A sermon shared at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, September 10, 2017
The last several posts have
explored chapters in Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is so disheartening, and
counter to the gospel to read and hear all the pastors, street preachers and
self-appointed laypersons use Paul to condemn and judge people because Paul describes
the opposite behavior that a Christian should exhibit towards friends, opponents
and the state.
He makes three key points;
the time of judgment and the Law is over, selflessness is prized over
selfishness, said another way, we should always be in the business of promoting
the good of others, the true definition of love. His third point is the reason
the first two points are so important. Christians individually and collectively
are the body of Christ in the world.
Ezekiel lived in the age
of the culmination of judgment. This was the age of the conviction of Israel
and all humanity by the Law. After a history of failure to live according to
God’s command, “you shall be
holy because I am holy, and live
with the Law in your heart,” the Babylonians stood at the door of Jerusalem,
about to destroy the city and enslave all of Judah. The sword whose coming God
told Ezekiel is to warm Israel is God.
If you
take the time, read the indictments of all the other prophets such as Amos,
Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah. They warned the Hebrews who had embraced the values
of the world and forsook the Law of the future. This was a time when the rich
became richer and kept their boot on the necks of the poor. Worship became
nothing more than an excuse for partying. There isn’t enough time today to do
more than give you an idea of the anger of the Lord found in these abbreviated
and paraphrased verses of Isaiah
1:10-20 (by the way, these are passages the self-appointed judges mentioned
earlier fall back upon, yet few seem to see their own reflection in them):
“Hear the word of the Lord, Listen to
the teaching of our God:
What to me is the multitude of your
sacrifices?
I
have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;
I
do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who asked this from your hand?
Trample
my courts no more, (Enter my Temple no more!); bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me. I cannot endure (your) solemn holidays,
worship and ceremonies that drip with iniquity.
(I hate) Your new moons and your
appointed festivals - they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing
them.
When you stretch out your hands, I will
hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers, I
will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to
do good;
seek
justice,
rescue
the oppressed,
defend
the orphan,
plead
for the widow.
Come now, let us argue it out,
though
your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow;
though
they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
If
you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
but
if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of
the Lord has spoken.
The Hebrews had finally
sunk to the depth of spiritual night, convicted by the Law that they cannot
fulfill. This was the time of judgment. God said, ‘Enough!”
Yet even in the midst of
judgment, the Lord held out a promise of reconciliation to the faithful,
“though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow.”
This is the warning that God
called Ezekiel to proclaim as the watchman. It is not a warning of impending
disasters such as a hurricanes or famines, but a call to faith. The watchman
has a double challenge, if he does a good job to warn the people of the
consequences of failing to heed his warning, the consequences are on them; and
if the watchman does a poor job, or reneges his duty, the consequences fall on
the watchman. the consequences to the watchman for failing to do his duty.
Paul tells us that God’s
judgment has been fulfilled and the promise of reconciliation of humanity with
God through Jesus Christ is at hand. The age of judgment is no more. The age of
the new life of the good news has been born. Especially in the last three
chapters up to these verses, Paul is the proclaiming the reconciliation with
God and the new vision of life it offers and requires of us.
The watchman says that we
live in a time of two worlds, the dying old world darkness, sin and judgment under
the Law, and the new world of living in the light of the gospel. Paul makes it clear that the old world is
dying, but going out fighting; and that we have a choice of what world to live
within.
The Christians of Rome
and the rest of the Mediterranean that Paul loved, lived under the rule of
Roman Society. Rome demanded allegiance to its rules of law, and obedience to its
emperor who proclaimed himself the savior in words identical to those used by
Jesus.
Roman rule surely caused
pain and suffering in many devout Christians who understood that Christian duty
requires a higher allegiance. (Paul’s words remind us of the challenge of the
Pharisees to Jesus (Mark 12:
13-17) who offered him a coin and question, “Should we pay homage to the
emperor?”
Paul understood that
question of loyalty was dangerous and important to the fragile existence of the
congregations. He urged his congregations to walk a very dangerous path ofpassive accommodation to authority to the extent possible while maintaining
faithful loyalty to Christian ideals. Give to the emperor what is his, but keep
your faith in the Lord.
I suspect Paul understood
the danger for the state to insist that we obey its demands regardless of how contrary
they are to Christian values. Rome demands Christians not only accommodate
authority but become a part of it. We should never forget that even today, every
human institution operates at a lower standard of morality than individuals
live. (Read a little of Reinhold Niebuhr who used that principle to try to get
the state to defend Christianity and was ultimately used by the state for its
own ends.)
Freedom of speech is a
good example of a principle that poses danger for a Christian. Freedom of speech means we can say just about
anything regardless of how unchristian it might be. Short of yelling “Fire!” in
a crowded theater or encouraging sedition, the state says it is permissible to
say anything, but… as Christians we cannot affirm or voice all speech,
regardless of the consequences. Paul says it is a case of all things being permissible
for him, but all things are not good for him.
The real danger that
Paul, the watchman calls out arises when we start living and embracing the
world’s values so that we become part of the world, rather living in it
according to the gospel. We face that danger every time we open a book, turn on
the TV to watch a ball game or favorite TV show, get on Internet, or drop by
the bar on the way home from work, bump into someone we know sells drugs, or meet
an old boy or girlfriend.
Paul warns of spiritual indolence.
He says, “Watch out that you do not put yourself on autopilot and let the
values and morality seduce you until you get to the point to think, ‘I can cut
a corner here, or a corner there, I can tell a petty lie or swap some gossip
choosing not to admit it may turn into malicious slander somewhere else.’” When we go down that road pretty soon we lose
sight of the corners and the lies. We find we have embraced with open
arms the very world that Jesus, and watchman Paul calls us to reject. We become
blind to the demands of Christian life as if we were asleep at the wheel, letting
its autopilot lead the way.
The watchman’s warning is,
“Wake up! Do you know what time it is?” It isn’t the time for the football
game, or for the all the catfish you can eat for $5 night, or the politics of
who won on election night, or taxes and war, or when the auto payment is due,
or when school starts. No…the watchman says, Wake up to God’s time.”
What is God’s time? God’s
time is now when the emerging Church is growing in the world. The boat of the
good news I talked about last week is sailing out of port. It is the time of
our baptism, when we became a new person, when we learned that mutual love
between God and us, and between each other is the glue that holds us and the
world together. (Love is an overworked word – as I said earlier, love is
actively promoting someone’s good. God’s
love promotes us, we promote others.
If Paul can say (to the Corinthians)
“everything is permissible to me, but not everything is good for me to do, why
can’t he give us some clear-cut guidance about how to live in the world by not
be of the world? How do I know what isn’t good for me?”
That is exactly what Paul
does. He calls us to remember the essence of the Law is summed in two commands,
Love God with your heart, soul and mind, and love each other the way God loves
you. When the demands of the world and the demands of faith collide, the proper
course of action is the path that satisfies these two commands.
Paul knew the demands of
the world are a stumbling block to the weak among us who are easily drawn into
the pleasures of that Roman world. That is why the congregation is so
important. When we work together uplifting each other in the gospel, we are
like some-or’s, (the whole thing is better than the cracker, chocolate and marshmallow
used to make it) greater than the sum of our parts.
We know what to do, it
just isn’t always easy to do it. Paul says it is time to put aside all our
preoccupation with the old world, ego, jealousy, anger, seeking to satisfy your
desire for self-satisfaction or to blind your mind to the pain of world with
alcohol, drugs, sex or other habits rather than living honorably by opening our
eyes to the needs of others.
He uses interesting Greek
word choices, he says it is time to “wake up” from sleep. It is time to wake up
and realize we are no longer alone in darkness but living in the light of the
gospel with our spiritual brothers and sisters. He says, “salvation is closer now that
yesterday.” It is time to live the love of the gospel honorably, not the
darkness of sin, judgment and death. (Remember Jesus said we are a city on
a hill for all to see?)
Paul uses another verb
that means literally to put on, or wear clothes. He says, “wear
the armor of the light of the gospel.” He
says in your baptism you are putting on Jesus Christ, wearing the life of Jesus
Christ and letting go of this old age that draws you back into selfish desires
and indifference to your fellow congregants.
Paul knows that the
Church in the world is the body of Christ with each one of us with our unique
skills and gifts are members of the Church and hence, together we are the body
of Christ until he comes again. Paul was painfully aware of our spiritual
weakness called to live in God’s time.
Our watchman has a simple
message. As much as many do not like the political connection to the word, “radical,”
(that actually means to cling to the fundamental nature of something, in
this case faith, not some Liberal political cause), we are called by the necessity
of faith to be radical Christians living a life that tries every day to
do a better job at living life according to the gospel that is captured by
those two commands to Love God and each other the way God loves you, not to
embrace the counter-values of the old world. In that way, we are also watchmen.
Just like Ezekiel, our
watchman Paul is doing his duty well calling across the ages for us to be the
watchman making and asking others to make a choice about God’s time because There’s a train a’comin’!
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