2nd Sunday after Pentecost

							Sermon Draft for 26 June 2011
2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Saint Mark’s Lutheran Church, ELCA


      Happy season after Pentecost! Can’t you just feel it in the air?

Finally, the long awaited season after Pentecost has come! The green

Paraments have been carefully placed, where they will now remain until

Reformation Day. Even the grass and the trees have turned green in honor

of the season. Okay, so maybe not. However the trees out front do usually

turn red in time for Reformation Day. Another sure and certain sign of the

season after Pentecost is our lectionary readings for this day. They are

difficult readings. They employ terminology that has a very different

contextual meaning when compared to how we use the word today. They are

readings that may very well leave us with more questions than answers. But

above all else, they are readings that force us to consider uncomfortable

things; they ask us to examine who we are, both individually and collectively,

and ask if our actions are compatible with that identity.

      However, with our readings today we are walking in on the middle of a

lot of different conversations, and some background information might prove

helpful. Our Gospel reading comes from a section of Matthew known as the

missionary discourse. In this section Jesus is sending out the disciples to do

God’s work in the world, and is also giving them a picture of what it looks like

to do that work. This commissioning comes with some expectations for the

disciples, mainly that they should not expect to receive any different
treatment in terms of acceptance and welcome than Jesus did. The disciples

knew from the moment that they were commissioned that the road ahead

would be difficult, for they were warned of coming persecutions. They were

also told by Jesus in 10:39, that “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and

those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” In either case, following

this Jesus fellow will result in one losing their life. In spite of this, the

disciples knew that they would go on to do great things in the kingdom of

God. They would be called to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the

lepers, free the oppressed, and proclaim the good news to all they met.

Those are pretty big things. But then, we come to verses 40 through 42.

Jesus says that giving even a cup of cold water to one of the little ones will

be part of the kingdom among us. This small, small thing goes right along

with those big things of healing, raising, and freeing. What an amazing thing

that simple acts like hospitality and welcome are part of the work of God.

      Now we can move to the Romans text for today. Paul has spent the

first half of chapter 6 talking about baptism. More specifically, Paul starts

chapter 6 with a question. He writes, “What then are we to say? Should we

continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” In typical Pauline fashion,

he answers his own question by saying, “By no means!” Some scholars argue

that it should be translated much more strongly than it is, but at any rate

the point is clear. For Paul, baptism should bring about a change in a person’s

life, and that is where we find ourselves today with verse 12. The therefore

that our text begins with is in direct response to the event of our baptism.

We have been baptized, so therefore…. Going forward it is also important to
know that righteousness in Romans takes on an entirely different definition

than we may be used to. Many think that righteousness is some moral code,

whereby we can become perfect before God provided that we follow all the

rules, and then are held up as the ultimate example of Christian piety. Those

defined by this definition of righteousness are likely the people that can get

on our nerves in big ways. They seem so perfect and put together, and never

have a mistake to admit. Generally, the term self-righteous is appropriately

applied. But in Romans, we deal not with our own righteousness, but rather

the righteousness of God. This type of righteousness can be found

wherever God’s saving action is taking place; where God is active in the

world, setting things right. Now, by setting things right, many of us think of

the term justice. We picture justice as this thing that can be quite

vengeful; justice for many is where one receives their comeuppance. But we

must remember that God’s justice looks an awful lot like grace, and mercy.

God’s justice stems from love, whereas our justice can stem from hatred or

jealousy.

      Now that definitions are out of the way, we can make an informed

decision regarding the choice Paul gives us. Are you slaves of sin, or are you

slaves of righteousness? The great contemporary theologian Bob Dylan

penned a song that says in part “You’ve gonna have to serve somebody. It

may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve

somebody.” As much as we may try to wiggle out from underneath it, we

must face the inevitable truth. We are either slaves to sin, or slaves to

righteousness. According to Paul, humans are never not under obligation to
something. Every decision we make can be viewed as a decision to serve sin

or to serve righteousness. The sinful decisions are usually self-serving, lack

self-control, and might even negate previous promises that we have made to

ourselves, or to others. Decisions serving righteousness are usually the

exact opposite. They stem from a desire to serve God and others, they are

honorable, and exhibit self-control.

      See, when you are a slave to sin, you are enslaved to a force that does

not want to let you go. Bishop N.T. Wright puts it this way,

      This force can and does act like a tyrannical landlord, making demands and
      backing them up with threats. You must live like this: you must go out and
      get drunk…; you must help yourself to other people’s property; you must
      develop new types of weapons to kill more and more people; … the list is
      endless…. And here come the threats: if you don’t live like this, you’re
      missing out on real life; you’ll never be satisfied until you give in…; people will
      laugh at you.

Of course, the sinful master will also tell you that the righteous master is

tyrannical as well. We will be told that God is really out to cramp our style,

and make us live a futile existence filled with ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do

that’ kind of rules. But it is simply not true.

To be a slave to righteousness is where we belong. To work for God’s

purposes in the world, to see God’s kingdom among us, it feels like life. Dare

I say it is what we were created for? We were created for a life of service

to God and to others. And if you don’t believe me, just take a look at the

end result of our choices.

      To borrow a phrase from Robert Frost, two roads diverged in a wood,

one to death and one to life. Paul writes that the wages of sin is death. I
don’t think that Paul is strictly dealing with the big “D” death. There are

many daily deaths that we experience as part of our sinful behaviors, both

individually and as a church. These deaths may be manifest in lost or broken

relationships, missed opportunities, or perhaps in a loss of reputation or

status in the community (just ask a former congressman from New York, or

former governor of California about that one). Perhaps death comes about

in a congregation from a lack of acceptance and welcome; perhaps death

comes about in a congregation from meetings that focus entirely on business

and forget about or forsake the ministry. Perhaps death comes about in a

congregation from continuing to do things even when we know in our heart

that they are wrong. Slavery to sin inevitably draws us away from life to

death. Because God is a God of grace and forgiveness, anything that forces

us to pay the wages of sin does not seem to come from God.

      So then, on the other hand, we have the road that leads to life; a life

in which we devote ourselves entirely to God and to God’s work in the world.

It is the life that flows from the waters of our baptism. In those waters we

are given a new identity as beloved children of God, and now Paul is asking us

to live in to that identity. He is saying the same thing we have heard several

times from Pastor Inga, “This is who you are, now go be who you are.” This

life may not be easy, or comfortable, but it will be life in the fullest sense of

the word. When we become truly enslaved to righteousness we are dealing

with a force that cannot, and will not, let us go, no matter what. As beloved

children of God, we can rest in knowing that God will not leave us alone now,

or in the end of all things. Going forward, N.T. Wright states, “We are to
think and act as people who have come through the river, and out the other

side; that is, who have died and been raised to new life,” or to put it another

way, we are to live as people who are alive from the dead. So then church, if

we have already died and have been raised, what do we really have to lose?

      With death and new life under our belt, we are freed to take a cup of

cold water to one of the little ones in Christ’s name, we are freed to

proclaim good news to all we meet, we are freed to serve God and neighbor,

we are freed to reach out with the love of Christ and welcome the stranger

and the outcast. Pastor Elisabeth Johnson asks,




      “What would happen if we stopped expecting people to come on their
      own initiative through our church doors, and instead took seriously our
      calling to bring the gospel to them? What would happen if we truly
      believed that we bear the presence of Christ to every person we
      encounter, in every home, workplace, or neighborhood we enter? What
      would happen if we saw every conversation as an opportunity to speak
      words of grace, every interaction as an opportunity to embody Christ’s
      love for the neighbor?

Wow… She can make ya think! So, I wonder, what would happen if we took

this whole following Jesus thing seriously? What if God is actually serious

about loving our neighbor, caring for orphans and widows, feeding the

hungry, and all that other stuff that we have a tendency to gloss over?

What if Jesus wasn’t joking when he said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes

me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
      Just like the disciples, we may not always receive a positive response

when reaching out, but it remains our vocation as children of God. After all,

our gospel text for this morning seems to point ahead to Matthew 25, where

the Son of Man says to the righteous,

      Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit
      the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was
      hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
      drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me
      clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited
      me.

The righteous are told they will inherit the gift prepared for them, which

Paul says is eternal life. For Paul, eternal life would not have consisted of

fluffy clouds, or harps, let alone streets of gold. Paul would have been

concerned with two things; life in the present age, and life in the age to

come. The present age would be an age infused with sinfulness, debauchery,

slander, licentiousness, and all those other lovely things Paul mentions

frequently in his letters. The age to come would be a time when God’s

kingdom would be established. In Christ, we are called to live as part of that

age to come, where God’s rule has the final say, and God’s justice prevails.

Amen.