Who Will Rescue Us?

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

9 July 2017

Text: Romans 7:15-25a

Back in the days when I was a young teacher in a Lutheran parochial school, I re-discovered Paul’s Epistle (or letter) to the Romans. I had heard it read before, but had never really listened. I had read it for myself, but had never really paid attention.

Martin Luther loved the Epistle to the Romans. He believed it to be the purest explanation of the good news of God’s love for us, and he thought that people should read and meditate on the book of Romans every single day.

So, there I was, the Chapel Coordinator for a large Lutheran school and, one week for chapel, I had to preach on Romans 7. This chapter, in part, describes the Apostle Paul’s struggle: “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate,” he says. “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.”

And, encountering my own inward struggle with my own sinfulness, I began to think about how to present this text to a large crowd of 6^th-12^th graders.

I preached on a large stage in the cafetorium, and on chapel days, there was a big cross on that stage. I recruited a couple of my braver students to chase me around the stage, trying to stick post-it notes on me – post-it notes which had sins written on them (which I somehow had explained to the assembly beforehand). Those kids chased me around for what felt like an eternity, but really was maybe a minute and a half, and, in that minute and a half, I almost felt as though evil was chasing me around that stage, until –

I threw myself at the base of that cross and shouted out: “Who will rescue me from this body of death?!”

And I think that this is how many of us find ourselves – we struggle because we do what we know we shouldn’t do, and we don’t do what we know we should. This is our human condition. 

• We say the word that we should keep silent, or we don’t speak up when we should.
• We take the thing that we should just leave sitting right there, or we leave the thing that we should pick up.   
•  We go over here when our presence is required over there, or we interject ourselves in ways that are unhelpful or downright mean.
• And at our very worst, we kill, we tear down, and we destroy at will.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

What I love about this passage from Romans is that Paul’s anxiety here is real – it’s palpable. He is struggling within himself and he’s dumping that inward struggle into his letter to the Romans. He’s writing to a group of Christians in Rome – a group made up of Jews who are still trying to follow the Law, and Gentiles, who aren’t really sure where that Law fits in to faith in Jesus Christ. It’s as if Paul here is trying to comfort the Jews and the Gentiles alike with the news that, as a good, Jewish man, even though he knows the Law of God quite well, he finds himself living at odds with that Law quite often.

In an episode of the political drama, “The West Wing,” a Congressman named Matthew Santos is speaking to the Democratic National Convention. Before the convention, news has broken about his opponent’s wife struggling with mental illness. Santos is the underdog, so his campaign staff explains that the only way he has a chance to win the nomination is to tear down his opponent by publicly tearing down his opponent’s wife. Santos is a man of great integrity – and they know this – but his staff also wants him to play their dirty game so their guy wins.

So, Santos gets to the podium to make his convention speech, and no one knows what he’s going to say. And he confesses to the crowd and the television audience what some on his staff and some in the Democratic leadership have asked him to do – to publicly demean his opponent’s wife - but that he’s refusing to do that. Why?

“Because,” he says, “We’re all broken – every single one of us, and yet we pretend that we’re not. We all live lives of imperfection…”

Who will rescue us
from this body of death?

And how helpful it would be if, in real life, we had some sense of not only our individual brokenness, but our corporate brokenness, too. The word “corporate” comes from the Latin word that means “body” – and our body is broken. Our humanity is broken. Our souls are broken. And our world is broken, too. And this is where we find ourselves, just like Paul, for we do not do the good we want, but the evil we do not want is what we do.

Who will rescue us from this body of death?

Paul himself gives us the answer to his own question. He asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” and then he proclaims, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

But Paul doesn’t end there, for Romans 7 is followed by Romans 8. “I am convinced,” Paul says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”                                                                                                                      

Which means that no matter how much we may frantically run around, trying to outrun the evil that always finds us – nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My grandmother once gave me a broken seashell. The outside of the shell is rough and pitted. The inside of the shell is beautifully colored with pink and purple and orange. Granny told me that a friend had given the shell to her and had said that it was only in the shell’s brokenness that we can see the beauty inside.

We’re all broken.

But the promises of God assure us that our brokenness doesn’t end us. Our brokenness doesn’t get the final word. As people of God, we have within us the powerful and beautiful Spirit of Christ. And so, through God who loves us, we are able to throw ourselves into the waiting arms of Jesus – the same Jesus who tells us that when we are weary of our brokenness, and when we are burdened by the cares of this world, we can go to him.

Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Amen.

Oh Blest Communion, Fellowship Divine

7 September 2014 - Lectionary 23, Year A

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It seems like we’ve grown accustomed to watching conflicts play out, publicly, right in front of us, and it is easier to complain publicly now than ever before in human history. If a celebrity has a fall from grace, no matter how big or small, we see it. If a politician says one wrong word or does one wrong thing, we see it. And not only do we see these things, we read about them and talk about them.

If you don’t believe me, then just spend some time online, perusing Yahoo! or any of the news outlets, or when you’re waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store, take a look at the magazines by the register. All over the front pages are complaints and observations about who it is that has messed up this week.

As these articles, editorials, and “news stories” are being put together, I’m not sure that the writers and editors and news directors are very concerned with preserving the honor of the people in the stories. I’m not sure that they are very concerned with the relationships in the lives of these celebrities or politicians, either. In fact, I’d venture a guess that many of them are more concerned with selling magazines or newspapers and getting people to look at their websites.

Yet, it is preservation of honor and concern for relationships that Jesus is addressing in today’s gospel lesson: “If a brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If he or she listens to you, you have regained that one.” He then goes on to talk about what to try if the person at fault doesn’t listen – try taking a smaller group along to talk with them, and then, failing that, involve a bigger group (in this case, the church community).

His concern is for the maintenance of the relationship – if at all possible – and for the preservation of the other person’s honor (even though they have sinned). It might be tempting to haul out all their dirty laundry and wave it around for everyone to see – but when we do, it is so damaging to relationships and reputations.

Luther addresses all of this, too. In this explanation to the 8^th commandment, Luther gives us the theological basis for treating our neighbor with love and respect – that we “fear and love God” and being mindful of how we talk about others – or refuse to talk about others - is one piece of our fearing and loving God.

The 8^th commandment by itself sounds so simple: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” – sounds to me like as long as I don’t lie about someone else, I’m covered! Except what Luther does is to expand our thinking about this commandment so that not only are we not to lie about our neighbors, but we are to “come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”

Luther got it: what we think about others deeply affects our relationships with them, and what we say about others affects their honor. Paul got it too: the commandments, he says, “are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[1]

Now, maybe all of this is well and good to talk about in regards to church, or in our families, or among our close friendships. But what would the world look like if followers of Christ consistently applied themselves to preserving the honor of the other? And if we did that not because of what we might gain from it, but because we see in the other one who was created by God and who is loved by God?

We as a society are very quick to see the sin in another person – and some are very quick to point that sin out. And sometimes, we must – for the love of others – call sin what it is. But this takes us back to Jesus’ teaching in our gospel lesson for today – that, even when sin is present and hurtful, there is still a loving way to address sinfulness. When we address sinfulness in ways that preserve honor, it is good for the sinner and it is good for the one who has been sinned against, but it also preserves the honor of the entire community.

This teaching, like Jesus’ other teachings, shows us the character of the God whom we love and serve. What kind of God is it who calls us to live in community with one another? It is a God who lives in community with us. The gospel of Matthew itself is bookended with this idea of God being with us – from its beginning when Jesus is called “Immanuel” (meaning “God with us”) to its ending, when Jesus promises his disciples that he will be with them, to the end of the age.

Here, in the middle of Matthew, we find yet another promise of God’s dwelling with us – “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” And so, our relationships with one another are not only that – they are not only horizontal relationships. Our relationships with each other have God in them, as well. All the more reason to love our neighbors as ourselves, because in so doing, we also are loving God.

Over and over again in Scripture, we are told to love each other, so much so that it must be important. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love... Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another...if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”[2]

In how we think of others, in how we speak of others, in all we do, may God’s love be perfected in us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

+ SDG +

---

[1] Romans 13:9

[2] 1 John 4

The Wilderness and the Water of Life

The baptism site.

Lent 1, Year A

Text: Matthew 4:1-11

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

Grace and peace be with you all, from God our Father, and his beloved Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The scenes described at the end of Matthew 3 and through the beginning of Matthew 4 sound so idyllic. At the end of Matthew 3, we have Jesus at the Jordan River, being baptized by John. The heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove, and God – speaking from heaven - proclaims Jesus to be his beloved Son.

Then – in Matthew 4 - the Spirit leads Jesus out into the wilderness for a sort of holy camping trip, lasting forty days and forty nights. Even if camping isn’t your thing, there’s something kind of wonderful about Jesus following the Spirit out into the wilderness. And then, after facing temptation after temptation, today’s story ends so beautifully: “Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.”

To get to the baptism site, we drove north from the Dead Sea, through miles and miles of wilderness similar to what Jesus spent his time in. It’s beautiful, actually, this wilderness – there’s a beauty in its roughness, in its ruggedness (especially when viewed from inside a comfortable tour bus!).

We turned onto a road to head toward the Jordan River – seeing more wilderness, more desolation. As we neared the place set aside for tourists near the baptismal site itself, we began to see a few buildings – well, they used to be buildings - now they are empty shells of buildings, all of them surrounded by fences.

We parked and made our way towards the shoreline. The tourist area is very nice – there’s a lovely outdoor pavilion at the top of the hill before the land drops off at the river’s edge – a pavilion that I suppose is used by Christian pilgrimage groups when they are doing group baptisms. We made our way down to the water, down to the shore of the Jordan River, where Jesus walked, where the Israelites might’ve crossed the Jordan so long ago.

There are now steps going down into the river – steps going down into what is probably the dirtiest body of water that I think I have ever seen. This is where Jesus was baptized? In this muddy river that reeks of pollution and filth? I could hardly imagine it.

We stayed a few minutes and read the story of Jesus’ baptism – we read about the heavens opening and the dove descending, and the voice from heaven. We coordinated a group picture, and then we left. We walked past the beautifully clean pavilion and back to our bus. I was disturbed by the dirty water – and I couldn’t get rid of the image of Jesus standing in that dirty water, being baptized by John.

As we drove through the wilderness back to the main road, our guide mentioned: THIS is the wilderness area that Jesus would have been led to – THIS is it! And I tried to capture back the idyllic image in my head of Jesus leaving the river to follow the Spirit out into THIS wilderness.

Except that this wilderness now has these weird shells of buildings, surrounded by fences. And the fences had signs on them that say things like, “Danger! Mine field!” And it isn’t just one sign on one fence – the more we drove, the more of these signs we saw – more and more signs warning us that to walk in the wilderness now would be a dangerous thing indeed.

For me, this part of our trip replaced the idyllic image of Jesus stepping out of the river, newly baptized, to follow the Spirit into the wilderness with a more disturbing image: Jesus, newly baptized in pollution and filth, following the Spirit into the wilderness, trying not to step on a land mine. These images sat heavily with me – it felt as if the corporate sins of our world somehow landed in one area – and I could almost hear the earth and its people, crying out together because of the pollution and the emptiness.

Of course, when Jesus traveled in that area, the water of the Jordan still flowed freely and the wilderness was wide open space filled with life of its own. It was a different time, but today’s story of Jesus being tempted by the devil shows us that maybe times haven’t changed too much, for humanity is still tempted by sin – sin that entered the world with Adam and Eve (as we heard read earlier) and that is still with us today.

Each year, Lent begins with this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. But we don’t begin Lent with this story each year simply to remind us that Jesus, too, faced temptation. And we don’t begin Lent with this story each year simply to admire Jesus for resisting the temptations that the devil threw at him.

We begin Lent with this story each year because, in this story, Jesus is living out who it is that God has just proclaimed him to be: the beloved Son of God. And as the beloved Son of God, he can look the devil square in the face and tell him to bug off (which is pretty much what he does, out in the wilderness).

For we don’t live in an idyllic world. We live in a world that has sin – sin that shows itself in a gazillion ways. Sin that’s revealed in power struggles over land – power struggles that result in land mines being buried in the wilderness near the polluted Jordan River. Sin that’s revealed in our own selfishness or our own pettiness - and our own temptations.

On this past Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – I talked about the ashes that we received on our foreheads  in the sign of the cross – the sign that reminds us of God’s great love for us. When we are baptized, that sign is marked on us, marking us as Christ’s own forever. As he is beloved by God, so are we.

When we welcome Mary Katherine into our church family in a few minutes, we will do so around the baptismal font. This is a reminder to her and to all of us that in our baptisms, we are claimed as Christ's own forever and called to serve him.

Luther used to remind himself of his baptism every single day – every day, he reminded himself of this precious gift of God. And it is this water of life that has the last word over us – always. When we face temptations, even when the weight of temptation sits heavily upon us – the water of life has the last word over us – always.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

+ SDG +

The wilderness, past the mine fields.

For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me...

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

A Ash Wednesday – March 5, 2014

Text: Psalm 51

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

It used to be that yards were surrounded by something called a chain-link fence. This was before the days of what we now call “privacy fences” – the tall slats of wood that shut out most of our view of whatever it is that is around us. With chain-link fences, it was all out there, for everyone to see.

And it was during this era that a French priest named Michel Quoist wrote a prayer using a chain-link fence as his inspiration:

“The Wire Fence”

The wires are holding hands around the holes;

To avoid breaking the ring, they hold tight the neighboring wrist,

And it’s thus that with holes they make a fence.

Lord, there are lots of holes in my life.

There are some in the lives of my neighbors.

But if you wish, we shall hold hands,

We shall hold very tight,

And together we shall make a fine roll of fence to adorn Paradise.

“Lord, there are lots of holes in my life…” he says. And he’s right – the holes are there. As much as I want to think of myself and my life as being totally put together and completely intact, the holes are there – and more often than not, just like a chain-link fence, the holes are bigger than the wires that hold the fence together.

For me, it calls to mind the psalm we read and sang at the beginning of our service – Psalm 51 – a psalm of lament, written as a confession of sin. In this psalm, the writer is basically saying the same thing to God: “Lord, there are lots of holes in my life…”

Except the psalmist puts it this way: “I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me…”

We use this psalm on Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent – to re-orient us each year. Because Lent is meant to be a time of special self-examination and repentance, this psalm re-orients us to a place where we remember the holes in our own lives – we remember that we are sinful – we remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

It can be very hard for us to be honest about our own sinful condition and the sin that surrounds us. It can be very hard for us to say that all out loud – to cry out to God before others: “I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me!” Our sin has been with us for a long, long time. And our sin weighs on us – it holds us down – it tries to kill us with its heaviness.

So here we come to another Ash Wednesday. Another year in which we receive ashes on our heads. It is a foreign act to us – to receive ashes on our heads. It is something done very cleanly and neatly in church once a year. But it used to be that whenever someone wanted to show they were very sad, or show they were very sorry, they’d put ashes on their heads and they’d dress in rough cloth – they would wear outward signs of their inner sorrow. And so that is what we will do today – we will wear an outward sign of our inner sorrow, our inner grief for our own sins and the sins of others, the sins that surround us and impact us every day of our lives.

The ashes that we receive today will be made in the sign of a cross. And it is this sign – the cross – that reminds us that God does have mercy on us, according to his steadfast love. In God’s great compassion, he blots out our offenses. The powerful love of Christ – shown by his cross – it was marked on us at baptism – it marks us today – it marks us forever.

Because of this love, we can pray: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”

Amen.

+ SDG +