Rev. Rebecca L. Kiser
What Does A Resurrection Life Look Like?
(Walking in Newness of Life…)
6/21/2020 Pent 3A (Fathers Day)
There are
some events in life that become markers, like there’s the time before x
happened, and the different time after X happened. In our country, we have this
pandemic - I’ve already found myself describing things in 2019 and early 2020
as “before the virus.” Looks like there will be many changes in healthcare as a
result, after this virus.
There are events in our personal
lives as well, like say, a wedding - a wedding certainly marks a time “before
the wedding” (or single)…. and “after the wedding” (or married). Many people change their name, too - a very
significant change of identity. Since
we’re celebrating Father’s Day, let’s mention that first child, that changes us
from a couple to parents. Turning 65 was
a milestone for me - a dreaded birthday where now I have to check that new box
on forms, and the young folks on the Dunkin Donut drive-thru give me the
discount without me asking.
So the apostle Paul is writing to
the Christ-followers in Rome in our text today - a long letter that’s more like
an Intro to Christianity 101, with explanations of many parts of our faith that
have come down as basic doctrines. In our text this morning, Paul takes on some
folks who are being rather silly, in thinking about the grace of God - the grace towards us in forgiving what the
Scripture calls “sins,” ie places where we fall short of following Christ,
either by accident or on purpose.
They’re saying, so if God gives grace when we sin, let’s sin more! Then there will be more grace! At least that what it sounds like to me.
Although it sounds silly the way it’s
explained here, Paul responds seriously,
and uses this to explain his understanding of
the “before” and “after” of becoming a Christ- follower, taking on
Christ through participating in Christ’s death and resurrection. “By no means! (he writes) How can we who have died to sin, go on living
in it?” Coming to the knowledge of Christ
is one of those definitive events, those turning points, of our lives. It is so radical a change in our being, that
Paul says it’s like the old ‘us’ died, and a new ‘us’ is born. The person we were before becoming a
Christ-follower, not knowing or caring what God says or wants, just following
what the world tells us - we need to consider that person as having died with
Christ. This new person is born who
knows and cares what God says and thinks, this new person who is now in a
relationship with the Creator of existence and desires to follow what Christ
has said, and trusts that God has told us the truth about ourselves and the
world - this new person has been raised like Christ from the tomb where he was
laid and buried - into a new spiritual life.
Paul uses the sacrament of baptism (probably practiced as immersion), as
picturing this death and rebirth - we go under the water, dying like Christ;
and we arise from the water raised to new life like Christ. And it’s not just a
symbolism, Paul says - it’s a spiritual reality. Now we walk in newness of life, he says.
Jesus used the same concept of new life when he had that
encounter with Nicodemus, where Jesus says that to enter the kindom of God, we
must be born from above, or born again as older translations put it. It’s what Jesus means when he calls people to
believe, and step into the realm / kingdom / kindom of God, which has drawn
near us in his person. God’s very Spirit
comes to dwell in us, Jesus tells his disciples, and we become one with each
other,one with God, an immense unitive experience that we don’t really understand,
although we desire it and long for it all our journey. Our spiritual life is born, a new creation.
Some people do have radical conversion experiences, turning
from a former godless way of living to a new way of life acknowledging God. I
was always kinda jealous of those folk’s ability to tell a dramatic story of
transformation by the gospel; as I grew up learning all the Bible stories and
characters, seeing folks pray, and hearing sermons about living for God -- with that upbringing, I never really did a
lot of things that would make my testimony sound real dramatic. I was a good kid who tried her hardest to
follow all the rules people told me about being a Christian and loving
God. That’s age-appropriate for a child,
learning the rules. Of course as we grow
up, we’ll find just following the rules to not be enough, and we have to grow
into a different understanding of this walk in newness of faith. The rules can be a good start.
See, what Paul describes as a
one-time change might be correct theologically - and really, it does mark the
beginning of a new way of being, a new spiritual awareness and purpose. We don’t exactly wake up the next morning as
a spiritual giant, though... who understands all truth and lives perfectly in
step with Christ. What we’ve done is
step through the door, or start the journey; a journey that is never over. Like learning to be married, or learning to
be a parent - it’s more like on-the-job training. Just so, this walking in newness of life is
an ongoing thing.
It's true
for the Capital-C Church, too - the Church was not suddenly totally aware of
all the implications of the gospel for how to live our human life according to
Christ’s teachings. Take racism, for
example, since that’s an ongoing large issue for our country right now, on top
of the pandemic that’s also ongoing. Our
early forebears in this country had no qualms about enslaving other
people. Slavery made the plantation way
of life a good economic reality. Other
parts of the country found, similarly, that paying low wages to people desperate
for any income at all, also made economic sense to them as owners and
beneficiaries of the profits. Most all
these slave owners attended church and were considered good church people -
they worshipped God, they gave, they married, they prayed, and they knew Bible
stories. But they didn’t make the
connection between all people made in the image of God with their slaves. Instead, they maligned the whole race of
black people with negative stereotypes, even if they were among the owners who
treated their slaves better than others did.
Come the
Civil War, many of these good church people found “proof” in Scriptures that
slavery was okay, and argued that helping those poor slaves was civilizing
them, which they couldn’t do by themselves.
The Presbyterian Church split over this, as well as the country. The northern and southern branches of the
Presbyterian church only reunited as recently as 1983. The Juneteenth celebrations which have been
in the papers this week celebrate the day the news of emancipation got clear to
Texas, June 19th. Emancipation may have
technically recognized former slaves as free people, but it didn’t do anything
about stereotypes and discrimination. It
was a large step, yes, and hard won. But
it was still a long way from equality.
In the
civil rights time in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr was a preacher of the gospel who saw the
vision of people living together as a Biblical vision; yet it was resisted by
the white church, which still supported the status quo and had a difficult time
imagining how this freedom could work.
This is my lifetime now - I started 1st grade the same year as Ruby
Bridges walked with 6 US deputies to integrate her school in New Orleans, LA. I watched the original Poor People’s March on
my TV there in DC where we lived. The
folks in my home church were good people, good Christians, serving Jesus and
studying the Scriptures and praying for God’s will to be done. But as soon as
black families began to move into the neighborhood, they sold their houses and fled to other
suburbs that were still white. Good
church people resisted efforts at integration of schools. Norfolk, where I raised my own children,
resisted to the point of closing the entire school system for one year. And without home schooling or online classes
- the year had no graduating class at all.
That year gave them time to set up private schools for their own white
children, to avoid being in school with black children. We look back now and think, “How could they
have not seen the injustice, the obvious Christian welcome to children the same
color as the children we sent mission workers to? Folks in my home church weren’t KKK, weren’t
haters, and were willing to be nice and polite to black people - except not to
live near them.
It pains me that the Capital-C
church folk weren’t all on the front lines of this call for justice for our
sisters and brothers of color. Some
were, yes. Others Christ-followers were
against the social changes, the old stereotypes burned into their consciousness. Others Christ-followers were afraid to speak
out, or didn’t know what to do.
So we come to the protests and calls
for change that we have today, because it just takes so much time to separate
out what is cultural tradition and inherited teachings from the actual gospel
of Jesus Christ, to let it go, to move beyond what we grew up thinking was the
just the way of things - implicit racism taught in our homes and taken for
granted in our churches.
It seems to
take God’s Spirit a lot of effort to lead us to look beyond those things we
take for granted as the way things are, and actually see the vision God has for
the world; personally as well as corporately.
Many churches, when I was teenager, confused the length of hair and
length of skirts with gospel standards; not to mention rock music. They fought
over those kinds of things harder than they fought over sins of pride and
greed. Saying the Lord’s Prayer in
school was as important in that generation of Christ-followers as mission and
evangelism. Those things were just
customs, and just the way things had been - they had nothing to do with the
gospel of Christ.
I'm sure the coming generations will
look back at my generation and see the same blindnesses about what to them are
obvious ways of walking in Christ’s kindom in newness of life, that we didn’t
perceive. The capital-C Church is always
being reformed by God’s Spirit, and our personal journeys are always turning
corners to see new vistas. The Spirit
works layer by layer to peel away unessentials and reveal essentials.
May it be so with us, as the gospel
enlightens, calls and challenges us to
perceive this newness of life.
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