to measure up and always find yourselves falling short, Or, you can realize that the very spirit and breath that is in you is calling you to continually change and become and grow into something new. This is not a heavy. This is actually Paul saying that all of that heaviness that you have been carrying around with you has been hurting you. And, you need to let it go. Now, that doesn't mean rules are bad.
Speaker 1:In fact, we all need guidelines at times, and my son is at an age where he needs lots of guidelines in order to keep him alive most days. It's just that rules are only ever helpful in the service of a larger goal. So they're like training wheels in a sense. They get you pointed in the right direction, but they were always eventually meant to fall away. And so in the next verse Paul says, what shall we say then?
Speaker 1:Is the law sinful? Certainly not. And there's that phrase, mega noito again. Oh, hell no. Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.
Speaker 1:I would have never known what coveting was if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But then sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. So here's what he's saying here. The law showed me what was wrong. It just couldn't help me do anything about it.
Speaker 1:And in fact, sometimes that actually made it worse. So if you've ever been to a restaurant and they go through all the specials and then they say, oh, and also our apologies, we're out of the salmon. And immediately, all you've wanted all day was salmon even though you're a vegetarian, then you know what Paul's talking about here. He continues, however. For apart from the law sin was dead.
Speaker 1:Once I was alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death to me. Now, again, this is a little bit confusing here. And partly because Paul says I, but he's not really talking about himself.
Speaker 1:At least not exclusively anyway. And the reason that most scholars would say that is because Paul is using pronouns in a very conspicuous way here in Greek. Without getting too technical here, in Greek you normally inflect your verbs for person, number, and gender. And you don't actually use pronouns like I very often. Except that here Paul keeps unnecessarily repeating and interjecting this first person pronoun ego, which is actually where we get our English word ego from.
Speaker 1:And what that does is it makes scholars realize that Paul probably has something bigger in mind here as well. And so when you read this, you almost want to read it as we instead of I, but recognize that Paul is trying to personalize the story when he tells it. And in fact, actually reading the English ego actually works pretty well here too. So think about it this way. Apart from the law sin was meaningless because we were alive apart from any law.
Speaker 1:But when the commandment came the ability to reject it sprang to life and we did. And in that our egos found that the very commandment that was intended to point us toward life actually brought us death. And again, that reminds me of that quote from Sarah Heiner Lancaster. That sin is the robbery of God because sin assumes that we are independent of God. When our I, when our ego assumes that we are independent, that's what leads us away from life.
Speaker 1:But when we come to understand just how interdependent we are, on God, and on each other, on this planet, and those that we share it with, this is what leads us back into union with life and the divine because sometimes it's our eye, it's our ego that leads us astray. And, that's what Paul is pointing to here. But, that leads us finally now to Paul's chapter seven crescendo. He writes, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do.
Speaker 1:And that I hate, I do. I have the desire to do what is good, but I simply cannot seem to carry it out. I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this is what I keep finding myself doing. And if I do what I do not want to do, it must be no longer I who do it, but sin somehow living inside of me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, and yet I also see this other law at work in me.
Speaker 1:What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? And if we were to leave it here, would be a pretty depressing note to end on. Paul doesn't end here. He continues, thanks be to God who delivers me through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Speaker 1:Now, couple things before we wrap up today. First, for all of Paul's swagger and bombast, this is one of those moments where we see some of his tenderness come through. Because Paul is not the man he wants to be. And Paul is in process. And sometimes Paul is okay with that, sometimes he has grace for that, and sometimes he really struggles with that.
Speaker 1:And, this is really important for you if you intend to become something more than you are right now. Because, you will not go from here to there in an instant. It just doesn't happen that way. And, it doesn't matter if you are talking about getting in better shape. It doesn't matter if you're talking about digging out of debt.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter if you want to be more generous, or learn to be kind or caring or Christ like. All of it takes time. And, if you are not kind and generous and gracious with yourself in the process, then you will never become who you could be. Remember, grace is how you narrate your own story first. And, it's only after grace becomes the lens that you look at yourself that grace can ever become the lens through which you explore the world around you.
Speaker 1:So, hold grace for yourself as you go. It's important. But notice also that Paul is not uncritical of himself either. In fact, I think that a real experience of grace will often point a very tight spotlight on the areas that we need to grow in ourselves. But understand here, this is not about Paul punishing himself.
Speaker 1:I know that the translation says, what a wretched man I am. That's a bit of a downer to talk about ourselves that way. But the Greek word here is actually taleporos. And miserable, or wretched, is one of the definitions. But so is distressed or conflicted.
Speaker 1:And given what Paul is writing about here, that seems like perhaps a more appropriate translation to me. That Paul sees who he is. And that he's honest with himself about it. And that he has no interest in hiding the truth of who he is from himself. But that is all precisely because Paul has come to see who he could be.
Speaker 1:See, the only reason that Paul has any distress, the only reason that Paul is conflicted about the discrepancy between what is and what could be is because Paul has become fascinated by this enormous potential that God has placed in him. This is not Paul saying, I'm a terrible person. I'm a dirty little monkey. I will never be any better than this. This is Paul saying, no matter how many times I fall down, no matter how hard it is, no matter how conflicted I feel, I know I'm not gonna give up.
Speaker 1:Because, I know that it is God who has my back in Jesus. And sometimes, I think we get into this pattern where we convince ourselves that grace is simultaneously this amazing, incredible gift. And this constant reminder that we are less than we should be. And that is not the point of grace. God is not focused on our flaws.
Speaker 1:The point of grace is that the divine is captivated with who we could become. And, rather than drive you to beat yourself up over what you should be, What Paul is hoping for here is that his words might begin to kindle a divine dissatisfaction with what is, that is born from an imagination of what could be. You see, this is not, it is never bad news. Because every single one of us, we have found ourselves where Paul finds himself right now. None of this is new.
Speaker 1:And, we all know exactly what Paul is talking about. But, what's new is the reminder that God has loved us exactly as we are in spite of it. And, that is only the beginning of our story with God. We are not who we could become, but we are loved right now regardless. That's Paul's point.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God, for all the ways that we are coming to recognize we are not all that we could be, would you by your spirit help us to know that and approach that, and build that into our sense of self in a way that is healthy rather than destructive? For the ways that that knowledge gnaws at us and tears us down, It makes us feel like things will never be different. Would you be present by spirit? Healing those false narratives.
Speaker 1:Reminding us that grace is only ever about our potential in you. Your imagination for who you created us to be, who we might become in this life, and who we will eventually be invited to know. God help us to balance together the knowledge that we are loved perfectly and completely, exactly as we are, with this ongoing desire to be more, more generous, more caring, more kind, more Christ like. Because that is the person we were always meant to be. And, it's the person your spirit invites us to know.
Speaker 1:Might we narrate our stories through grace. And, might that become the lens through which we encounter everything else in the world around us. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray, Amen.