Heritage Sermons

Today we continue our romp through the middle of Romans, that book of the New Testament you should read at least three or four times a year to keep you Christian, not to mention Lutheran. Last week, we heard about our baptismal union with Christ in His death. Namely, that God in Baptism has declared us dead to Sin and alive to Him in Christ, that we have been baptismally buried with Christ in His death so that we may be raised with Christ in His resurrection. And as a result, we are to agree with God’s Word to us in Baptism and consider ourselves dead to the lordship of Sin and alive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

As we begin the non-festival part of the church year this morning with the Sundays after Pentecost and Trinity, we find ourselves dropping square into the middle of Romans chapter 6 like a parachutist who has gotten blown off his target. Since Romans is one of those books of the NT that you should read at least three or four times a year, I think it’s worth our spending some sermon time on it while letting the Gospel reading speak for itself. And so for the next few weeks, we will focus our attention on the Epistle readings from the book of Romans. Because of the way our lectionary is constructed, we drop in downstream a bit, so permit me to bring us up to speed chapter by chapter. In chapters 1 and 2, Paul sets down the universal condemnation of humanity under God’s Law. Whether one is a Gentile or Jew makes no difference, all have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God. The Law cannot save you, nor can your works under the Law save you. The Law exists to shut every mouth before God, to silence every self-justification, and to make the whole world one, big sinner. In the middle of chapter 3, Paul introduces us to the breakthrough of the Gospel, a righteousness before God that is not by what you do but by what Christ has done, namely His blood shed on a cross for you and for all humanity. For His sake, and for His sake alone, the sinner stands before a righteous God justified not by work but by faith. In fact, it is by faith in Christ, and not by works, that we uphold the Law, since Christ alone upholds the Law.

We are born with a sense of place. We are born into a family, into a community, into a nation. We have a geography, something that locates us on a particular set of GPS coordinates that we occupy. We are not made to wander aimlessly without a place. When God made Adam and Eve, He didn’t just have them roam over the face of the earth. He put them in a place, an ordered place, a garden. Gardens are places in the proper sense, organized and ordered spots. The wilderness is no-place, chaotic and disorganized. Wild. The garden of Eden was Adam and Eve’s place, the place where humanity was most like God, reflecting His image to the creation, enjoying the fruits of creation, walking with God in the cool of the day.

Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday. Which do you prefer? Shouts of “Hosanna!” or “Crucify Him!” I grew up with Palm Sunday. I loved Palm Sunday. The images of Jesus riding on a donkey, people throwing their coats on the road to welcome Him as a king. Palm fronds. You got to take them home and hang them behind a cross on the wall or fold them up into crosses. Growing up in Chicago, I wondered where they got palms. Palms are a symbol of celebration. One view of heaven has everyone waving palm branches. Passion Sunday is a bit rougher than Palm Sunday. There is betrayal, denial, arrest, trials, beatings, mockery, the crucifixion. Not fun stuff. In fact, it would be stuff you’d rather forget, except that the Gospel won’t let you forget it. The palms lead to the passion. The donkey leads to the cross. The Hosannas lead to the silence of the cross. Just as you can’t have Easter Sunday without Good Friday, so you can’t have Palm Sunday without Passion Sunday.

In the Gospel according to St. John, the first sign that Jesus does is at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the last sign is at a funeral in Bethany. At the wedding, Jesus changes water into wine and brings joy overflowing to a wedding feast gone dry. At the funeral, Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead to show that He is the Resurrection and the Life.

“For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Jesus’ coming is a crisis. Light is shining in the darkness. The Light causes those born blind to see, and it causes those who see to become blind. There was a man blind from birth. The religious judgment is that someone sinned. His parents perhaps, or the man himself. I’m not sure how you sin before you’re born to be born blind, but that’s what the disciples ask Jesus. “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” This is the religion of cause and effect. Bad things happening to bad people. There has to be reason for this man’s blindness. Someone sinned. Right?

She had three strikes against her. First, and most obviously, she was a woman, and according to the rules of Jesus’ day, men didn’t talk to women in public. Second, she was a Samaritan, and according to the rules of Jesus’ day, Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. And third, she was a five time loser in the marriage game now living with number six who was not her husband, and according to the rules of Jesus’ day, no one would really want to have anything to do with her. Except Jesus.

“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” That’s the question of the day from Jesus to Rabbi Nicodemus. And it’s for us too. There are two perspectives to this life and to this world - from below and from above. There are also two religions in this world - the religion from below and the religion from above. The “from below” perspective is our perspective, the world as we see and experience it. It’s a world of cause and effect, a world that at times seems arbitrary and capricious, an “eat or be eaten”, “survival of the fittest” kind of world in which might is right and the strongest, smartest, fastest survive. The “from below” religion is a religion of the law, a religion of principles, of methods, of exercises, of things you do to gain control over your life, others, the forces of nature, whatever.