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Pentecost 5
5/7/2020

Romans 7:15-25a
Psalm 145
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

In a sentence
Human sinfulness is something we really only grasped after we have been grasped by the grace of God, when sin is already behind us

The category of sin, which has been prominent in our readings from Romans over the last few weeks, is somewhat on the nose these days, even in the churches. The question is being asked quite seriously – have we not focussed too heavily on this? Ought we not to begin with original blessing and creativity, rather than with the somewhat dark and depressing idea of original sin and the corresponding need for redemption? Do we not frown too much we speak of human brokenness, and do we not sully God’s name with all that scowling?

An honest answer to these questions would have to be ‘Yes’, for the most part. The fear of sin has manifested itself in witch hunts for sin in our lives or the lives of others. At the same time, with greater and greater clarity, we’ve come to recognise that many of the witch hunters have been at least as accomplished in sin as those they’ve pursued. And so, both from fear of hypocrisy and from sheer dissatisfaction with the idea that all human beings are born and die sinners, sin is often shifted into that room in the house which the guests never see, and which we rarely enter ourselves. It is still there, and we know that it’s there, but out of sight is almost out of mind, and we imagine that that is good enough, all things considered.

Whatever good reasons we can give for this hesitation around the theme of sin, it has also to be said that, as much as ever, the church needs today a strong doctrine of sin because, without such a strong doctrine, we will only have a weak doctrine of salvation and so have very little to say which is actually worth hearing.

To illustrate where a weak doctrine of sin might lead us, let’s consider what we’ve heard from Paul this morning:

I don’t understand my own actions. For I don’t do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I can’t do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  

He continues:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

The answer he brings to that question is, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! This might sound as if Paul reflects on just how hard it is to be good and then concludes: isn’t it great that Jesus makes a way through it all for us?!

But this is a very weak doctrine of salvation which gives rise to the weak doctrine of sin we settle for too often these days. If Christ is merely a help through our inabilities or failures to deal with this or that challenge in our lives, then he is only as relevant to me as I am weak. The stronger I am, the less I need God in Christ. The measure of the work of God in Jesus Christ has now become my own weakness or strength. To the extent, therefore, that I live by the empowered creativity which comes with ‘original blessing’ (say), rather than am hindered by the darkness of ‘original sin’ – to just that extent, I have no need of God in Christ.

We are free, of course, to draw a general conclusion like that. Most of the Western world has, and much of the church with it. But we are not free to read Paul in that way if we want to hear what he has to say, rather than imposing on him what we think or wish he says.

In our readings from Romans over the last few weeks we’ve heard Paul put a couple of times the rhetorical question: ‘Shall we, then, sin more that grace may abound more?’ This was a charge which some had brought against his theology (3.8; 6.1,15). And it will be justly brought against any theology which concerns itself with an idea of sin as something which exists and can be understood apart from grace. We will imagine that more sin equals more grace if we think that grace is simply God’s ‘top-up’ over and above our sometimes weak, sometimes strong, efforts.

But the doctrine of sin is not about our being weak or naughty. We need a strong doctrine of sin because of the extraordinary power God has manifest in Christ. Unless God’s work is extraordinary, then the sin it overcomes will be nothing really worth commenting on.

And so, to be true to Paul’s method and proclamation, we have to say that the gospel is not the declaration that the doors of heaven are thrown open for those of us too feeble to push them open ourselves. The gospel is that the doors of hell are ripped off their hinges,[1] so that those who did not even realise they were in hell might escape. A torrent of quickening light floods in, dissolving the chains and revealing, to those who had no idea they were shackled, just what it meant truly to be enslaved by sin. This awareness of slavery to sin occurs in the very moment that one is set free. The depth, the darkness, the power of sin to enslave us is something we know only in the moment of liberation. To speak of sin to those who do not know that liberation will be to make no sense. And so also will it make no sense to speak of grace. Only the saved know what sin is.

Those of you familiar with my preaching will know that I’m not a great one for illustrations in sermons. This is partly because sermon illustrations get in the way as often as they help, and partly because I’m just not that imaginative.

But this one seems like it will help, and is silly enough to be memorable.

Paul’s experience, first of grace and then of sin, is like that of a chick just hatched from an egg. Paul is that little chick, who doesn’t really know he is in an egg until it is broken in pieces at his feet. Have you ever wondered what chicks say to one another when they’ve just hatched and are standing around cheeping away madly at anyone or anything which will listen? They’re saying something like this:

‘Wow, I never imagined the world was like this! Hey, can you believe what it’s like out here? Who could have guessed? I thought that old egg was OK but, rooster, this really rocks!’

Now, of course they say it all in chicken, but the translation is close enough. Paul seems to begin with a theory of sin and then drop Jesus in on top of it all. To be fair to us who misinterpret him, it is easy to read him this way: ‘The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus’. ‘Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more’. ‘Who shall save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ!’

This all reads like a pessimistic theory of human existence is being prettied up by inserting Jesus into the picture. And, because we can read Paul way, when we reject his apparent pessimism we render Jesus only as relevant as we imagine ourselves to be broken – which can even be to render Jesus irrelevant if we think we’re pretty much OK.

But in fact, while Paul’s argument runs from sin in Adam to its treatment in Christ, his image of the sinful beginning is revealed to him by the end. Paul is only interested in the sin of Adam because he has experienced the gift which comes in Christ. He begins with the salvation he has known in Christ, and this reveals to him what he was like before the eggshell fell away. He doesn’t really notice sin until it is overcome.

Our doctrine of sin can only be as strong and well-defined as our experience of salvation. To turn that around makes it something quite shocking: a weak doctrine of sin reflects a poor experience of salvation. If we cannot speak strongly about sin, it is most likely because salvation has not figured strongly in our experience. Talk about sin then becomes little more than fearful moralism or its pendulum-swing opposite, optimistic wishful thinking. And neither of these is really worth hearing about and we do better – under those circumstances – to keep silent.

But, if Paul is right, we might also be set free to be honest about the ambiguity of our current experience of grace. We still confess that Jesus is Lord, for it is the very conviction that Jesus is Lord which has revealed that we have not yet known enough of grace to speak meaningfully of sin and so meaningfully of our need for grace.

And so we are also moved to prayer, for we cannot generate the experience of grace for ourselves. Grace is God’s gift of Christ to us in the power of the Spirit, and only God is the possibility that we might receive this gift. To understand what Paul speaks of here we must know the grace of God. Strangely, then, to see and understand sin, we must wait on God.

Let us then take God at his word,

prayerfully reminding him of the promises he made to Adam’s children through Abraham,

and waiting expectantly for the time when we too will marvel at what we see the God, the world and ourselves to be,
once the shell of sin is broken.

[1] Note the curious connection here with today’s OT reading: (to Jesus’ ancestor Rebekah) ‘…may your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes…’Genesis 24.60(-ish).

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Pentecost 4
28/6/2020

Romans 6:12-23
Psalm 13
Matthew 10:40-42

In a sentence
Ever tempted to justify ourselves before God, God sweeps our efforts aside and embraces us regardless

In our reading from Romans today, it seems that Paul is going round and round in circles and drawing contrasts which are too stark to maintain.

Indeed, there is a going-in-circles in his argument here, although it is more a matter of him following a helical path – as in a corkscrew. Around and around he goes, but making progress in another dimension – in a direction ‘above’ any of his circling, adding metaphor upon metaphor to develop the contrasts his proclamation of the gospel requires.

But what about those stark contrasts? Central to our passage today are themes of slavery and dominion. Paul holds that we are all enslaved by something, and he reduces these to just two alternatives: slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness. At first hearing this seems too simple, for surely we are capable of both good and bad. Are we not, then, sometimes ‘enslaved’ by the temptation to do the wrong thing and sometimes freed to do the right thing? It seems Paul needs more ‘balance’ in his account of how we are and how we behave. ‘Balancing’ Paul is what many of his readers spend a good deal of time trying to do.

But this is to miss the force of ‘slavery’, and then to miss what Paul means by righteousness. ‘Slaves’ are subject only to one master; vacillating between masters is not an option. If Paul is consistent here, and we know that we are capable of both good and bad, then both bad and good works on our part fall under the one heading – under the one slavery – which would be Paul’s ‘slavery to sin’. This is where most of us part company with him, and also with his gospel, because for us ‘doing the right thing’ is the meaning not of sin but of righteousness.

Yet, to speak of righteousness as simply doing the right thing lands us back where we were last week. There we considered our tendency to justify sin in terms of its necessity: if I had to do it, then it is not sin, and so in accord with what God commands. This is a negative approach to righteousness – our defence against a charge of having done wrong.

A positive approach to righteousness would to be to do what God has commanded because God has commanded it, for it is a ‘safe’ thing to do. If asked by the Judge why we did such and such, we can happily point to where it is commanded in the law.

Yet, in either case – whether defending ourselves against a charge of unrighteousness, or claiming righteousness for having worked according to God’s law – the law we point to to justify ourselves is external to the relationship we have to God. That is, the law stands between us as a barrier to be overcome, or as a third party with whom we have to check before we and God know that we are in positive relation to each other. If we imagine, then, that we are sometimes slaves to sin and sometimes slaves to righteousness, we end up keeping a balance sheet, seeking to ensure that we are in the black. This kind of righteousness might impress the locals but it places divine commands and our efforts to meet them between us and God as something in their own right, as something by which even God is bound.

Nowhere in such a dynamic is God the God who justifies sinners, for we are constantly required to justify ourselves with reference to the law and God’s hands are tied by this. This means that good news for those who cannot write their own good news is entirely erased.

The stark contrasts Paul draws – between grace and works, Adam and Christ, death and life, sin and righteousness – have their energy in a radical re-imagination of what it means to stand before God. Righteousness is not what we do or can justify to defend ourselves against God. For Paul there is no defence against God, and there is no need to defend ourselves. Righteousness is, rather, what God does to bring justification and relationship with God.

The law is not erased, but neither is it God’s reference point when considering us. In Paul’s terms, being right with God by doing the right thing is displaced from our spiritual imagination with ‘faith’. This is not mere belief – believing for example that God ‘exists’ or that God wants us to do certain things. Faith here is openness to God’s gift of life and blessing, as a simple gift.

The good life – the life of doing good – is still part of our calling, but it is now no longer our way into God but our way ‘out of’ or from God. Good works move from grace, and do not now seek to secure it. Good works, then, become a repetition of grace.

We give richly because we have received richly. We give to liberate and not to bind. We give, in mercy, what is needed but has not been earned.

In all this life flows from grace, with grace, for the purposes of grace. This is God’s gift and call.

Let us then, not from compulsion or anxiety but in joy and freedom, receive the gift and answer the call, that we might become what God gives us.

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Pentecost 3
21/6/2020

Romans 6:1b-11
Psalm 86
Matthew 10:24-39

In a sentence
To free us from necessary sin, God kills us in order that we might know the freedom of Jesus

The thing about sin, not immediately obvious to most sinners, is that the sinner will generally argue that it is ‘necessary’ that the wrong thing be done. We rationalise what we do – perhaps especially when we have knowingly done the wrong thing – and in this way we make wrong-doing necessary, unavoidable. If it is unavoidable, we cannot fairly be held to account for our actions. This is the genius of the accomplished sinner.

And so it becomes justifiable to kneel on a man’s neck so heavily and so long that he dies, for he was potentially a dangerous man; and riots and looting are a justifiable response to that calculation, for surely they have put us down for too long; and sending in the troops to ‘dominate’ the streets is surely justifiable because perhaps the looting is not justifiable after all. This is a chain of ‘if-then’ connections: if I don’t do this bad thing, worse things will happen. If I do do this bad thing, then worse things won’t happen. I am not free here, my hand is being forced. If it is sin, it is also necessary.

This applies in any scenario when we feel we need to justify to ourselves or to someone else a decision we have made: spending more on your next car than you really need to, indulging in online porn or not going to church on Sundays (when that is health-safe!). We have rational justifications by which we seek to persuade the judge, the Twittersphere or God that the agreed rules of engagement made it necessary that we did what we did.

We might even add: if God would only make it that our hands were not tied in this way, then we would not have to sin. In the passage we have heard from Romans today, Paul proposes that God indeed frees us from the necessity of doing the wrong thing.

How? God frees us by killing us. God’s liberation is as strange as this.

Today’s passage from Paul has him in mid-flight through a rather complex account of the human condition, around the themes of sin, law and death. At the centre is that God gives us a death linked to the death of Jesus. It is this death which liberates us.

Death is a useful metaphor here because if there is one thing we can say about the dead, it is that they are free of necessity. The dead truly can do nothing, and so truly need do nothing.

The only thing the dead can do is what they are told – either ‘stay dead’ (which is fairly straightforward) – or, in the instance of creation or resurrection, ‘stop being dead’. Having no other option, the dead must rise if there is one who can bring this about, for they can put no argument that they need to do something else. The ‘freedom of Jesus’ is that he, being properly dead, is then in a position to be raised from the dead at God’s command. Jesus being raised is now, surprisingly, simply a matter of obedience.

Paul argues: you must die in the same way, so that you might be raised to a newness of life – dead to the necessities of sin, and alive to God. Surprisingly, being dead to having to justify our actions corresponds to being alive to the freedom of Jesus.

In the life-and-death of Jesus, we are given a humanity which does not have to justify itself. For there is no longer any reference point outside of the God who commands, who addresses. And so there is no means by which we can test that we have done the right thing, no third party justification for not obeying.

Of course, we want such points of reference and will scarcely give them up. We might comfort ourselves with the justification that ‘blacks’ deserve to be treated that way, or that white privilege and affluence justifies rioting and looting, or that peace demands sending in the troops. But this doesn’t work. In this situation, and in all other cycles of violence and retribution, there is always another ‘necessity’ which arises from another point of view, out of the now changed circumstances, justifying more violation.

What does all this mean?

For Christians it means that violence does not justify violence, whether it is the crushing of a possibly dangerous man, the trashing of the shops of the privileged or the threat of violence from armed soldiers. Acting inhumanely – sinfully – has no justification.

But it also means that having power and privilege does not mean that these cannot be shared. It means that wealth – which we think must necessarily be guarded – can be given away. We cannot justify the great differences in power and privilege which cause others to calculate justifications for sin.

It is when the alleged necessities which serve as self-justification are allowed to fall away that the unexpected possibilities of freedom suddenly open up, that grace begins its work. It is to this freedom in grace that Paul calls us.

But let us also understand that letting go of ‘justified’ sin doesn’t mean that very much is likely to change in the wider world. Or we might say that as much will change as changed with the crucifixion of Jesus. Grace is not a ‘method’, is not a means to a calculated end. Means-to-ends are calculations, rationalisations: if this, then that.

Grace certainly brings freedom. Yet, though it might free me, you may not yet be free. This makes you dangerous and can lead to such things as well-rationalised crucifixions: ‘it is better that one die than that the whole people be lost’ (John 11.50).

Grace brings freedom but does not know what happens next. This is because the freedom is a freedom to respond to the command of God: Sleepers awake, rise from the dead. Obediently responding to this call, we then wait to hear what we are to do next.

Dead to all rationalisations of sin, we are free to do what is right, for God’s sake and for the sake of those wait to see God’s righteousness working through us.

Let us, rise and respond, presenting ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. For sin has no dominion over us, no argument by which to persuade us not to live the rich and free humanity God commands.

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Pentecost 2
14/6/2020

1 Peter 5:6-14
Psalm 116
Matthew 9:35-10:8

In a sentence
1 Peter calls Christians to an extraordinary life of service

[‘]Set all hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring; be holy; love one another deeply; rid yourselves of all malice; let yourselves be built into a spiritual house; abstain from fleshly desires; conduct yourselves honourably; live as free people; have unity of spirit, sympathy and love, a tender heart and humble mind; do not repay evil for evil; sanctify Christ as Lord; keep your conscience clear; live no longer by earthly desires but by the will of God; be hospitable; speak and act as stewards of God’s grace; entrust yourself to the faithful creator; humble yourselves, cast all anxiety on God, resist the devil.[’]

The ‘charge’ Peter puts to his people is nothing less than, ‘Be extraordinary’. Know what you are, and become that ‘thing’. You are of God, in Christ; Be then what you are, where you are.

In this, Peter calls his people not to the ‘ten-million-views-on-YouTube’ type of extraordinary which dominates our sense of the marvellous today – the freak event, the apparently miraculous timing, or the just plain stupid. Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is a call to change our sense of what is ordinary, our sense of what is proper and appropriate.

We learn a sense for what is appropriate in the home, at school, in our engagements at work and through other aspects of human society. And much of that is very good. Yet Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is not, ‘Be what you have learned to be from the breast,’ but rather, ‘Be as Jesus was’, whose death seemed to his killers to be just what they had long learned to be appropriate. For Jesus’ death was, in this way, an entirely ordinary thing. It was just the cogs in the machine of one particular human society grinding on, producing what that machine is supposed to produce, which includes not a little death of things insufficiently ‘ordinary’ or appropriate, the death of who does not fit, of who is not valued.

Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is a call to be willing to be Jesus, in your own particular time and place. And do not be surprised, he reminds them, that it is hard work. There is death in the machine and you can’t fix it. But even if you can’t fix it, you don’t have to fear it, or be forced by it to be less than God calls you to be. A fearless life is not necessarily a long one, or even a wholly ‘happy’ one. It is simply a life which knows where we have come from and what we are here for.

We have come from the God who calls us unto being. This is not a mere calling into existence. It is the call issued to those capable of hearing and responding (or not). We are when we respond. Peter’s people have heard this call, have received themselves from God through Jesus, and now see themselves in the work of Jesus. Here is the new and better ordinary.

We are here, then, that we might become that new ordinary, that ‘extra’-ordinary. We are here as an answer to the question, ‘Where is God?’ We usually ask this question in such a way as to imagine that the answer might be, ‘Oh, God’s just over there…’ Peter’s answer is that God is ‘there’ in the life of Jesus, and wherever that life finds an echo in our lives. God is present in humble acceptance, in the gentle word, in the grace which releases. God is ‘there’ when God’s people speak and act ‘as if the God of grace’, as we saw last week. Do these things, for the remembrance of me.

To know what we are – that we are of the God of grace – and to become this – humble yet fearless, merciful yet strong – this is God’s call to us in Peter’s letter.

It’s all rather simple, then. We have a charge to keep.

Let us, then, humble ourselves, cast our cares on God, keep alert and resist the constant temptation to be any less than the very good God seeks in us.

And may we find that this is enough.

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Trinity Sunday
7/6/2020

Isaiah 53:4-6
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon preached by Rev. Dr Rob Gallacher

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lockdown has meant getting into overfull cupboards and sorting old notes and memorabilia. Here is one incident I recalled from 35 years ago, or more.

A professional lady of middle years, who had broken with her family and rejected her faith was telling me all the things that were wrong with her parents. Suddenly she stopped, and asked, “What do you think of my mother?” In retrospect, I see that question as a significant step. She had been constructing a world out of her own prejudice and her own resources. Now she was opening herself to something other, another perspective. Let us speculate that she saw me as God’s representative. That would mean that she was wanting the heavenly parent she thought she didn’t believe in to make comment on the relationship with her earthly parent which had caused he much suffering.

Caught on the hop I said the first words that came into my head; “I see your mother as a person who, in the midst of her own pain, has the capacity to reach out and care for others”. I did not realise at the time, how Christlike that sounds. During the agony of the cross, Jesus prays for the soldiers “Father forgive them”, he comforts the thief “Today you will be with me in paradise” and he tells his mother and the beloved disciple to look after each other, “Woman, here is your son”.

Now, the third part. I did get some feedback from this encounter. A different spirit pervaded the conversations after this exchange. Mother and daughter were able to tread on the holy ground of their fraught relationship. I don’t know where my words came from, but I believe that the Holy Spirit was able to use them as a witness to Christ and to move the people in a godly direction.

We can use the three parts of this incident to penetrate further into the experience of God as Trinity.

1. The lady who asked for the opinion of another about her parent represents a society that is trying to alleviate its suffering out of its own resources. We use advanced technology, accept only evidence based research, and bow to the autonomy of scientific data. All good. Yet our troubles don’t seem to be getting any less, – not judging by the appeals that keep landing on my desk anyway. We are even asking the question, “What kind of Australia do we want when this present coronavirus crisis is past?” But we are not asking “How might our heavenly parent view our efforts?” We have a special opportunity to reflect on how God as creator suffers with the pain felt by God’s own creatures, and why we employ the word “Father” to describe God’s concern. If the belief that the earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24:1) were more widespread there might be some hope for the powers that be to do something about caring for the environment. Climate change is more than a threat to our grandchildren. It is hurtful to God the giver of life, the Father who sees each sparrow fall.
2. The words, “In the midst of his own pain, Christ reached out to care for others” put our present suffering into perspective. In trouble, say, you receive a plate of scones or bunch of flowers from your church congregation. The significance is greater than the gift. Coming from the people with whom you break bread at the Eucharist, those gifts carry a message – The God who bears the pain of the world suffers with you, and Christ, through the sacrament particularly, is present with you, uniting you with the suffering love that is at the heart of God. Athanasius, in the 4^th century, put it, “In Christ God became human so that we might become divine.” Our word is “sanctification”, though I haven’t heard it much lately. It means allowing the Spirit to show you how Christ is with you, bringing you into the embrace of the caring Father. In our present imperfect state we are invited to participate in the life of the heavenly community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and then to recreate that kind of community here – “Your kingdom come on earth as in heaven”.

3. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that can move you from isolation to community, from estrangement to reconciliation, from meaningless pain to participation in the life of God the Father, through Christ the Son. The Spirit of God can teach you how to walk gently on Holy Ground.

What I am emphasising this morning is that to know God is to experience Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one unified episode. While we speak of three persons, it is one God, one unified experience. It is often in our suffering that the closeness of the suffering, caring God is experienced. Isaiah knew this when he wrote about the suffering servant. “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases”. This is the God who hears the cry of the people, and inspires someone to act. This is the creator father who saw all was good, but now grieves for what humankind is doing. This is God the Son who embodies suffering love that we might dwell in the Father. This is God the advocate, who witnesses to the Son and the Father, and who enables us to talk about our experience of God with each other.

In so far as we can do this we become God’s new creation, an earthly community in the image of the divine community of Father, Son and Spirit, where each dwells in the other and all work in unity.

There are several disclaimers I need to make.

All this is not to advocate the seeking of suffering. The prayer of Jesus “Let this cup (of suffering) pass from me is very important.

The discovery that the living God is present with you if you do suffer becomes an occasion for joy.

While suffering can be a way to know God, it is not the only way. The sense of the presence of God may come as you hear the Word, practise prayer, experience self-giving love, and so on.

As you journey on in your knowing God, your attempts to conceptualise this mystery at the heart of God will become less clear. God is so much bigger than our capacity to understand. Words are replaced by a sense of awe.

The formula Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not completely adequate. God is not contained within any name. But this is the best Christians can do. The threefold name keeps us in touch with the church from New Testament times, and in fellowship with the Church in its many forms around the world.

Matthew concludes his gospel with the triune name, and makes it a gospel imperative to baptise and teach in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Paul uses the formula in another way, to assure us that the grace-filled presence of the Trinity is with all of us.

So, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.