Dancing on Saturday

Below is the manuscript of a sermon I preached on Father’s Day in June 2008 at Marrow’s Chapel UMC.   If you were to ask me what I think is so good about the news I get the honor of proclaiming each week I would answer with something like this sermon.   This is the truth about you, me, and everyone who has ever walked the earth.   It truly is Good News! 

The Truth about You

Romans 5:1-11

As I look out at all your faces this morning I am aware that each one of you has a story.  Each of us is here this morning for different reasons.  Some are here because they are desperate.  Someone is here because they are hungry.  Someone is here because they have hopes and dreams that are unfulfilled.  Some are here this morning and are happy, others sad, others indifferent.  Some are here because they long to be closer to God and walk with God more deeply.  Some are here because they are in a crisis and are at the end of their rope.  Some are here hoping to save their souls.  Some are here who don’t even know they need saving.  Some are here simply to honor their fathers while some are here because they can’t imagine being anywhere else on a Sunday morning.     Yet despite all these differences and despite the many paths traveled or reasons that have brought you to Marrow’s Chapel this Sunday morning there is one thing that is true of each and every one of us here today whether we realize it or not.  This truth, this common bond that unites us all, is so huge, so significant, so monumental that no matter what brought you here this morning- whether it be pain or joy, longing or hopelessness, loneliness or family, sinfulness or saintliness, a soul that is feasting or one that is famished- God’s Word has something to say about who you have been, who you are right now and who you will be when you are sitting down to lunch 30 minutes from now.  And friends, this is true of you whether you realize it or not and whether you have been raised in the church or have spent your life hating the church.   Hear the words of the Apostle Paul, a witness to the resurrected Jesus Christ, who tells us who we are in his letter to the Romans. 

Romans 5:1-11

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Now if you didn’t hear it, don’t worry.   We will walk through this together.  Paul has a gift for saying much with few words, a gift that unfortunately for you today, your pastor does not share.   I want to draw your attention to whom Paul is writing this letter.  If you turn with me to the first chapter of Romans, the first few verses, you will note that Paul begins his letter claiming to be a servant of Jesus Christ, one who has been set apart to proclaim the good news that through Jesus grace has been given so that he and others, in verse 5, can bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, including you, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.  Now, if you are not sure who a Gentile is look beside you.  Gentile is an easy way of saying anyone who is not a Jew.   ALL non-Jews are Gentiles.   That means Christians who are not Jewish are Gentiles.  Americans are Gentiles.  Muslims are Gentiles.  Buddhists are Gentiles.   Pagans and atheists are Gentiles.  Even Methodists and Baptists are Gentiles.  Every one of us here this morning, unless you are Jewish, is a Gentile.  Paul is writing to you and I, and he says in the opening of his letter that you and I are called to belong to Jesus Christ.   

You and I and all the world, both Jew and Gentile, are being called to belong to Jesus Christ.   Why are we being called to belong to Jesus Christ?  There are many reasons.  We could say because God who created us and stamped us with his very own Image desires that we have life and life abundantly, as Jesus said.  We could say it is because God does not want us to live in fear of death, but to know that death was defeated on Easter morning when God raised Jesus from the dead and promised to do the same for all the world.  We could say that it is because God, the perfect Father in Heaven, wishes to be for us what we so often fail to be for one another.  We could say that it is because we so often fall short of the glory of God, we so often fail, we so often sin, that God wants us to know that in our belonging to Christ we will be brought home, we will always be loved, we will never be left behind.  We could say all of this and it would be true, but the main reason we are being called to belong to Jesus Christ is that thing that is true of all of us here this morning regardless of circumstance:  we are being called to belong to Jesus Christ because we already do.  Paul wants the Romans and us to realize a truth about ourselves that God already knows and has made possible.  Paul, in other words, is calling all of us to wake up and live into the reality about you that is true, whether you believe it or not.

Look with me again at the picture Paul paints of all of us and the love God has for us.  He writes in 5:6 that while we were still weak Christ died for us, the ungodly.  He then writes in verse 8, in case we missed it the first time, that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.  And yet, in case you are still not getting the point, Paul hopes the third time is a charm by writing in verse 10, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.  See the progression?   We were weak, we were sinners, and we were even enemies of God, and yet, Christ died for us, thus proving his love for us as verse 8 proclaims.   And by the way, did you catch how each of those is in the past tense?  You were weak, you were sinners, and you were enemies of God.  This, friends, is the Good News of the gospel!   This news is not dependent on whether you acknowledge it or not – it is a fact about you that you cannot run away from and will one day have to reckon with.  The truth about you is that you are loved by the God who knew your name before you were ever born, who knows every hair on your head and who stepped out of heaven and all its glory to take the penalty of death on his own shoulders so that we can be saved through his life.  You and I and all the world are being called to belong to the God who loves us so much that even while we were weak, while we were sinners and while we were even enemies of God, God rescued us.  This is the truth about you today.  

So if that is the truth about us, what then?  A German pastor and theologian living during Hitler’s rise to power had a wonderful way of describing this truth about us and how we ought to respond.   Karl Barth is his name and he is one of the pastors in Germany who spoke forcefully against Hitler and refused to back him.  Barth asks us to imagine being in a bomb shelter for the duration of the great war.  It is dark and crowded in the shelter below ground.  One day, a day unlike all the rest, an amazing thing happens. The locked doors above fling open and an Allied soldier stands at the top of the ladder, light streaming in from around him.  He announces to all of us in the bunker that 6 months ago they defeated Hitler and freed the country and that we could come out now and live in the freedom that had already been won.   Many will scamper up the ladder and run into the light of the day to live in this freedom that has been won for them.  Sadly, there are some who will not.  They will choose to stay in the darkness of the bunker, refusing to believe what is in fact true about them – they ARE free, yet they reject that identity and choose to live in bondage.    It is a tragic thing to live in rejection of the truth about us and to snub the God who has done everything on our behalf to free us. 

Paul is like the allied soldier standing at the top of the ladder speaking truth into the lives of those below.  He is calling all of them out of the bunker and announcing that Jesus Christ has set us all free, that death no longer has the final say, that the cross was God’s resounding “NO!” to evil and his triumphant “YES!” to all of Creation.  And this is the same message that we, the ones who have stepped into the light, are called to share with the rest of the world that does not yet know the truth about themselves- they still live in the bunker. 

Turn with me quickly to 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.   Here, Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, a city known for its idol worship and hedonistic lifestyle.  It was the Las Vegas of the ancient world – what happened in Corinth, stayed in Corinth.   Paul writes to these people to inform them of a number of things, least of which being that they are children of God and should therefore live like it.  5:18 reads, All this is from God (the “all this” is that we are new creatures now – we who have stepped out of the bunker now see things and others differently) all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ (and like he said to the Romans, he did this while we were still weak, sinners and enemies towards God), reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (what does this mean?  Paul anticipates that question and goes on in verse 19), given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, (in other words, while we were dead in sin God loved us enough to die for us, and since he did this for us), he entrusts the message of reconciliation to us.  So then, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, BE RECONCILED TO GOD. Paul is saying that we need people to scramble out of that bunker and be the ambassadors, the bearers of Good News for Jesus Christ.  Because you have already been reconciled, live like you are!  Because of Jesus Christ you are free, you are reconciled, and you do not have to continue living in the bunker – come out and LIVE so that others might see the light that is in you and live as well! 

This past week I was in Greenville at our annual conference.  Meetings and worship services make up much of the day but by about 8PM I get to unwind in the dormitory where I stayed with fellow pastors, several who I am proud to call great friends, from around the conference.  One evening 3 of us were discussing this text, Romans 5, and really digging into it so that we could preach it well on Sunday to our respective congregations.   During our study a question came up that I think we all should ask if you are not already, and that is: why bother? Why should I want to come out of the bunker?  

I suspect that Paul knew his friends in Rome might ask a similar question.   So let me direct you to where my friend Cleve directed us that evening, to Romans 6.  Let’s read verses 1-4 together… 

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Jesus did this for us; he died and was raised from the dead by our Father in heaven so that we too might walk in newness of life.  Paul had a number of words he could have used for “life” in the Greek language and I was fascinated with the one he chose: Zoe.  Zoe, as it turns out, is the Greek word used for the name Eve in the very beginning.  Eve, or Zoe, means life.   I don’t think Paul picked this word haphazardly but is using it to describe something beautiful and radical:  the life we are given in Christ, the life we are welcomed to enter into because of what he has already done for us, is an invitation to reclaim, renew, and rebuild creation – just as Adam and Eve were called to do.  We do not have to live under the curse of Adam and Eve who chose wrongly but we can walk in newness of life, in the light, and begin today to live in such a way that has eternal implications.   This word zoe has a very earthy feel to it – it is a calling to a newness of life for the here and now – today, you can begin fresh.  Today, you can step out of the bunker.  Today you can step into the light. Today you can stop living a lie.  Today you can stop chasing things and dreams that will only leave you empty.  Today you can start dreaming the things God dreams.  Today, you can know and live the truth about you – you have been reconciled to God, therefore, BE reconciled.  Lord, make it so.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.