Sermon

Are you obedient to anxiety or to love?

Scripture Text:

Romans 6:12-23

Sermon:

St. Paul was a passionate man and his passion shines through his letters.  This summer, we’ll be listening to a more contemporary translation of Paul, done by Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor and scholar.  Peterson makes Paul really “pop” off the page, and even though it may seem odd to have “scripture” sound so conversational, remember that Paul wrote his letters in his own voice –  in a conversation with the churches he was writing to.  So I hope through Peterson, you’ll hear Paul’s voice in a way that will speak to your life instead of just make you scratch your head.

Today’s reading from Romans comes right at us with Paul’s passionate thoughts on sin and freedom.  Great way to jump into summer, huh?  A time where we feel more free.  Where doing whatever we feel like doing seems like a terrific idea.  But there are different kinds of freedom.   I don’t know if this is true for all of you, but usually, having a whole day in front of me with nothing planned can be kind of paralyzing.  I look forward for weeks to having a day that’s totally open and unscheduled, but I’ve learned that those can actually be the days that are most unsatisfying.  I can do anything I want, but that’s just too many choices!  So I get cranky and kind of aimless, looking over my to do lists or my pile of unread novels, and fritzing away too much time on the internet.  Studies have actually shown that people report feeling more depressed and less happy on the weekends, when they don’t have to go to school or work.

During the week most of us have more structure to our day.  We’re more likely to be around other people, to have a rhythm and certain rituals we follow, to feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose.  When my mother talks about retiring in the next year or two, she first talks about how tired she’s getting, teaching middle schoolers and grading their papers, but then she always talks about how uneasy she feels thinking about what she’ll do when she doesn’t have to go to work.  For the first two weeks she’ll probably do nothing but read murder mysteries and books about ancient Greece.  But then, the weeks will stretch out ahead of her, and how will she spend them?  I imagine many of you who are retired would have some things to say about this.

So, what does freedom have to do with sin and why does Paul have so much to say about it?

“Sin” is a big word… it’s a word that always seems to have dark clouds hovering around and sharp points poking out from it.  But it’s a helpful word and one we shouldn’t be afraid of, because we all sin.  We all make choices that hurt other people, hurt God, and hurt ourselves.  We all tend to this belief that we’re the ones at the center of the universe – and that center can both be a high peak of arrogance, pride, or perfectionism, or it can be like the bottom of a barrel where we get stuck in pity, failure, and worry.

Sin happens when we forget that God is the authority on our lives.  God already sent someone to save the world, and his name is Jesus.  God doesn’t need us to be perfect, because God is already perfect!  What God wants, what’s at the bottom of the way God designed the whole universe, is to be in relationship with us.  God longs for each of us, out of freedom, to choose to live in accordance with the kingdom God imagined when God created the universe.   To choose to live in obedience to the ways of God.

So, as Paul reminds us, sin is closely related to obedience.  Sin is about choosing to be obedient to things other than God.   He writes:

“you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. … Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time … into God’s way of doing things.”

As human beings, we all chose to be obedient to something – we have to.  Everyone lives their life out of obedience to something outside themselves and we’re free to choose what that might be:  the expectations our parents have (or had) for us, an addiction, a traumatic experience from our past, an obsession with something, a need for control, a desire to escape, a fear of pain.  My theory is that we tend to give our obedience to the thing in our lives that makes us the most anxious.  So: what do you worry about? what seems to drive your decision-making, but never brings you peace or satisfaction for very long?  or what do you avoid, keep at an arm’s length, or try not to think about at all?  Chances are, there’s an unconscious, compulsive obedience there leading you more to choices that are sinful, than to choices that lead you further into the love and service of the kingdom of God.

Paul knows that human nature tends to slide toward whatever seems easiest in the short run and that sacrificing short term gratification for long term happiness is difficult. We love short-term gratification, and we aren’t very good at keeping our long-term happiness in our sights.  But Paul promises that God has granted to us the freedom in Christ to strive for things that bring long-term happiness and eternal blessings.  The freedom to let go of the fear and worry that lead us to make decisions out of anxiety instead of wisdom or peace or even a sense of fun!   The freedom to trust that Christ’s love covers our shortcomings, saves us from That Thing that makes anxiety bubble up within us like a toxic spring, that we don’t have to sit at the center of the universe to feel safe, loved, or happy.

True freedom and satisfaction comes from a life given in service to God and to other people.  Freedom in Christ opens up our hearts and lives so we are not afraid to give our true selves away, so that we have the courage to live a full life of love rather than compulsion or distractions, so that we can freely choose to be obedient to the ways of God and live fuller, deeper, more satisfying lives.

Listen once more to the words of Paul: “But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

Amen.

Uploaded on June 26, 2011 in by RevHeidi

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