Romans 8:1-11
Presented July 10th, 2005, by J.D. Kline
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Some years ago, well before we came to associate the towers of the World Trade Center with the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a tightrope walker named Philippe Petit was arrested for walking across a tightrope that he and several friends had extended from one of those towers to the other. Upon Philippe’s arrest, the first thing the police did was to take him to the city hospital for a psychiatric examination, assuming that nobody in his or her right mind would do such a thing. When Philippe was judged to be perfectly sane and in good spirits, questions followed. “Why would you want to risk your life walking on a rope stretched between the city’s highest towers?” The story has it that Philippe appeared initially baffled by the question, then after some moments of consideration responded, “Well… if I see three oranges I have to juggle, and if I see two towers I have to walk.”
Philippe Petit was one always on the lookout for that which would bring additional challenge to life. Few of us here, I suspect, are drawn to the challenge of tightrope walking, but many of us—I trust—recognize that the life of faith involves a significant element of risk taking. Indeed, if our faith is not leading us into new experiences, new ventures, new opportunities, perhaps it is not faith at all. Perhaps it is not leading to life at all, but to spiritual death.
I have read that the physical experience of freezing to death, near the end, becomes quite easy. There is a false sense of warmth, drowsiness, and comfort just prior to the end of life, and to trust that feeling is to insure death. Should companions be present, therefore, it is their task to force you beyond the comfortable—prodding you to move, to act, no matter how painful. Just so, our life of faith loses its growing edge when we value comfort and security more than we value adventure and movement. One cannot read the New Testament for long without sensing that the early Christians found in the gospel that which led them beyond the security of the familiar, beyond the comfort of the way things had always been done, into a new community, a new life, centered in Christ Jesus. Acts 17, for example, tells the story of community leaders disturbed by the presence of the early Christians, lamenting, “Those people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6).
Katherine Marie Dyckman and L. Patrick Carroll, in their brief book about spiritual direction entitled Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet, remind us that faith is a verb and a process rather than a static reality. To enter into a life of faith is not merely a matter of embracing a prescribed set of beliefs; much more, it is a matter of personal surrender to a living, loving God. The authors write, “We do not just ‘have faith.’ We become trusting, believing, ‘faithing’ people as we wrestle with the givenness and crises of our lives . . . . To ‘faith’ is to allow oneself to be overtaken by God.”
William Sloane Coffin, former chaplain at Yale University and former pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, long-time advocate for peace, justice and civil rights, puts it this way:
Faith is being grasped by the power of love. Faith is recognizing that what makes God is infinite mercy, not infinite control; not power, but love unending. Faith is recognizing that if at Christmas Jesus became like us, it was so that we might become like him. We know what that means: watching Jesus heal the sick, empower the poor, and scorn the powerful, we see transparently the power of God at work. Watching Zacchaeus climb the tree a crook and come down a saint, watching Paul set out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and return a fool for Christ, we know that our lives too can become channels for divine mercy to flow out to save the lost and the suffering.
Channels of divine mercy. This is what we become as the Spirit of God overtakes us, renewing, empowering, recreating us. But we miss all that if we are content with a faith that is little more than intellectual assent to a list of doctrinal beliefs and dogma. In the Church of the Brethren we have chosen to speak of the entire New Testament as our creed for this very reason. We do not want to limit the gospel story to a specific list of beliefs, for we understand faith to be far more than an intellectual enterprise; faith is a way of life. Faith impacts all of our living.
Bill Coffin speaks a similar truth, asserting that doctrines and creeds are only signposts, while “love alone is the hitching post” for the life of faith. And then Coffin continues,
Doctrines, let’s not forget, supported slavery and apartheid; some still support keeping women in their places and gays and lesbians in limbo. Moreover, doctrines can divide while compassion can only unite. In other words, religious folk, all our lives, have both to recover tradition and to recover from tradition!
It’s a matter of maintaining our balance, is it not? Taking the Scriptures and church traditions seriously, while remembering that the Holy Spirit is not finished with the business of providing wisdom, insight, guidance, and new truth.
This morning’s Scripture lesson is taken from the eighth chapter of Romans, one of the most powerful passages in the New Testament. The apostle Paul is sometimes interpreted as one concerned about detailed doctrine, but our text from Romans 8 stands as a reminder that Paul’s primary concern is that we come to experience life in the Spirit of God. It is abundant life, life in which we are set free to live, not for ourselves alone, but for God and neighbor. It is a life of peace, life centered in God and God’s vision for all creation.
Chapter eight stands as the culmination of a section in Romans, chapters five through eight, in which Paul is describing how we are justified—set in right relationship—with God. Every verse carries the good news that Paul believes with all his heart lies at the center of the gospel—that we are made right with God, not through our own action, but as a result of God’s initiative in Christ Jesus. The Message provides this paraphrase of early verses in chapter eight:
Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. God didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, God personally took on the human condition, entered the discolored mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.
More traditional translations draw a contrast between life according to the flesh and life according to the Spirit. Verse five reads, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” Many assume that Paul is suggesting that the body, the flesh, is inherently evil. But elsewhere Paul makes it clear that the body, the physical world, the creation is a glorious gift from God. So Paul is not using this phrase, things of the flesh, to disparage the body; he is speaking of life that chooses to separate itself from God, life that goes its own way, life that does not acknowledge relationship with God. When Paul speaks of things of the Spirit, on the other hand, he’s talking of life connected with God, life that embraces relationship with God, life that looks to God for vision and direction and sustenance and hope.
It is the apostle’s way of inviting us to experience the gift of abundant life with God. As Peterson puts it in The Message, “A new power is in operation.” And that power is the new life made possible through the love and compassion, the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. That power is the gift of the Spirit of God at work in us and through us. It is the very presence of God among us—a power that enables us to throw caution to the wind and embrace new vision, new opportunities for service, new hope, new possibilities for life.
I once read that Vladimir Lenin, father of Russian Communism, wrote these remarkable words of confession later in his life:
I made a mistake. Without a doubt, an oppressed multitude had to be liberated. But our method only provoked further oppression and atrocious massacres. My living nightmare is to find myself lost in an ocean of red with the blood of innumerable victims. It is too late now to alter the past, but what was needed to save Russia were ten Francis of Assisi’s.
The great tragedy is that Lenin too late recognized the power of the spirit of compassion and peace and self-giving love, the spirit of servanthood and loving-kindness that brings healing and wholeness and reconciliation to life. It is a new power in operation—the Spirit of Christ at work in us and among us, the Spirit that sets us free to live and serve with joy and hope and self-giving love. It is the Spirit that frees us to throw caution to the wind as we seek to embody God’s grace and compassion. With William Sloane Coffin, can we not celebrate, “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
Sisters and brothers, let us live and serve with joyful abandon, leaping in faith, then growing wings. Let us set our minds and hearts on the things of the Spirit. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Deep within us, O God, is a yearning, an aching, a hoping beyond hope for deep connectedness with you and with all creation. God of us all, draw us to you. Lead us; guide us; strengthen us; help us find our way in life.
Gentle Shepherd, gracious Redeemer, Love divine, breathe your Holy Spirit into our hearts, our minds, our whole beings, that we might come to reflect your loving purposes in life—living for your glory and for the good of our neighbors.
Compassionate God, God of peace, we have been reminded once again this week of how deeply divided is our world. The bombings in London speak loudly of hostility and anger, brokenness and fear. Our souls cry out in response, Will we ever learn the ways of justice and peace? Can we ever claim the prophet’s vision of a coming day when swords are beaten into plowshares, when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream?
Holy God, forgive our foolish ways—our bent to violence, our thirst for vengeance, our warring madness. Grant us wisdom and courage to embrace another way of living. God of new beginnings, we cannot do it on our own strength alone. We need you to help us find our way. Grant us forgiveness, grant us vision, grant us courage, grant us peace, as we seek to be your witnesses in a broken and thirsting and often fear-ridden world.
God of healing and wholeness, we are mindful of those struggling with and facing times of difficulty in their personal lives. We hold before you the poor, the homeless, those challenged by depression, addictions, and other illnesses. We pray this day for . . .
In the midst of needs that frequently seem overwhelming, we nevertheless affirm the promise and hope of your creation, O God, the beauty and wonder of the gift of life. We celebrate the gift of . . .
God of all life and love, you who call us to be the church, we pray your blessings upon the varied ministries of this congregation and of the Church of the Brethren—and even more, of all faith communities seeking to live in the light of your compassion, mercy, and grace. Lead us, gentle Shepherd, for we need you to help us find our way. Amen.