Destined for what?

A Sermon preached on Sunday July 30, Pentecost VIII, at St. James’ Episcopal Church, Florence

Genesis 29:15-28, Romans 8:26-39, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Apostle Paul has spent much of his Letter to the Romans so far writing about sin, about sin’s consequences, and about how we can be liberated from sin. So, I do hope that Father Mark has been preaching all about sin over the last few weeks, because I know that is something he understands very well. I mean preaching about it, not doing it. 

Thankfully, Paul has for now finished with the topic of sin, but only to introduce the no less difficult topic of predestination. “And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8:30) Only those he predestined will be justified and glorified? That sounds good if you’re sure that you have been chosen, but what about the rest … perhaps even you or me? Predestination is no longer mainstream Anglican theology, but it was at the time of the Reformation. Cranmer wrote about it, the 17^th of the 39 Articles of Religion is entitled “Of Predestination and Election,” and Church of England delegates attended the early 17th century Synod of Dort in Holland at which the definitive Reformed doctrine about predestination was settled, a doctrine often known by the abbreviation TULIP. This stands for:

1.      Total Depravity: everyone is born sinful and depraved (aka original sin).

2.      Unconditional Election: God arbitrarily chose only some be saved.

3.      Limited Atonement: Christ's atoning work was intended only for the elect and not for the rest of the world.  Remember, in all our BCP Eucharistic Prayers we say “This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins,” not for all.

4.      Irresistible Grace: those God elected cannot resist salvation.

5.      Perseverance of the Saints: the elected will persevere to the end.

Today’s passage from Romans is one source for the doctrine. Parables like the parable of the dragnet we heard this morning would also seem to indicate that good and bad; evil and righteous are already fixed categories. Well it is not a concept I am happy with. Not liking a doctrine is in itself not a reason for denying it, although it happens more often than it should. But I think the text is being misread. This section of Romans is not about God arbitrarily choosing only a select few to be saved. It is a passage about assurance, about how we can all be sure of God’s love. 

In the second verse, verse 27 we read “And God, who searches the hearts.” Actually in the Greek Paul does not use the word for God, he just refers to “the one searching the hearts,” which is another beautiful name for God. Why would God need to search the hearts if all was fixed and predestined? What would God be looking for there? Our desires, our desperate needs, our response to God’s love … even if we do not and cannot articulate it without the Spirit’s help. The image Paul want us to hear is of God constantly in communion with us through the Spirit in our hearts. 

The next verse, 28, is not easy to translate. From the NRSV you heard “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” An equally valid alternative would be “in everything God works for good with those who love him.” In both cases, our response is crucial. God loves us, do we love God back, God chooses us, do we choose God in return, God wants to work with us, do we want to work with God?  In his book “The Great Divorce,” C.S. Lewis also addresses the topic of choice: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done.” And those to whom God says in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there would be no Hell.” 

But how do we explain the “chain of calling” in the following verses (29 – 30)? Who are those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified? Let us start with foreknowing. To know in a biblical sense is to be in an intimate fellowship or relationship. When two people “know” each other in the Bible, a child is often the result. God knows us intimately because, as Paul told us last week, we are God’s children. The “fore” refers to the fact that this relationship exists even before our birth. Paul wants us to recall Jeremiah’s calling when God says: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jerermiah 1:5, NIV) God knows us so well and so intimately, that God has an individual purpose for us all …. However, like Jeremiah we may not always be happy with that choice!

We are all predestined – destined for a particular end or purpose and our common purpose, as Paul goes on to make clear, is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, who is both the perfect human and true image of God. All human beings are made in the image of God. God gives us the opportunity to live up to this image by being shaped into the model of Christ. 

Paul is not describing some sort of funnel through which an ever-smaller group of people is selected. God calls us all out by name to our final destiny of sharing in Christ’s glory, Christ’s mission, and Christ’s rule. What Paul is describing is an invitation and a promise. If we respond, out of our own free will, to the Good News of the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, by putting our faith in Christ, by loving God, then neither anything we do, nor anything that is done to us can separate us from God and from God’s love. The hymn at the end of our reading from Romans, is such a wonderful and a beautiful summary of the unshakeable basis of Christian life and hope, that I think it is worth having the words of verses 38 and 39 written on a slip of paper, and carrying it with you in your purse or wallet, to read whenever you feel that one of the things mentioned is getting in the way.

How do we react? We do not just sit back and relax. Firstly, this “blessed assurance” is a reason for joy. If we look at two of the parables from today’s Gospel, and I am not going to look at all of them as that would be a second sermon, and I only promised Father Mark one sermon. But look at the landowner and the merchant, how they react: “In his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” in which the treasure, God’s kingdom, is hidden. (Matthew 13:44) and “on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (13:46) The message is priceless, the message is worth getting rid of many other things to dedicate oneself to, and the message is glorious. 

That is not all. We need to pass it on. We need to let everyone know about this great promise, we need to show in our lives and in our behavior how we are working together with God to be conformed and transformed to the image of God’s Son – even if we incur hardship or distress or something worse. God’s assurance of God’s love is not a call to passivity, but to action. That is the consequence of accepting God’s invitation, and our destiny.

So coming back to that abbreviation “TULIP” again, I do believe that we all have the capacity and the tendency to sin. I once read that the doctrine of Original Sin is the only doctrine that can be proven empirically. But I also believe that with God’s help we can grow and change into what we are supposed to be. I also believe that God elects unconditionally, but not that God arbitrarily choses only some be saved. Not the God I know and who is revealed in Jesus Christ. I certainly do not believe that Christ's atoning work was limited and intended only for an elect few. He was incarnated and died for the whole world, and as Paul told us last week, even for all of creation.  God’s grace should be irresistible, but cannot be because God endowed us with free will. As for the perseverance of the saints. As followers of Christ and servants of God, we are all saints. And we will persevere, because “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.”

Amen.

Patient waiting

A Sermon preached on July 23, Pentecost VII, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 44:6-8 Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43

I think I may be getting an overdose of Martin Luther. Because of the 500^th anniversarty of the Reformation, we have been hearing, seeing, and reading a lot about him … Then just over a week ago I took a group on a pilgrimage to Eisleben, where he was born and died, to Erfurt, where he studied and was ordained a priest, to Wittenberg, where he taught and where the Reformation began, and to the Wartburg, where he was kept safe and translated the New Testament into German. In every place and site there was a museum, or two, with lots of information and exhibits … that was a lot of Luther! 

And then for some time now we have been and will continue to read from Martin Luther’s favorite book of the Bible, Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In his preface to Romans, Luther wrote:  “This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian’s while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”

I am not sure about daily ….. but I do agree with him that Romans is very important, and not just for the doctrine of justification by faith that Luther, following St. Augustine, found there. When we read just a segment of a letter week by week, we can easily lose sight of the overall structure and meaning, especially as Paul fills each section with so many thoughts and ideas, not all of them consecutive. But it is important to keep an eye on the big picture, and, even with all the mentions of sin, guilt, and death, the big picture of Romans is a good one. Luther is right: The Letter to the Romans is purest Gospel, purest Good News.

We are about half way through the Letter, which is a good point to look back from. What has happened? First of all Paul has established that we, humanity, need help. Sin and death still reign. On our own, without God, we cannot escape from our selfish and self-destructive behavior, and without a genuine transformation, all our good works will not help either. The Good News is that God is determined to save us. Paul describes successively how the whole Trinity has acted and still acts to save us, to rescue us from sin and death, to make us righteous in God’s eyes. God created us, God gave the Law, God established a covenant first with the Jewish people. When this was not enough, God sent God’s Son to expand the Covenant to include all humanity. Jesus died to save us all – in Paul’s words “One man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” (Romans 5:18) By joining Christ in Baptism, by choosing to serve Christ, we share both in his sacrificial death and in his resurrection and are freed from, or as Paul puts it, dead to Sin. Death too no longer has power over us.

So why hasn’t Paul stopped writing, what more is there to say? Well for one thing, the action of the third Person of the Trinity is still missing. We have heard about the Father and the Son, but what does the Spirit do? For another, Paul wants to tell us what we can expect, what God has in store for us, but also what is expected from us. 

This week and last week, we heard how the Spirit of God dwelling in us begins our transformation. Working in our hearts, she generates faith, enables us to fulfill the just requirement of the law (12:4) i.e. to live righteously, and finally gives new life beyond death. “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (8:13) But that is not all. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (8:14) Paul uses the legal language of adoption to explain how we have become not only children, but also heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. (12:17) We are called to share in Christ’s ministry of redemption, which as it turns out is not restricted to humans, but is intended for and longed by all of creation:  “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God …. in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay.” (12:19, 21) 

Coming back to the big picture again, in Romans, Paul describes an expanding circle of salvation and liberation: First Israel through the First Covenant, then all peoples through the New Covenant, and now all of creation through us, the children of God.

Fantastic … except it is not where we are now. Right now, we are still in the middle of the “sufferings of this present time,” still “groaning inwardly” while we wait for the adoption to take effect. Or if we look to Matthew’s Gospel and to Jesus’ parable, we see weeds growing everywhere – and if scholars are right not just weeds – or tares to use the traditional name, but a poisonous grass called darnel. Where, we wonder, do the weeds come from, why we might ask does God allow evil to grow in God’s kingdom? Why aren’t things better already? What can we do about it? In their different ways, and for their different audiences, Paul, and Jesus are addressing the same issue and giving the same answer. 

That answer, not always satisfying, is to be patient. Why? Because the time is not yet ripe. In his explanation of the parable, Jesus tells the disciples that if we try and remove the weeds too early, we will only end up destroying the good with the bad. And as we are not dealing with weeds but with humans, that means taking away people’s chance to change, to become children of the kingdom. Nor is waiting just passive. The householders’ servants still have to tend to the whole field, to ensure that the conditions for growth are right. We have plenty of work to do as followers of Jesus, as his laborers in the field. But until the final sorting comes, and all the causes of evil are removed by God, we must also be patient and faithful just as God is patient with and faithful to us.

Paul too tells his readers that for now we have to live with the tension between God’s glorious promise and the present less glorious reality. The Spirit is even now at work in us and through us in the world. In his own harvesting image, Paul talks of us having the first fruits of the Spirit. God’s Spirit within us is already changing us. But our renewal is not yet complete. The world is not yet as it should be. It is still suffering, often from actions for which humanity is responsible as we do not take our role as stewards as we should. While we, and the world, wait for the final renewal and restoration, we already live as the children of God, as Paul calls us or the children of the kingdom, to use Jesus’ phrase. This is an active and eager waiting from those who know they have already inherited the promised Kingdom, even though it is not yet fully revealed and realized. 

In his first Letter to the Corinthians (13:13), Paul identifies faith, hope, and love as the three abiding qualities. And it is these three qualities that we need in our waiting. Love is the standard for our behavior while we wait. Faith means trusting in God’s promise of redemption, of glorification: in Jesus’ poetic phrase that we “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father,” as we reflect the love and glory of God. (Matthew 13:43) 

Last but not least, hope and being hopeful is a necessary part of what it means to be a Christian. Just because we have chosen to follow Jesus does not in itself put the world to rights, but it does put us right. “In hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24) Paul says. We hope for what we have been told will happen, we hope for what we were given a glimpse of in Jesus’ life, witness, death, and resurrection. We hope with the help of God’s Spirit within us. In that sense, we hope for what we do not see, and we wait for it with patience.

Amen.