“Lost and Found” (Luke 15:11-32)

 

One of my greatest delights in the church where I last served in Minnesota was to be part of a group of men who met faithfully every Wednesday morning for prayer, followed each week by coffee and conversation. Both the prayer and the conversation could be pretty free ranging at times. But I have to tell you that over the years that group was a spiritual lifeline for me.

One of the wonderful surprises for me in coming to All Nations five years ago was to discover that there was a similar group here—at least until covid struck. It even met on Wednesday mornings. One of the disciplines we have followed as a group has been to read chapter by chapter through a book that focuses on some aspect of Christian living.

A couple of years ago that book was a slim volume by the late Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son. In the introduction Nouwen tells how he went to the Hermitage, the world-renowned art museum in St Petersburg founded more than 250 years ago by Catherine the Great.

There Nouwen found a comfortable chair and planted himself directly in front of Rembrandt’s famous painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Before he knew it, more than two hours had elapsed. After a short break for coffee and conversation with the head of the museum’s restoration department, he returned for another hour until a guard and one of the cleaning ladies silently made it clear that closing time was upon him.

During those hours Nouwen carefully examined and meditated upon each of the figures in Rembrandt’s masterpiece, beginning with the younger son, then moving to the elder son, and finally the father. We don’t have the hours this morning that were at Henri Nouwen’s disposal in the Hermitage. It is a temptation to allow our familiarity with Jesus’ parable to cause us to skim though it quickly. But for the next few minutes I do want us to take some time to meditate and focus our thoughts on the three principal figures in Jesus’ beloved parable.

The Prodigal Son: Repentance

Let’s start with the son. To begin with, we need to remember that this story follows directly on from two others that Jesus had just told, about a lost sheep and a lost coin. As with the stories of the coin and the sheep, the parable of the prodigal son is also about being lost. But with the son there is a difference. The sheep and the coin were lost through no fault of their own. The sheep had been so busy munching on its own little patch of grass that it hadn’t noticed when the others had been herded back into their paddock for the night. And we would be silly to blame the coin for having been mislaid or dropped or whatever caused it to be missing from the woman’s purse.

But the case of the son stands apart. His lostness was not something that just happened to him. Rather, it was the direct result of his own rebellion and self-centredness. His demand to receive his share of the family estate amounted to treating his father as though the old man had already died. It was an act of consummate disregard for the feelings and the welfare of others. It is likely that his father’s assets were tied up in the form of land and livestock. Was the son really expecting his father to liquidate them and live on just a share of his income for the rest of his life?

Jesus doesn’t bother to delve into details like that or to psychologize. He didn’t need to. His listeners would have been filled with indignation at the brazenness of the son’s demand. And when the son ends up among the pigs longing to eat their slop, I can imagine them muttering under their breath, “Serves him right, the selfish twit!”

Indeed there would have been a certain justice to it if the story just ended there. The camera fades off into the distance with the son lying in rags in the filth of the pigs. But the son has a change of heart. Our Bibles say he came to his senses. Jesus’ words quite literally are, “He came to himself.” It seems to me that perhaps for the first time in his life the son was able to stand outside himself. He began to see himself objectively for the selfish, heedless good-for-nothing that he was.

(And here I can’t help but be reminded of those famous lines from Robbie Burns:

Oh, would some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us.)

However, if repentance is to be genuine, there needs to be more to it than that. It is not just a matter of gaining a new perspective. It is a change of heart and life. As Pastor Dave made very clear in his sermon last week (and here I quote): “Repentance is both remorse and changing our lives… Remorse is feeling badly for what we did … seeing things the way the offended person sees things. But repentance means that then we need to turn away from what we did. Remorse isn’t enough… We need to change.”

So it was that with a heart made heavy by the realization of his own waywardness and the hurt he had caused, the son swallowed whatever pride he still had left and began the journey home.

The Waiting Father: Reconciliation

At this point Jesus shifts the scene back to the family homestead. There we see the father, no doubt appearing somewhat older and wearier through the loss of his son. Perhaps he is a little stooped and frail. We can imagine him at dawn getting up and gazing with sadness towards the horizon where he had last seen the son’s departing figure.

Imagine his surprise one morning when far in the distance he spots a figure that looks hauntingly familiar. Can it be? Are his aging eyes playing tricks on him? But as the figure moves closer all doubts are erased from his mind. Barely able to see though his tears, he hastily straps on his sandals, tucks in his robes and, as quickly as his stiff legs can carry him, he runs down to the road to embrace his son.

Helmut Thielicke was a great scholar and preacher of the mid-twentieth century. He maintained that the central figure in Jesus’ parable was not the son at all but the father. For the story is as much about reconciliation as it is about repentance. Imagine if the son had journeyed all that way only to be met with rebuff by his father: “You were my son but you are no longer. Go back to your reckless living and to your pigsty! It’s where you belong.”

If that were the end of the story, we could not deny its justice. But Jesus’ aim is not to give us a lesson about justice. It is to tell us about grace. The father is the God about whom we read in the book of Daniel: “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him” (Daniel 9:9). And the prophet Ezekiel puts it even more passionately: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:10-11).

So it is that Thielicke could write:

The joyful sound of festivity rings out from this story. Wherever forgiveness is proclaimed there is joy and festive garments. We must read and hear this gospel story as it was really meant to be: good news! News so good that we should never have imagined it. News that would stagger us if we were able to hear it for the first time as a message that everything about God is so completely different from what we thought or feared. News that he … is inviting us to share in an unspeakable joy. The ultimate secret of this story is this: There is a homecoming for us all because there is a home.[1]

The Older Brother: Recalcitrance

It’s all a wonderful story. And as those who have turned to Christ in faith we have the assurance of God’s full and free forgiveness and the promise of an eternal place in his presence. But wait! There is more to be told. Jesus hasn’t finished yet. In Rembrandt’s famous painting a tall figure stands off in the shadows to the side. His hands clasped, he looks down coolly on the scene that is unfolding in front of him.

He is the older brother.

He has been out working in the fields. In the distance he has heard music and dancing and joyful laughter. As he nears the house his nostrils are filled with the rich aroma of a fatted calf roasting on the spit. His outrage is such that he cannot bring himself to step through the door. When his father pleads with him to come in and join the party, his cool silence quickly explodes into a furious outburst. Years of pent-up anger and resentment pour out like a flood bursting through a dam.

At this point let’s take a moment to stand back from the story and look at it objectively.

Surely the older brother had every right to be upset. He had been a dutiful son for years and had never received a whit of recognition for it. Where was the fairness in that? Where was the justice?

Now if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that he has a point. And here I want to suggest that it is not the penitent son who is the central figure in Jesus’ story. Nor is it the forgiving father. Rather, it is this son, who stands outside the party room, his feet firmly planted, his arms firmly folded in a well-justified huff.

Why do I think he is the central character? Take a moment to look at Luke’s introduction to Jesus’ parables:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Do you see who Jesus’ audience was? It was all older brothers, people who had spent the greater part of their lives fastidiously seeking to live in obedience to God, right down to the minutest detail. If they weren’t the very definition of older brothers, I can’t imagine who is. And if I’m honest with myself, I am forced to confess that I am one of them too.

Yes, I will freely admit that I am a sinner. I acknowledge that my only claim on God’s salvation is by his grace and through faith in Jesus Christ. Yet I also have to confess that in the course of my years in the family of God I have in many ways adopted the attitudes and perspectives of an older brother. It’s not as though it’s intentional. For the most part it happens gradually and imperceptibly. But it happens none the less—so that I can become critical and judgmental in my attitude towards others, so that I am keener on justice and retribution than I am on mercy and reconciliation. And before I know it, I’m standing outside with my arms folded, while the party’s going on over there.

Yet the most wonderful thing of all is that Jesus leaves the parable open-ended. He does not consign the older son to living outside for the rest of his life in a perpetual state of indignation. It is as though Jesus is saying to all who will hear, “Now over to you…”

How subtly a religion of works can overtake the liberty of grace! How frighteningly easy it is to slip from being a younger brother to an older one! Yet the father’s invitation is there for us all. Is it any coincidence that almost the last words of the Bible are these?

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17)

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[1] Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father, 29

“A Birthday Prayer” (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12)

Allow me to begin by saying what an honour and a joy it is to be among you at First Congregational this morning on the occasion of your pastor’s birthday. Doug Mott and I go back a long way. I treasure not only my friendship with him and Ann but also the privilege of having watched First Congregational grow from a little gathering in the Police Club to the vibrant community that you are today, playing a significant role in making a difference for Christ in this city.

Not many of you may be familiar with the name of Terry Fulham. But thirty-five years ago he was a major figure in the church renewal scene in North America. Over the course of a few years, under his remarkable teaching and leadership, he had seen his congregation at St Paul’s Church in Darien, Connecticut, grow from a couple of hundred worshippers to nearly three thousand. And people were flocking from all over to find out how it happened.

In response to this Terry Fulham and St Paul’s offered regular renewal conferences for clergy and for lay people. I was leading a church in suburban Montreal at the time. Darien was an easy six-hour drive away, all on Interstates, and so in the fall of 1982 I decided to make the journey.

Now one of the things about St Paul’s in Darien was that they were a praying church. And so if you wanted to participate in one of their conferences you had to register several weeks in advance so that they could have time to pray for you—and I mean really pray. There were a couple of things I was praying about too. One was that I would have a chance to get together with a gentleman named Peter Moore, who headed up a very effective ministry called FOCUS in a number of the east coast prep schools. The other was that I would have an opportunity to meet up with a man who at that time was writing a national syndicated column from an explicitly Christian perspective. Both of these men lived in Darien and both worshipped at St Paul’s.

Well, what should I find when I registered but that I had been booked in to stay at the home of Peter and Sandy Moore throughout the time of the conference? When I asked Peter about the possibility of meeting up with the columnist, he said to me, “Why he’s a member of our home group. You’ll be meeting with them tomorrow evening.” Clearly God was answering both my prayers and those of the good folk at St Paul’s. He had prepared the way before me in what I thought was quite a remarkable manner.

Yet there was a further surprise in store for me. That was that I would be sharing my room with another Canadian, a young associate pastor from a congregation in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Now I don’t think it will take you too long to figure out who that was: none other than your own Doug Mott. I had no idea of the significance of that meeting and the conversations we enjoyed after the conference each day until three years later, when I moved to Halifax and began to serve as rector of St Paul’s Church. And who was one of the first people to welcome me? Of course—Doug Mott.

One of the most precious and significant aspects of our friendship over the years that followed was to share together in a pastors’ prayer group that met over coffee every second Tuesday morning. Over my more than eighteen years in that group I don’t think there was a single one of us who did not go through some significant struggles. There was often laughter, there were sometimes tears, but there was always prayer. The result was that for most of us there was almost nothing that we would allow to get in the way of those precious Tuesday morning times. We were united in the unbreakable bonds of the fellowship of prayer and common ministry in Jesus’ name.

Now here we are, and more than thirty years have flowed under the bridge. Yet I know that you still have the same passion for Christ and the same desire to be of service to him, that you had all those years ago. Indeed, if anything, it glows only brighter. And so, what to preach on, on this significant birthday? Well, the verses I believe that the Lord has given to me are these, from 2 Thessalonians 1:11 and 12. They are the apostle Paul’s prayer for the Christian believers in Thessalonica, and I hope they may become the prayer of all of us for you on this auspicious occasion.

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a lot of prayer packed into those two little verses. But it seems to me that Paul is essentially praying for three things: that they may live up to God’s call on their lives; that they may see the fulfilment of their ministry and of their desire to serve Christ; and that the name of Jesus may be glorified in them. Let’s just pause there for a moment to take a brief look at each of them.

Made worthy

Paul’s first prayer for the Thessalonian believers was that they might be worthy of God’s calling. The word for “worthy” in the New Testament is axios. In the early church when the bishop was presenting a newly ordained priest or presbyter to the congregation, they would all exclaim in unison, “Axios! Axios! Axios!” to express their approval of the candidate. I can remember my ordination day and no doubt you can remember yours also, Doug. In my case I remember standing before the bishop as he read to me these words from the Book of Common Prayer:

Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his spouse and his body. And if it shall happen the same Church, or any member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. Wherefore consider with yourselves the end of your ministry towards the children of God, towards the spouse and body of Christ; and see that you never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life.

I think if I had had the least shred of wisdom at the time (and not the brashness of a twenty-something year-old fresh out of seminary), I ought to have made a dash for it right out of the service. I was having placed upon me responsibility for the spiritual well-being of men and women and children for whom Jesus had gone to the cross! I wonder, Doug, if you felt the same?

What does it mean to be worthy of our calling? If Peter and Andrew and James and John had had any idea of what they were getting into, would they have so quickly abandoned their boats on the shore of Lake Galilee in response to Jesus call to “Follow me”? Again and again they proved themselves not worthy of that calling: arguing over who was the greatest, asking to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who wouldn’t welcome them into their village, cowering before a servant girl and denying that he even knew Jesus, passing off the women’s reports of Jesus’ resurrection as nonsense… And the list goes on.

When it comes down to it, let’s be honest. Who really is worthy of God’s calling? Can anyone here this morning stand up and make that claim? I know for certain that I can’t. With the prodigal son I cry aloud, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am not worthy to be called your son.” But of course Paul’s prayer was not that the Thessalonians would make themselves worthy of God’s calling. It was that God would make them worthy. And between those two things there is a world—no, a universe—of difference.

Fulfilled

The second part of Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians was that God might “fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power”. I find that an interesting combination of words: “every resolve for good and every work of faith”. I rather like the way Eugene Peterson put it in his translation in The Message: “I pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.”

The words suggest to me that essential to any church, any ministry, is a desire, a vision—we might even say, a passion. There was a fad not so long ago that every church had to have a “mission statement”. And that’s not always a bad thing. The problem is that, from what I’ve seen, many such statements are either so vague and general that they don’t lead you anywhere or they are so specific that they don’t allow for flexibility when circumstances change or the Holy Spirit is calling us to something new. A case in point is the church where I served until a couple of years ago. We found ourselves and our mission radically altered when our ranks were swollen by more than a hundred refugees from Burma.

We never know what surprises God may have for us around the corner. The apostles never dreamed that the church should grow to include non-Jews, or that persecution should only make the church stronger and not destroy it. And Doug, I can’t imagine that when you were first ordained you could have predicted all the twists and turns along the way that have brought you to where you are now.

Some of you may remember Tom Robinson, the founding director of City Centre Ministry here in Halifax. Tom was also the founder of the All Souls’ Clubhouse, an outreach and resource centre to young people in central London. In its early days Tom and his colleagues spent countless hours and gallons of sweat to put together an attractive facility that would house its various activities. Many years later, when he went back for a visit, he found to his horror that almost no evidence of that hard work remained. The building was a shambles. That disappointment quickly evaporated, however, when he visited some of the original members of the club, who were continuing to follow and serve Christ faithfully and devotedly. He was forced to realize that the Holy Spirit is not nearly as interested in building institutions as he is in changing lives.

Doug, I suspect that your experience is the same as mine—that God has taken my “good ideas” (as Peterson put it) and my very limited acts of faith and used them in ways that I might never have imagined. And so, “straining towards what is ahead,” as Paul writes elsewhere, “we press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12-13).

Glorified

All of this brings us to the third part of Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians: that the name of the Lord Jesus might be glorified in them. And really that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? It’s not me or even the church in the final outcome. It’s Jesus that we’re all about. Like John the Baptist standing in the waters of the Jordan, we recognize that we must decrease if he is to increase.

One of the qualities I have always appreciated in Doug is that he is genuine. I know when he is annoyed about something, or amused, or discouraged, or overjoyed. And I believe that is a quality that the Holy Spirit has used in him (and continues to use) to make Jesus real to others.

Jesus is not going to be glorified by our trying to appear better or holier or more righteous than we are. That is the way of the Pharisees and it will always end in failure. No, as the Bible teaches us again and again, it will only be though God’s grace. By grace we are made right with him; by grace we have heard his call; by grace we have been raised to new life; by grace we are able to enter his presence; by grace we are heirs of eternal life; by grace we have been given the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit; and by grace that same Holy Spirit will somehow take our faltering words and feeble actions that the Lord Jesus might be glorified in us. This was a lesson that none less than the apostle Paul himself had to learn, when he wrote,

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Doug, I am grateful for the many ways in which the Lord has displayed and continues to display his grace in you. May he empower you to continue to use both your strengths and your weaknesses to draw others to him—and at this point I think the best thing I can do is to step aside and invite you all to join with me as we bring our brother Doug before the Lord in prayer.

May our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Dead and Alive” (Ephesians 2:1-10)

In three weeks’ time, as the sun is just beginning to show its first rays over the horizon, a little band of us will gather for what has to be one of the most dramatic services of the church year: the Easter Sunrise Vigil. As we gather around the newly lighted Paschal candle and sound the first Alleluia since Epiphany, we will hear once again the remarkable vision of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. I can never hear that reading without feeling tingles going down my spine. So allow me to read it to you this morning.

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live…” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people… And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live…,’ says the Lord.”

Of course Ezekiel’s immediate reference was to the fact that the nation of Judah had been conquered, its people taken from their land and transported into captivity in Babylon. Yet Christians have recognized in that dramatic scene a deeper lesson. It is not just ancient Judah that has been held in captivity. Jesus warned, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” (John 8:34) And in his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul reminds his readers that they had once been held captive and enslaved by sin (Romans 6:6,17).

Our condition

We find that same theme underlying the opening verses in this morning’s reading from the Letter to the Ephesians. There, Paul begins by reminding his readers of their natural condition outside of Christ. He lays it out in graphic terms and we will find that he does not leave a single stone unturned. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.” The two words he uses for sin here each have slightly different shades of meaning. The first has to do with stumbling or straying from a path. Jesus warned, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 6:13,14) The second word brings with it the idea of falling short or missing the mark. Paul defines it for us in Romans 3:23, where he writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Putting the two together, we recognize that sin encompasses both intentional acts and unintentional failures. We recognized that fact it in our confession in this morning’s worship when we acknowledged, “We have left undone what we ought to have done, and we have done what we ought not to have done.”

Paul goes on to elaborate three ways in which this works out in our lives: following the course of this world, following what he calls “the ruler of the power of the air”, and following the passions of our flesh. It’s not quite the same order, but our Book of Common Prayer summarizes this in the three renunciations that precede a baptism. The candidate is asked,

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
I renounce them.

And so on the one side we have all the persuasive powers of the world around us—advertisers, peers, media and a whole host of others all attempting to pressure us into their mold. On the other we have the devil himself with his vast array of lies and deceit. And if that were not enough we have within us the capacity to choose and to commit unimaginable acts of evil. Bishop Handley Moule put it well a century ago when he wrote, “Man is not merely a sufferer; he is a runaway, a criminal, a rebel, a conspirator.”[1]

Uncomfortable as it is, Paul has held a mirror up to us. As we look on with Ezekiel at the valley of dry bones, we see ourselves and we cry, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

God’s action

At this point we come to what is the pivotal word in the passage. Indeed, I believe it may be the most important word in the whole Bible. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived… We were by nature children of wrath… But…” “But God made us alive.” We will hear it again in this morning’s service as we kneel before receiving communion. “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under your table. But…” “But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.”

How has he done this? How has God brought us from death to life? Paul actually had to invent three words to explain what has happened. They are found in verses 4 and 6. God has made us alive with Christ; he has raised us up with Christ; and he has seated us with Christ. Do you see how each of these three actions corresponds with a stage in Jesus’ ministry? In a few moments’ time we will recite them in the Nicene Creed: “On the third day he rose again…, he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father”—the resurrection, ascension and reign of Christ.

What Paul is telling us in this passage is these truths apply not only to Jesus. They apply also to those who put their trust in him. And so the Bible assures us that, just as Jesus has been raised from the dead, so too we are called and empowered to walk in newness of life. Just as Jesus has ascended into heaven, we know that he has prepared a place for us that we may be with him. Just as Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, so also we share the hope of reigning with him in glory.

In Christ God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Dead bones do not come alive of their own will. So, says Paul, it is “by grace you have been saved”. Indeed, to drive the point home he says it twice. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

We heard this theme repeatedly from Bishop Bruce MacPherson as he spoke here last weekend about the living water that Jesus came to bring. He told of his own experience in the church as a young executive—how he thought that God must be proud to have him as a member of his church, to be serving in the vestry and on the finance committee. Yet it was only late one night as he came into the church alone and knelt before the cross that he came to the realization that it was all God’s doing, all through grace, and he received Christ into his life.

No doubt the Christians in Ephesus could all identify with that experience. The key, though, is to remember it, never to let it fade from our hearts and minds. As the people of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land, Moses warned them, “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he … who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, who made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know…” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18,15-16) By grace you have been saved.

God’s intention

Way back in university I had a friend who never tired of reminding us that we have not only been saved from, but we have also been saved for. It was an important lesson, and obviously it has stuck with me ever since. God has rescued us from the clutches of sin, the world and the devil. He has brought us back from death. These are wonderful truths, in which we glory. Yet they are only half the story. And to dwell on them as there were no more to it is to turn the Christian faith into something less than it is. It would be like an apple tree that doesn’t produce apples or a grape vine that doesn’t produce grapes.

Yes, God has saved us for a purpose—and we find that purpose in the final verse of this morning’s passage. Let me read it to you from the New International Version. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God has saved us not only so that we might enjoy a place in heaven, but also so that we might join in his work in the world—so that we might be partners with him in making his new creation a reality within the old.

It is a bold claim. One of the criticisms leveled at the first Christians was that they were turning the world upside down. Wherever they went, things happened. We can think of Christians who have done that in remarkable ways down through the centuries, men and women like Francis of Assisi, or William Wilberforce who brought down the West Indian slave trade, or George Müller who was responsible for the rescue of more than 10,000 orphans, or in our own day Mother Teresa.

Few of us can aspire to that kind of greatness. Yet within our families, within our neighborhoods, on the job site or in school, we must believe that God has placed us there for a purpose, for his purpose. Let us never cease to be grateful to God, who has brought us from death to life. And let us never cease to be agents of that life, to share that life, to do the good works that God has prepared in advance for you and me to do.

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[1]     Ephesian Studies, 67

Sermon – “Dead and Alive” (Romans 6:1-11)

Eighty years ago these words by were being sung for the first time on Broadway:

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like,
Or me undressed you like…
Anything goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today…
Anything goes.

Cole Porter’s lyrics, once regarded as racy, seem tame by comparison with what is everyday experience nowadays. In many ways they express the spirit of our age: “Anything goes.”

Perhaps it should not surprise us that there is nothing new in that perspective. I suspect that, if you looked, you would find its promoters right back to the dawn of time. The author of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament experimented with this lifestyle. “Come now,” he said to himself, “I will make a test of pleasure. Enjoy yourself… Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure…” (Ecclesiastes 2:1,10).

Back in the first century there were those who suspected Paul of espousing just such a philosophy. It all arose out of his radical adherence to the great Christian doctrine of grace. This is the teaching that Paul has been at pains to expound through the first five chapters of his letter to the Romans: that eternal fellowship with God is not something that we earn (whether through obedience to the Law or by any other means). Rather it is a gift that we receive as we put our trust in Christ. As Paul wrote elsewhere, “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” I rather like Eugene Petersen’s rather expansive treatment of these verses in The Message:

Saving is all [God’s] idea, and all [God’s] work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.

And so in response to Paul there were those who were asking, “If being reconciled with God is entirely a matter of his grace, of what he has done for us in Christ, then does that mean it doesn’t matter what we do?” “Indeed,” they were saying, “if we take your argument to its logical conclusion, then perhaps we should sin all the more, for then we will receive all the more of God’s grace.”

Although there is no evidence that anyone in the Roman church was seriously proposing that lifestyle, it has cropped up in the church from time to time. Some of Martin Luther’s radical disciples taught something like it and he condemned their teaching as “antinomianism” (from anti, “against”, and nomos, “law”). A century after Luther, during the Commonwealth period in England, there arose a movement called “Ranters”. The Ranters believed that as Christians they were not constrained by any provisions of the law, that whatever was done in the Spirit was justifiable. Rejecting organized religion and all forms of religious and moral restraint, they saw nudism, free love, drinking and swearing all as valid expressions of spiritual liberation.

The Past

Needless to say, Paul is eager to defend his teaching against such arguments. And he does so through an experience that was common to all of those to whom he was writing: baptism. Most of those in the Roman church would have been first-generation Christians. And so their baptism would have been something that they remembered, I should think, vividly. Remember that in the church’s earliest days baptism almost always followed directly from conversion. On the day of Pentecost the three thousand new believers were baptized almost immediately upon their response to Peter’s message of repentance and faith. The same was true later of the Ethiopian official, Simon the magician, Cornelius and his relatives and friends, Lydia the cloth merchant, the jailer and his family at Philippi, and Crispus the synagogue official and his household. So when Paul calls upon the Romans to remember their baptism, they are looking back at a close-knit series of events that formed the key turning point in their lives.

To be baptized was a radical act of identifying totally and wholly with Christ. We see that in Paul’s use of the preposition “into”. It is a word that indicates action, movement, direction. Almost without exception, when people are baptized in the New Testament they are baptized into: into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, into the name of the Lord Jesus, into Christ. Being plunged underneath the water was a dramatic participation in Jesus’ death on Golgotha and his burial in Joseph’s tomb. The old Prayer Book of 1662 put it this way, in the exhortation that followed baptism:

[Remember] always, that Baptism doth represent unto us our profession; which is, to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto him; that, as he died, and rose again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness…

So it is that, going back to the earliest liturgies, baptism has always included a form of renunciation of sin. The questions that are put to candidates before their baptism in our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer are clear and forthright:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
I renounce them.

Paul puts all of this in blunt terms: To have been baptized, to have repented and put our faith in Christ, he says, is to have died to sin. But what does this mean? Does it really imply that sin lies entirely in our past? I think most of us would confess that such is not the case. As we shall see in the next chapter, even Paul admits his ongoing weakness in the face of sin. “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” So how do we come to terms with what Paul is saying here?

The Process

John Stott explains it well in his commentary on this passage when he uses the image of marriage. He asks,

Can a married woman live as though she were still single? … It is not impossible. But let her remember who she is. Let her feel her wedding ring, the symbol of her new life in union with her husband, and she will want to live accordingly.

Then by analogy he asks,

Can born-again Christians live as though they were still in their sins? … It is not impossible. But let them remember who they are. Let them recall their baptism, the symbol of their new life in union with Christ, and they will want to live accordingly.[1]

So it is that when we put our faith in Christ, when we are baptized into Christ, there are four things that are happening. First of all, we are receiving the full benefit of what he has done for us through his own death and resurrection—the forgiveness of our sins, reconciliation with God, and a new life as subjects of his kingdom and members of his family.

At the same time we are entering into a whole new commitment. In the gospels Jesus challenges us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him. And Peter echoes, “To this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). What Jesus and Peter (and Paul in this morning’s passage) are talking about is a daily dying to sin and rising with him.

Just as it would be wrong for a married person to behave as though they were single, so it is unthinkable, once we have committed ourselves to Christ, to suppose that sin does not matter. Paul makes that emphatic after he asks the hypothetical question, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” His answer: “By no means!” The words in Greek are far more emphatic: Me genoito! Various translations have rendered it in different ways: “Of course not!” “I should hope not!” “Certainly not!” “Never!” “No, no!” the New English Bible puts it. Or as J.B. Phillips translates it, “What a ghastly thought!” In every case the words are followed by an exclamation mark. The short story is that Paul could not be more unequivocal. Even to entertain the thought that sin could be consistent with life in Christ is anathema.

A third thing to remember and related to this is that what Paul is writing about is a life-long process. This is implicit in his use of the word “walk” in verse 4. Think too of Jesus’ parables of the kingdom that we have been hearing in our Gospel readings in recent weeks. They all have to do with process, with growth: seeds coming to life in the soil and eventually producing grain in abundance, a tiny measure of yeast in a lump of dough causing it to rise into a loaf of bread, a mustard seed growing into a bush big enough that birds can nest in its branches. That process is not always uniform. In fact it is rarely so. We all have our ups and downs in the life of discipleship. There may even be occasions when we mess up royally. But do we not revel in them? Do we celebrate them? No, we repent and return to the Lord.

And that brings me to the fourth aspect of baptism. While we are baptized as individuals, baptism ushers us into a community. Think back to what we say together in this church when a candidate is baptized. “We receive you into the household of God…” Paul’s words in this passage are not in the singular but in the plural. “We have been buried with him by baptism into death…” “We have been united with him in a death like his…” “We know that our old self was crucified with him…” We’re not playing singles tennis here. We’re part of a team. And when we stumble and fall there are others who are there to tend our wounds, to help us to our feet and to get us back onto the field again. Think again of what the congregation promises at every baptism:

Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?
We will.

The Promise

“Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”: a benefit, a commitment, a process. And it is also a promise. For while we will never make it in this life, never even get anywhere near, we walk towards the day when we will indeed be dead to sin, when we will be fully alive in Christ. Our walk, the process that was set into motion at our baptism, has a destination. “Beloved,” wrote the aged apostle John, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). May God keep each one of us faithful along the journey.

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[1]     Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 179,180