Pentecost 20 year A Sermon Roman's series 2 part 4 Romans 8:1-2
Ever seen a lynch mob in an old movie? The crowd leering...
Raging... spitting... howling for justice... full of self righteousness
Hell bent on vengeance...fanatically devoted...
to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? [pause]
Apart from the movies, has anyone here...ever witnessed...a public execution? Anybody ever want to? [pause]
Well the Pharisees certainly want to... when they bring the adulterous woman to Jesus... in that story... from John’s gospel...we just heard.
Of course...they’re only trying to... fulfil the requirements...of the Law of Moses... and under that law...this woman can expect to be condemned... to death... by stoning.
Now I guess you know...that Paul...who wrote the letter to the Romans we’re studying...well Paul had once been very keen...on that kind of justice...in fact as a young member of the Pharisee party...Paul held their coats... while the lynch mob stoned young Stephen to death...
executing him... as a heretic under Jewish law...putting him to death... for his public teaching about Jesus.
You see... that’s what it means to be condemned – it meansto be sentenced to death...to be put to death for your sins.
If you’re a first century Jew... faithful to the letter of the Law...the wages of sin... are death. Yep, and Paul is all for it [pause]
...till he meets the risen Christ... on the road to Damascus.
And in that moment of blinding revelation...whatever Jesus explains to him...completely changes...Paul’s view of the Law... and its demand for the death penalty.
Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ... turns him around so completely...that instead of persecuting Christians... he spends the rest of his life... making Christians.... planting churches and writing letters... to encourage and strengthen Jesus followers.
In Moses and under the Law...there was condemnation and death... but now... Paul learns from the risen Christ there’s a new covenant...and so he teaches the early Church in Rome there’s:
‘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 of death.’ [pause]
What this means... for all those who’ve lived under the threat of the Law...is that now we can come clean...without fear of being condemned...we can stop covering up...
we can face the pain of our guilt fair and square. And when we’ve acknowledged it...then we can be made clean and forgiven...
This revolution... in Paul’s Jewish thinking about sin...is incredibly important for the early Christians...who were converted Jews... and incredibly important for you and for me.
Why?
Well, because the strain of living in the dark...the stress of pretending to be something we’re not... the exhaustion of hiding or justifying what we’ve done...especially to ourselves...can kill us.
If the religious authorities don’t get us...the fear and the guilt surely will... and you know what...
we endure a kind of living death – our life will be hell.
And we learned last week in Romans chapter seven...that we’re not to hide and pretend any more...and today with relief we discover in Roman’s Chapter eight...we can come clean without fear. In the strength of the Holy Spirit...we can confess the wrong we do...admit it to ourselves and to God...exactly as Paul does... when in Romans seven:
‘For I have the desire to do what’s good, but I can’t carry it out. For what I end up doing….isn’t the good I want to do; but the evil I don’t want to do’.
But for some of us... confessing isn’t as easy... as it was for Paul. And that’s because we cling on... to condemnation... don’t we...Condemnation of others and of ourselves.
In the Middle Ages church leaders just couldn’t resist...bringing back condemnation... so they invented the idea of purgatory...as a place you have to spend time in after you die...a place where... the accounting books of sin... can be balanced.
They were sure... that after we die... we still had to bear some punishment for our sins. They viewed sin like an accountant would... or a mathematician. One plus One must equal two. Their logic dictated, ‘where there’s a weight of sin on one side of the scales...there has to be...an equal weight of punishment on the other...or things just don’t balance.
And here in Romans eight...Paul is telling us their logic was wrong...Paul is saying... that ‘in Christ’...what we thought was good logic... what we thought was reality...is actually an illusion.For ‘in Christ’ there is no condemnation. [pause]
I often read... the last great paragraph of Romans 8 at funerals...it leaves no room for purgatory... in any form. Here Paul asks rhetorically: who then... shall lay any charge against us...? Who... shall condemn us...
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither death nor life... nor anything in all creation...shall be able to separate us from the love of God... in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
My favourite Biblical Scholar Tom Wright... says if you’re still clinging to the fear of condemnation after studying Roman’s eight ‘if you still want to insist that what Paul really means is...‘of course you’ll probably have to go through your punishment first!'...then with great respect... Tom Wright suggests...you ought to see a therapist...not a theologian.
In fact... Paul makes it clear... it’s our present life that functions as a kind purgatory.
He says the sufferings of the present time, are the valley through which we have to pass in order to reach the glorious future...where all sin has been destroyed... by death.
Of course this means... that for millions of our Christian ancestors... death brought a pleasant surprise. They’d geared themselves up for a long struggle after they died... only to find...the struggle was already over.
So for us in the 21st century... as for the Romans to whom Paul writes... it’s time for a deep breath... clear thinking and a sigh of relief.’
That there is no condemnation...is the good news of Jesus Christ.... his Gospel...his saving message of Shalom... mercy and compassion... didn’t he teach us to pray ‘forgive us our sins... as we forgive those...who sin against us.’
So if you’re a Christian and still living in fear...still burdened with guilt... what are you to do
Well, you know what the most broken people in the world do ...addicts and alcoholics...who’ve hurt themselves and others beyond imagining...well they’ve been following Paul’s model for living... for almost a century now.
These are the biblical steps they take from Romans 7 and 8...steps which can lead even the most guilty of us to healing and wholeness.
Step One...We recognise that in our own strength we’re powerless to heal ourselves... to live without sin. Step two...We realise... only God can restore us to wholeness and step three...In faith we place our will and our lives in the care of God... in whom there is no condemnation.
Only when we’ve taken these first three steps... do we have the strength and the courage... to take the next two...
Step 4...We admit the ways we’ve hurt ourselves and others. We do this fearlessly and thoroughly like taking an inventory.
And then just as Paul did...Step five...we confess
We confess...Not in a great flurry of compulsive self disclosure...in the Wanaka Sun... or up here in front of the congregation...but quietly and humbly... to God... and just for good measure...to keep us honest...we confess to someone we can trust and we make reparation wherever possible.
And because as Paul says.... the ‘sin nature’ is always with us...It behoves all of us... to take these steps every day of our lives. So it becomes a way of life...the Christian life... [pause]
Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life.
So may his grace take possession of you and change you. May he live in you by his Spirit and through this sacred meal to which we’re all invited And may all that is un forgiven in you be released and all your fear yield to the peace of Christ…
