Sermon June 21, 2020
Romans 6:1-11
I used to babysit a little boy named Camden when I was in High school. He was trouble.
Watching him those years prepared me for just about anything.
One particular day when I was watching him, he decided to do this really cute thing.
He asked me to make him chocolate milk, which I did. After handing him the cup he decided to dump the entire contents of the cup on the kitchen floor, intentionally.
I mopped the floor and said to him, “Look all clean!”
And he responded, “Maybe I should dump things on the floor more often!”
I didn’t even need to say anything, all I needed to do was give him a hairy eyeball.
Today Paul, gives the early church in Rome a more verbal hairy eyeball.
They are confused about how grace, and baptism, and sin all work.
So Paul asks the rhetorical question it seems the church in Rome is asking with their behavior, Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
And he answers it very emphatically: By no means! Giving them the verbal hairy eyeball, they need to get themselves right.
Paul is trying to teach them and us, that just because God in Christ Jesus can make all things right, is not an invitation to do wrong.
Yes, we believe God’s grace- Agape` love- given to us at baptism is all powerful love that covers a multitude of sins and that God will forgive us always, but if we don’t live our lives differently because of this we are doing no better than little Camden intentionally spilling our chocolate milk on the floor.
If living our lives as baptized followers of Jesus doesn’t change our lives every day and cause us to evaluate our decisions because we follow Jesus, we are dripping drops of chocolate milk everywhere on purpose.
We aren’t living out our baptismal promises to:
TO LIVE AMONG GOD’S FAITHFUL PEOPLE,
HEAR TO THE WORD OF GOD AND THE HOLYSUPPER
LEARN THE LORD’S PRAYER, THE CREED, AND THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS, HAVE IN YOUR HANDS THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND BE
NURTURED IN FAITH AND PRAYER, SO THAT YOU MAY LEARN AND
TRUST GOD, PROCLAIM CHRIST THROUGH WORD AND DEED, CARE FOR OTHERS
AND THE WORLD GOD MADE, AND WORK FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE.
In baptism we profess that we have died to sin, our parents, sponsors, and congregation promised to help us do these things and as adults we took these promises on for ourselves.
but if our faith as baptized followers of Jesus doesn’t transform our lives on our daily journeys, if we don’t do what we promised at baptism as followers of Jesus,
then we haven’t really died to sin at all.
We’re intentionally dripping chocolate milk everywhere—
In not loving our neighbors, in using our holy scriptures to harm others, in cursing our enemies instead of praying for them, and forgetting that justice and peace are things we promised to work for on behalf of Jesus.
When we sow seeds of discord and hate, we are no better than young Camden intentionally dumping the milk on the floor. WE KNOW BETTER. Jesus taught us better.
And we know that we will not be able to live a sin free life, but that doesn’t mean we let sin win in our hearts every time. We have to try, try and faithfully follow Jesus, try to love our neighbors, and try our best to keep the promises made at baptism.
We die to sin by wiping up our spilled chocolate milk,
By admitting that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves,
By admitting that we are not always right,
By asking for forgiveness and repenting when we engage in behavior that harms our neighbor.
We must die to our old selves, to our selfish desires, to the ways of this world that cause suffering and pain, and seek to be more like Jesus.
We won’t live our lives without sin, and that is okay because if we have been united with Jesus in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Jesus in a resurrection like his.
And this is good for us
People so easily swayed by sin, motivated by selfishness, fueled by division in our world broken by evil and sin. Because even though sometimes we know better and willfully spill that chocolate milk, on the cross Jesus cleans up our mess taking on the sins of the whole world and dying for us, so that death no longer has dominion over us.
We must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
And to do that it means we are called to live differently, to make our decisions because of the promises we made as Jesus’ followers and it’s not going to be easy.
Theologian David Bartlett explains it like this:
“We think that because our hearts belong to Jesus, our bodies, our checkbooks, our votes, and our property values belong to us. They don’t, we have been buried with Jesus and everything we have now belongs to God.”
In our baptism we are given a new identity as children of God, it’s time we embraced this identity in the way we make decisions, the way we interact with others, treating everyday as though we are followers of Jesus and not just one hour a week but in all we do each day,
We need to remember our baptisms, not the time and place or who was there but remember the promises we made and who we became that day, saints of God.
We are simultaneously sinner and saints, simul justus et peccator, as Luther famously says. We have an amazing capacity to do good to share our chocolate milk with others as saints but at the same time we have an amazing capacity to do evil to spill that chocolate milk on purpose and make someone else clean it up.
It’s time for us to overwork our capacity for good, to move toward healing in all the places in our world that are crying out for love, to show the world that we practice what we preach to reclaim the Church, the body of Christ now a symbol of pain and exclusion for many, as a place of love, forgiveness, and hope.
So let us rise to the possibility and invitation that comes with being alive to God in Christ Jesus in all that we do.
Amen.
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