Reflection on Romans 6:12-23

Romans 6:12-23 (NRSVue)

¹² Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires. ¹³ No longer present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

  ¹⁵ What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that you who were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted ¹⁸ and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.
  ²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Reflection

The small group of people called themselves “Angels,” even though they were not actually heavenly messengers.  In fact, they were far from pure messengers of light.  They all had complicated and murky pasts.  One came from a culture of drugs.  One had no parents, having graduated out of the foster care system without a family.  The angels were her family now.  One came from an overbearing, religious home, who felt trapped for years and years under the weight of unrealistic expectation.  Yet another had previously been trapped in a relationship with violence and belittlement. 

They all came from different backgrounds, but the one thing that they all had in common, as they gathered around the table in the church basement, was that God had at one point of another sent someone to help free them from their pasts.  Sisters, uncles, childhood friends, and coworkers had all been summoned by God to step up to the plate and step into their lives to free them from their pasts.  Learning of each other’s new found freedom, they all decided one day to start meeting after church to work together and identify people who were struggling in some way. They planned to intentionally insert themselves into these people’s lives, to help them be truly free.

They were like angels, servants of God, who inserted themselves into people’s lives to bring good news to unsuspecting people.  Thus, they called themselves “Angels.”  But, they also had a few biblical mascots, so to speak.

They loved reading the story of the Good Samaritan, a man who crossed cultural boundaries to help someone in a dangerous situation, investing time, money, and personal risk to share God’s love with that person.

They also loved reading the story of Ruth who left her own homeland to share in her mother-in-law’s grief, help provide for her needs, and be at her side in her struggles.

They read these stories over and over again, allowing God to inspire them as they helped a childless, elderly woman, whose husband had died, leaving her with no family.  The angels became her family and they brought the good news of Jesus in word and deed until her own death.  They helped a teen who left her own troubled home as soon as she turned 18.  They became for her the attentive family the girl had never found with her own parents.  There were so many more people to whom they became personal angels.

It was hard work, full of frustration and anxiety, but at the same time it was loving work.  It was freeing work.  It was fulfilling work that burst forth from the core of who God had created them to be.  They were free to be loving servants of Jesus.  More than that, their hands and feet were “weapons” of Jesus; weapons of compassion and love.

That is how Paul would describe their hands and feet anyway. He says that the hands and feet of those rescued by Christ are “weapons of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).  He says their hands and feet, are no longer “weapons of unrighteousness” (Romans 6:13).  Their hands and feet are no longer enslaved and enlisted to do things that are harmful and destructive.  They have been set free.  Instead, those who are rescued by Christ are set free to be enslaved to someone better: a new Lord, a new master, a new commander. 

Under Christ, their new commander, people are brought out of lives of pain and death and led into lives of love and purpose.  Their hands and feet will no longer be “weapons” that destroy relationships, but Christ will use them as “weapons” of love that seek to bring people together in justice and love.  Followers of Christ may be enslaved, but they are enslaved to eternal love.  Being enslaved to eternal love means they are truly free.

The small group of “Angels” were free.  They were set free to be slaves of righteousness, slaves of all that brings together rather than pushes apart.

Now, in the United States we talk about how we are the land of the free.  We are a nation free from the tyranny of government.  We are men and women who are free to plot our own courses in life.  But that sort of freedom is different from the freedom that the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans.

When we in the United States talk about freedom, we talk about how we are free to choose the direction of our own lives.  And though that has often led to lives of greatness and led to beautiful stories of patriotism, that freedom does not mean that we will necessarily choose that sort of purpose-filled life.  In fact, many people choose lives that enslave them to other’s expectations, enslave them to substances, enslave them to rotten jobs, enslave them to twisted ideals; in other words, enslaved them to lives of destruction.  Some people are literally made slaves, having had their passports withheld by their sponsoring employers so that they can be enslaved as cleaners, technicians, and nannies.  Yes, this is illegal, but it still happens.

In Paul’s eyes, the political freedom that we hold so dear does not necessarily lead us to be free people.  Paul points out that humans have a strong impulse to “present [our] members (our hands and feet) as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even more lawlessness” (Romans 6:19). 

I think of the man whose infidelity led to the breaking apart of his family, which led to his children hating him, which led to a deep depression, which led to him missing work, which led to the loss of his job.  Being enslaved to sin can result in the complete crumbling of life.  Being enslaved to sin is being enslaved to the wrong master.  What if you were enslaved to a good master?

“But thanks be to God that you who were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).

For Paul, the question is not if you are enslaved.  The question is to whom are you enslaved?  Are you following someone who feels compelled to promote life or someone who is chained to ways of struggle and death?  Are you following someone who leads to life and the eternal, or are you following someone who leads to what is not eternal?

Being enslaved to Christ means that we are free.  Jesus Christ has set us free from all that binds.  We are free to be people of grace.  We are free to be people who show love and bring life through all we do!  Why would we turn back to ways that do not promote life and love? 

Why would anyone turn back and be slaves in Egypt after God had set them free from their task masters?

Why would anyone continue to be a helpless leper in the street when God had healed them and made them whole?

Why would anyone face the threat of death by seeking revenge when God has created peace between us and our enemies?

Why would any of us decide to be a slave to sin when Jesus has set us free to be a slave of love and mercy?

You are free from sin.  You are free to love.  You are free to care about someone who is exploited or treated unjustly.  You are free to forgive even when someone does not deserve it.  You are free to live in slavery to Christ’s grace rather living in slavery to your own guilt and shame.

The "Angels" were free.  That small group of people were found by Christ and set free from their shameful pasts.  They were set free from their worldly concerns.  They were set free to choose to surround a lonely boy from the foster care system who kept running away from his placements.  Would supporting him with the good news of Jesus be easy?  No.  Would he be a worthy target upon which to aim their weapons of Christ’s love and grace.  Absolutely.  After-all, they had each been “freed from sin and enslaved to God” (Romans 6:22).  And a little boy was about to find out what that meant.

Take a moment to choose one person to whom you will be an angel; a person to whom you will direct Christ’s love and grace.

Reflection on Romans 6:1b-11 (Sunday, June 21st, 2026)

Romans 6:1b-11 (NRSVue)

^1b Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
  ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸ But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Reflection

The Apostle Paul asks an important question: if we are loved by God as a pure gift, if we are shown grace every time we do something to hurt ourselves or others, then would it not be a good idea keep sinning so that we can have even more grace?  Why not be grace hoarders, filling our rooms and walkways increasingly with life’s junk just so that Jesus can come over to the house increasingly to love us and clean up after us?

And I know that this line of thought can seem pretty heady and academic, but it is not.  In fact, it is something that is very fundamental to who we are.  Let me show you.

Anyone who has ever raised a toddler knows this dynamic very well.  The toddler runs outside and splashes in a mud puddle, having a grand old time, mud in every crease and cranny of the body, and when the dad calls them in for the much-needed bath, it starts.  The toddler laughs as the child gets tickled with the washrag under the arm pits.  The toddler takes in the familiar smell of dad as the child gives a hug, getting their back massaged…I mean washed.  And the child feels snuggly warm in the towel as their dad starts to clean up the grime from the tub.

And it only takes a moment of tub cleaning distraction for it to occur.  And by “it,” I mean the throwing off the towel, the running outside into the mud, and the desire to do it all over again.  Because if playing in the mud means lots of tickles, love, and snuggles, then the child is going to make certain that they get lots and lots more.

Now what seems amazing to a toddler may not be so much for the dad. Because as much as they love the tickles, love, and snuggles, there is nothing more a dad wants to do than clean things he has just cleaned.  That is just a joke, of course.  No dad or mom for that matter wants to add even more cleaning to their list of things to do.  Will they still love their toddler?  Yes.  Will they clean them up a second time?  Of course.  But the whole point of cleaning the child in the first place is so the child can be clean.

And I am certain that this very dynamic is a daily truth for God.  After all, it is not only toddlers who get addicted to the joys of things that dirty up life.  Water is polluted for the sake of progress and the enrichment of only a few.  Do these powerful and rich people care?  Sometimes.  Sometimes they listen and make good faith steps forward to correct the wrong.  But as we all know, progress and riches are very enticing, no matter how dirty.  Families love the good life, and when you care for your family and build a good life for them, then it is easy to overlook how dirty the world around becomes.

God looks down with grace, of course, and forgives us.  But God would prefer that when we have been washed clean, we would remain clean.

Joining the toddlers and the rich are those who muddy up their family’s lives because the desire to feel loved overrides notions of commitment to a spouse and family unity.  Loneliness or excitement or affection, or all the above can drive a person into the arms of those they should not be embracing.  It is a dirty mess that is often washed clean with forgiveness and understanding.  But as we all know, these are powerful emotions, and dirtying the waters of marriage and family life is always a persistent danger that is often repeated.

God looks down with grace, of course, and forgives us.  But God would prefer that when we have been washed clean, we would remain clean.

What entices you and leads you into sin over and over again? 

Of course, it is great that we have been given this wonderful, embracing grace from Jesus Christ on the cross who opened his arms to embrace all of us who fail over and over again, and who raises us to new life over and over again.  But when washed clean, I cannot help but think that God would prefer that we stay clean. 

The Apostle Paul asks, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:1b-2).  Good question Paul.  How can we continue in sin when it has been cleared away?  Quite easily actually.

Just the other day I learned that fried food is bad for me.  And no, I am not stupid… completely.  I have known for a long time, as a general statement of fact, that fried food is not healthy.  You have learned that as well.  But McDonald’s and their fries still exist.  Carnivals and their funnel cakes and their deep fried Oreos still exist.  Fried chicken still defines an entire quarter of our nation.  We know it is bad but we do not necessarily understand that it is bad for “me.”  Well, I now know.  I was told that it was bad for “me.”

“So, what do I do when I have no choice but fast food?” 

“Don’t order the fries,” was the answer.

So, I did that.  The next time we ate fast food, I did not order the fries.  I did great.  However, the kids did order fries.  They smelled wonderful.  But I did not steal.  “Thou shalt not steal.”  I was great.  I was good.  I was dead to the sin of fried food.  I was doing great until one of the children uttered those fateful words, “I’m full.  Do you want my fries?”

Yes, of course I wanted fries.  Are you insane?  I wanted the fries.

But I was good.  I replied, “That’s OK, I will just have one.”

“How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:2).  Is that a serious question, Paul?  Of course, I ate the whole paper sleeve of fries!  You do not let food go to waste!  Well, actually I did…it went to waste…my waste.  But don’t you have to eat it because there are children starving in Africa?  “Eat it all.”  That is what I learned.

And that is my point.  It is all learned.  It is all ritualized.  It is all repeated over and over again throughout our lives.  The mud of hate is repeated from generation to generation.  The mud of addiction is ritualized over years through each drink and puff.  The mud of greed and the blindness to those around is well established.  Of course, we go on living in it because it is our lives.

That is where the gift of God really starts to shine, because God’s solution is not simply a bath, where God, as a frustrated dad, endlessly wash us over and over again as we run back to the exact same puddle and try to horde God’s time and love with cleaning. 

Rather, it is a bath that drowns our ideas of what a good life looks like.  It is a bath that drowns our old identity and then raises us up into a new identity where gymnastics replaces jumping in dirty puddles and the support of team sports replaces the selfish need to horde love.

To this point, my wife relayed, “When checking out at the store, you should ask your checkout person what kind of candy bar they like and buy them one.  I did this today.  Yes, I was at the self-checkout, but I still thought it was a nice thing.”

But, what if you could be transformed from the person who takes the candy for themselves, to the person who buys one and automatically give it away?  What if Jesus can, not only wash your sin off the outside, but also transform your inside; your heart.  That is what your Baptism is about.

Baptism is not a bath that cleans the outside.  It is a drowning that ends the old self so that a new heart can be brought forth.  Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:3-5). 

To be forgiven of a sin is a wonderful thing, but it does not necessarily change anything essential about your life.  It does not necessarily change your heart. 

But to be forgiven in a way that drowns your old self and raises you up into a brand new, cross-shaped life is truly a gift from God.  It is the gift of having a new heart.  What if you could just have a new heart, then the old stuff, the old habits and the old rituals would be gone for good.

Here is the amazing thing: this has already happened.  This happened when you were baptized.  You are a new self.  You have a new, cross-shaped heart.  We just forget.  We simply need to be reminded.  Paul reminds us: “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). 

The job has already been done.  Christ has died, raised, and given you a new life once and for all (Romans 6:9).  You are already that new person of God’s grace and love.  Sometimes, we just need to be reminded.

Paul should know.  When he was Saul, he was a zealous person of God, who somehow got to a point in life where he would stand by and watch people suffering and dying without lifting a finger, without even questioning.  Saul confused his cold heart for faith. 

But even Saul can become Paul.  Even the wealthy and powerful can sit and eat with the hungry.  Even the unstable and unfaithful can be transformed into rocks of love and commitment.  Even thieves can be transformed into givers.  All of us simply need a reminder of who we are.  We are not those old people.  We are new people of grace and love.  We are reflections of the one who gave it all up for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Reflection on Romans 5:1-8

 

Romans 5:1-8 (NRSVue)

¹ Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
  ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Reflection

“Look at that house over there.  It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  I helped build that house.  I also almost ruined the entire thing!”  My childhood pastor was pointing to a house out my window as he drove me to church camp. 

“That second floor of that house was almost more like a ramp,” he continued.  “I spent the entire day building the walls on the far side of the house on the ground.  When we went to stand the wall up in place I noticed something right away.  The wall was too short.  Somehow, I had measured wrong.  The wall height was way wrong!”

He glanced over at me.

“You know what this means?  Either the second floor would be like a ramp, and people would literally be able to slide out of bed in the morning, or I would have to put in a step somewhere in the middle of the house.  It was ridiculous!

Luckily, my boss was preoccupied and didn’t see the problem.  He walked away.  I had some time to fix the problem.  But I couldn’t spend another entire day tearing down the wall and starting from scratch.  If I put in the step, the boss would notice.  And the ramped floor just…people used to put ramped floors in church social halls to keep people from dancing.  You notice that!  Can you see my problem?  I panicked.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was going to be fired!

I was so scared and frustrated at my mistake that I took my hammer and slammed it down on the floor, ruining a perfectly good piece of plywood right under my feet.  Great!  Now I would have to fix that!  I picked up the hammer and threw it as far as I could get it from the house.  It soared somewhere over the trees. 

‘That was stupid,’ I raged.  ‘Now I need to spend time searching for my hammer!  That’s time that I don’t have.  I’m so stupid sometimes.’

I needed to cool down.  I needed time to think.  I needed to just sit in my truck and cool down for a bit. 

Well, I have to tell you that at least one thing did go right for me.  When I opened the door of my truck, right there in circle of sparkly sunlight, like a gift from God, sat my hammer, right there on the front seat.  What a glorious sight.

And that sunlight?  It was sparkly because it was reflecting off the thousands of little pieces of glass from what used to be my windshield.  Complete nuclear meltdown does not even begin to describe my reaction.  My boss heard me.  The neighbors heard me.  My parents in Hawaii heard me. 

In just seconds my boss came running.  Great!  Here goes the job!

‘You just go home and rest for the night’ my boss said.  ‘We will talk more about this in the morning.’  I knew how that conversation was going to go.  I needed to start getting my resume ready.

The next day when I got to the job site, I saw that the wall was no longer too short.

‘I fixed it for you, you can relax,’ my boss said.  ‘All you had to do was put in a header on top of the wall to correct the height.  You can always justify the height.  No biggie.  You learn something new every day.’  And that was that.”

After wiping the tears of laughter from my face, I listened to the lessons that he learned that day.  He learned that “justify” means making something straight and acceptable.  He learned that bosses can and sometimes do forgive.  He learned that they usually want you to learn and be better.   He learned that you do not need to fix problems all on your own.  It was the boss who made things right again.  He also learned that you should measure at least three times before you make a cut. 

You only gain that sort of wisdom and character from making mistakes, being rescued from your mistakes, and then learning how to do it better. 

My pastor also learned another thing: his truck’s liability insurance was not going to rescue him from this self-inflicted damage.  How knew?

In other words, my childhood pastor’s story was the lesson Paul is trying to teach us in Romans:

“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).

“Jira, just remember two things:  First, you are not perfect and you cannot become perfect.  Just try to build a house and you will learn that pretty quickly.  Second, remember that you can trust Jesus to forgive you and make things right again, just like my boss forgave and made things right for me.  Remember those two things: you are not perfect and Jesus is the one who forgives and makes things right, and you will always understand what faith is about.”

It was a catechetical lesson on God’s grace that a fourth grader could understand.  I honestly do not remember anything that I learned from the following week at Bible camp, except how to put Vaseline on the outhouse toilet seats so that the next person would sink fearfully into the hole.  We couldn’t wait to hear the midnight screams.

But I do remember that car ride.  I also remember what Paul meant when he said that because, “we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I just think about cutting the wood wrong and when we are at our wits’ end, we can trust the boss to fix it.  That is faith.

That little faith lesson in the car mattered a lot to me. 

It has mattered each time someone has come up to me and said something like, “Why did my loved one die?  I must have done something wrong to deserve them to be taken away.  God must be punishing me!” 

Each time, I simply tell the truth as it was taught to me.  The truth is that we all build the house wrong.  You do not deserve to suffer any more than anyone else.  We all build the house wrong. 

But have hope because God is good, all the time.  God can salvage and rebuild something new and good even after the worst of tragedies.  Look at the cross.  God lost his Son, his loved one, as well.  Look how he raised him on the third day.  If God can salvage that, God can salvage even your tragedy.  And when your grief subsides, after the tears clear from your eyes, you may finally be able to see just how God has rebuilt your life.

That little faith lesson in the car matters each time someone comes up to me and tells me that, “This time the fighting went too far and the relationship is over.  What I’m going to do now?”

We all build the house wrong.  We are all weak.  We all say the wrong thing and do the wrong thing.  It is God who can salvage something from our mistakes, our weaknesses, and our tragedies in life.  Remember what the Apostle Paul taught:

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

So yes, when you have ruined the relationship, you can expect that the next number of months are going to be some of the worst that you have ever gone through.  It will be a time of suffering, period. 

But you can also remember that God is good, all the time.  God died for mess ups and sinners like us.  Have hope because God rebuilds lives and rebuilds relationships of mess ups and sinners.  God’s goodness will forever stay with you.  Have hope. 

After-all, hope “does not put us to shame” (Romans 5:5).  Hope remembers.  It remembers that God’s love is poured out abundantly, even when we build our lives in crooked ways.  Jesus can rebuild our lives for us.  He does this out of love.  Trust in that love.

Reflection on Romans 4:13-25

 

Romans 4:13-25

13 The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

  16 For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 23 Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone 24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Reflection

He looked at his body, and it was broken.  Stones had smashed his limbs.  Scars striped his face from punishing blows.  He could not even talk clearly.  You could say that he had a face made for the written scroll.  The Apostle Paul admitted as much in 2 Corinthians when Paul conceded what others said about him, that his “bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible” (2 Corinthians 10:10).

It was not always this way for Paul.  At one time the Apostle Paul was a man who was put together, respected, and whole.  In Philippians he wrote that he once was, “a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).  He used to be so respected that when the authorities dragged the faithful Stephen out of the city to stone him, Saul (who would soon be named Paul) was there overseeing the proceedings and the Bible says that “witnesses laid their coats at [his] feet” (Acts 7:58).  He was respected.  He was put together.  He was a member of the privileged.

But, by the time he wrote the last of his letters, the letter to the Romans, he looked more like an outcast than a respected leader.  As he stared at his broken body, one could say that Paul had been brought to a point in life where he identified closely with people who were looked down upon, persecuted, forgotten, and outcast. 

Were he here today, he might identify with the girl with the severely upturned nose who yearned for a boy to ask her to dance.  He might identify with those who cannot afford new clothes and are ignored as potential friends.  He might identify with people who have a darker color of skin, who are automatically seen with suspicion.  In fact, Paul did identify with a class of shunned and ignored people: the gentiles.  In Jewish circles, those who were not given the law of God were considered less.  Those who did have the law were considered more.  You could say that though he is not a gentile himself, he knows what it is like to be seen as much less than others.

Whenever you crack open the book of Romans, as we are going to do this summer, you must keep this essential perspective in mind.  Paul, the once acclaimed Pharisee who became the Apostle Paul, as the years passed, truly saw himself as broken, disfigured, and weak in person.  He felt much stronger on the printed page.  He stated in 2 Corinthians that, “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated” (2 Corinthians 12:7).  He continued to say, “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).

And there it was: “grace.”  When you cannot trust in yourself, when you can no longer pull it off with good looks and intelligent sounding smarts, when people no longer care if you are good and following God’s law, when other people’s hatred and stone throwing causes you to become a deformed monster, you have no choice but to trust that God cares and can make things right.  You have no choice but to trust in grace. 

Grace tells you that your worth is no longer defined by who you are, but rather by who God is and who God says you are.  Only when God showers you with grace can you begin to think that you are someone who God has made right, despite the faults and deformations.

The more years that you spend on this earth, the more you learn that there will always be someone who thinks that they are somehow better than everyone else.  Along with that, you will learn that you tend to do the same thing.  It is true.  Have you heard or spoken these phrases?  “Kid’s these days.”  “Oh, that person.  They never get anything right.”  “What a ridiculous idea.”  “How can anyone love them?”  “What a disappointment.”  “What can you expect from someone like them?”

The whole idea is that if the person would only live the right way and think the right ideas, things would be so much better for them and for the rest of us.  Why not post God’s law everywhere so that everyone knows how to be good?  Why not post it in classrooms and in parks?  Why not print off copies and nail them to trees?  And why would we allow people to flagrantly ignore God’s laws?  How could that possibly be helpful to anyone, including themselves?  Why allow the godless to ruin everything?

And as more and more people are labeled as godless and the ones doing the labeling deem themselves as worthy, Paul feels a sort of kinship with the people who are thrown out, pushed away, and disliked.  He too suffers from such people who view him as godless, lawless, and a menace to society.

To those who think a lot of themselves, those who assume that they have a moral superiority, Paul would like to point out that the father of all nations, the foundational forefather to all people, the one in whom God invested with enduring promises of children and eternal legacy, Abraham, had been given no law from God.  The laws had not yet been handed down from the mountain.  Yet, God considered Abraham righteous.  Abraham was considered in right relationship with God.  Paul says that “The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13).

God’s promise to Abraham was not a reward for following God’s law because there was no such thing as God’s law at the time.

Let us take that one step further.  People who do not have God’s law cannot be condemned by it.  They cannot be jailed by it because, as Paul say, “where there is no law, neither is their transgression” (Romans 4:15).  Just like you cannot get in trouble for fishing in a certain pond unless there is a law that says you cannot fish in it, so too those who do not have God’s law cannot be expected to follow it.  Abraham did not follow it.  The law had not yet been shared by God.  So, following the law was not what made him right with God.

The one thing in Abraham’s story that did make him right with God was that Abraham increasingly trusted in God’s promise to him.  That trust, that faith in God’s promise is the very thing that allowed him to have a relationship with God.  It is true, just look at Abraham.  Paul says that over time Abraham became “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore ‘it was reckoned to him as righteousness’” (Romans 4:21-22).

Trust…faith in the one who loves us and gives us grace is what living with the Lord is all about.  It is not about doing the right thing, though there is nothing wrong with doing good.  It is not about hanging with the right crowds or being of a certain status or being with a pure culture or anything else that we do or believe that makes us feel superior to others.  Since all of us are descendants of Abraham, all of us can trust in the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17).

The man was convinced that a relationship with God was just not in the cards for him.  The man was a veteran, and he was haunted nightly by the faces of those who fell to the ground in front of him and his gun.  The guilt was so much that the only way that he could move forward in life was to just convince himself that there was not anything good waiting for him in this life or the next.  He did not care if he lived or died.  He thought of himself as a lost cause and he pushed himself to feel less than everyone else.  He truly believed that a relationship with God was not in the cards for him, ever, because of what he had done of the battlefield. 

Then came the day that he heard that the little girl next door had to go to court to testify against another man who did her harm.  The offender was released on bail and there was great fear that he would harm the little girl before the trial. 

So, this veteran who did not care about his life, whether he lived or died, and who could not sleep anyway, camped out in front of her house at night; her own personal bodyguard. 

The little girl would look out each evening and see him at the end of her driveway, keeping her safe.  Seeing him allowed her to go to sleep.  The veteran was even there on the day of the trial, right next to her and her parents as they walked those dangerous steps into the courthouse.  She testified and the offender was sent away for a very, very long time.  And after the trial the little girl looked at the veteran and said, “Thank you.  You are my angel.  God sent you to me.” 

The man had written himself off from life, but God had not.  Like Paul, the man had overseen people’s deaths.  Like Paul, the man felt terribly broken.  And like Paul, God used him to give a gift of grace to someone else.  He discovered that God could use, even someone like him.  And because of that, the man grew to trust God.  The man was made right with God once again. 

After-all, any descendant of Abraham can trust God; anyone.  And anyone who God loves can have their life restored; anyone.  And anyone for whom Jesus died and raised from the dead is forgiven and raised up to a new life; anyone.  Abraham knew it, Paul knew it, and we know it too.  For what Paul declares is absolutely true for us all, “We hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” Romans 3:28.  Because of God’s grace through Jesus Christ, you have been saved and restored.

Reflection on Matthew 28:16-20

 

Matthew 28:16-20

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Reflection

“They worshiped him, but they doubted” (Matthew 28:17).  During my college years this was one of the single most important Bible verses to my life.  It was my life.  You see, I still went to worship but my mind was full of doubts every moment I was there.  I sang the hymns with those strong words full of faith (“Great is they faithfulness, oh Lord my Father”) but I greatly doubted the meaning of the words.  I trusted in the Lord but was not sure if he was even real.  How is that even possible?  But it was true and this Bible verse was a comfort to me because it explained my entire life of faith at that moment in time.  “They worshiped him, but they doubted” (Matthew 28:17). 

As I said, even though I doubted I still went to worship, I sang the songs, and I even got up front and read the scriptures when asked to help lead chapel.  That last part felt a little ironic.  There I was, standing in front of a bunch of other students, reading the scriptures to build up their faith when I doubted every word streaming out of my mouth.  But that seems to be how Jesus works.  Scared and homesick, freshman heard a word of comfort from the Lord, who seemed to be using the mouth of someone who was not sure if he believed a word of it himself. 

But I was not the first doubting person that Jesus used to proclaim the good news.  We read right here that there were followers of Jesus who worshiped Jesus and doubted him all at the same time up.  And up on that mountain of commissioning Jesus chose those doubting worshipers as the very people who would “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).  Jesus intentionally chose to use these broken and confused people who, at the same time, both worshiped him and doubted him.  That is just amazing to me that Jesus would do that.  Why not choose someone who trusts fully?  Why not choose someone who has been following God’s word for years and years without a single doubt?

I asked one of my religion professors that once and he replied, “Only people who doubt can smell what is false and fake.  People who doubt are the only ones who actually trust in the Lord as the Lord is and not who they wish God to be.  They refuse to be fooled into trusting false gods.  Do not lose your ability to doubt” he urged me.  “It is a gift.”

I was not so sure that I believed him.  The monks I visited one time on a trip with a religion class all appeared to have no doubts.  They seemed pretty good and holy to me.  They were doing God’s good work while they worshiped and trusted fully. But the Bible seems to agree with my professor; and besides, I had no way of knowing whether or not they had doubts.

The Bible teaches us that the Lord chose people who, at the same time, worshiped and doubted.  They were the ones chosen to spread his good news.  And if the Bible says it, I figured that I would have to be happy with that.  So, I adopted the Bible verse.  “They worshiped him, but they doubted” (Matthew 28:17). 

It is not like this dynamic of faith was completely foreign to me.  I have long remembered a time when I was very young that I was sitting on my dad’s shoulders as we wandered through a tractor show.  As he talked on and on with other guys about the tractors of their youth, I was drawn to look at the dark storm clouds that were barreling toward us in the Nebraska skies.  I pointed to the dark clouds, but my dad just kept talking.  What is up with parents and talking anyway?  Who has that much to say to anyone?  The wind started to pick up, and dust started to fly into my face.  Remember, I was very little, and I started to panic.  The wind became strong and I felt as if I was going to fall.  All I could imagine was a tornado coming to swipe me away as the rain started to pelt my face.  I grabbed tight with hands and started to cry uncontrollably, seemingly alone in the face of a storm that threatened to tear me apart.  I closed my eyes, crying uncontrollably and when I opened them again, I noticed that I was being held tight in my dad’s arms, held close to his chest with him whispering in my ear, “It’s OK, we’re inside now.  You are going to be fine.  I was here the entire time, Jira.  You don’t need to worry.  I am always with you.”

“I am always with you.”

The promise echoes in my ears still.  “I am always with you.”  Even as a child I both held tight and doubted, all at the same time.  “Next time don’t pull on my hair so hard,” my dad said rubbing his head.  “It is hard to run to shelter when your hair is being pulled out of your head.  You can always just talk to me when you are scared.  I will listen.”

He was right, not once did I talk to my dad as the storm approached.  I just pointed and panicked.  That seems to be the story of my life: just point and panic.  If only I had talked to him.  If only I had acted as if he was right there with me as he promised.  “I am always with you.”

Jesus gives us the same promise.  As the disciples worshiped and doubted, Jesus gave them their great commission to baptize and teach, and then as if he knew how hard it would be for worshiping doubters to actually do this stuff, Jesus promises, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  The same as my dad, he wants us to remember that he is there, we just need to talk.  “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7).  Jesus is assuring us, “I am always there, you can always just talk to me.”

Now, I have to admit that in adulthood, prayer has not always been my strongest faith quality.  Give me a theological conundrum and I will explore ideas with the best of them.  Give me an impossible scripture and I will study until the wisdom of the scripture unlocks itself.  But prayer?  I have often continued to be a point, panic, and pull hair sort of guy.  So, people who have a strong prayer life have always intrigued me.

Recently I had a good conversation with one of these people of prayer.  Actually, the conversation was supposed to be about the nature of the Trinity: One God with three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, coequal, one but three, all of whom can be worshiped, praised, and to whom we can pray.  Feeling like we were standing firmly in my field of expertise, theology, where headiness prevails, the faithful woman started talking about God as the Trinity in terms of personal prayer.

She said, “There are so many times in life that I cannot make heads or tails of anything, so I will pray to a person of the Trinity.  When I have run out of ideas of what to do in any given situation, I will ask God the Father, who created everything, to give me the power to create something new and good and holy.  We are created in the image of God after-all.  I think that means that we have been given God’s power to create.  So, I pray to God the Father to help me create something new.

Of course, when I mess everything up, which, undoubtedly, I will do, I pray to Jesus to forgive me, yet again.  I ask Jesus to wash away my sin and ask him to guide me as I try again for a second and third and fifteenth time.

And when I am really struggling in life and feel like all life is being squeezed out of me, I pray to the Holy Spirit to breathe some new life back into me.  I prayed for that very thing while I was in the hospital, lying in bed after my stroke, hoping that I might walk and talk again.  I prayed to the Spirit to breathe some life into my family when my family and I were not getting along.  And do you know what?  The Spirit was there for me each time, just as Jesus promised.”

Is that not one of the most faithful explanations of the Trinity that you have ever heard?  She was so real in her discipleship.  She was a worshiping, faulty, doubter who prayed and trusted.  Jesus uses people like her.  Jesus chooses worshiping, faulty doubters who pray and trust to spread the good news of his kingdom where the powerless, the meek and the grief stricken all inherit the kingdom and find a place with God. 

So, next time that you are brought from the heights of faith, into the realm that fear and doubt as the storm approaches, look down and know that Jesus has a tight grip on you as you ride his shoulders.  Know that he is always with you.  Know that you can lean down and talk to him.  Know that you can talk to God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit as well.  And know that you are the right one to face this storm.  Your doubt is not your weakness; it is your strength.  It is what allows you to truly trust, not knowing the result or expecting anything really…just trusting because you have no other choice. 

In Jesus eyes, you are enough.  You are chosen as you are.  Jesus chooses worshiping doubters like you and like me all the time, and that has always proven to be a good thing.  Thanks be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Amen.