So, today’s epistle lesson from Romans is a tricky one, right? It is so convoluted and challenging to read that I didn’t think I could come up with an appropriate title for the sermon. Probably the best title for a preacher like me with a text like this is: “The Mystery of God”—very Reformed, very Presbyterian, very Barthian—three things I love very much. When we talk about the mystery of God we are talking about a God who is both known and yet unknown. A God who desires a relationship with humanity and at the same time is greater than anything we humans can conceive of—that is the mystery of God. How this works out in our brains is something theologians and pastors have been wrestling with since Jesus first lived and died and lived again. A theology professor of mine writes in his book The Mystery of God: "Without the appeal to mystery, theology would devolve into nothing more than an ideological support for the biases of one's own community. By the same token, without some positive, christological content, the appeal to mystery would evaporate into the silent pondering of the void" (TMOG, 2). There is a wonderful statement by Karl Barth about this very subject: “As theologians we ought to speak of God. We are, however, human beings and as such cannot speak of God. We ought to recognize both our obligation and our inability—and precisely in that recognition, give God the glory. This is our affliction. Everything else is mere child’s play” (TMOG, 1).

 

I read a lot—quite a bit, actually. I read a little bit of everything from newspapers and magazines to commentaries and books on theology. I read science fiction. I read non-fiction books about science. I read the Bible. I think it is good for pastors to read. I think it is good for everyone to read! I have been interested in science books for a long time. Really, any science book will do—chemistry, biology, physics. I really enjoy exploring how things work, why they work, what that means for us as human beings, and how that shapes our understanding of and belief in God. For me, advances in science and technology illustrate the very mystery of God—they are proof enough for me that God is active and at work in the universe and that we need God. Yet, too often we feel the urge to intellectualize, to overly explain, or to find answers when indeed we simply need to have faith. Episcopal priest, writer, gourmet, and theologian Robert Farrar Capon writes: “We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations . . . with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don't. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is.”

 

“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? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” In our particular lectionary text for today, an understanding of the mystery of God is explored as Paul wrestles with the idea of sin and the law. These last verses of our pericope are really the crux of Paul’s argument. We are, all of us, flawed and sin-filled creatures. We all fall short of the glory of God. Whether we have cheated on a test or cheated on a spouse, whether we have ignored the cries of someone in need or ignored our responsibilities at work. We are not above sin. What saves us from a life of sin, in fact, the only thing that saves us from a life of sin is God’s grace. What saves us is Jesus Christ.  

 

I like Barth’s idea that we are “afflicted.” We have a sort of flaw that makes us quite self-righteous, quite haughty. We believe that we can conquer sin on our own. We believe that we are above sin. We understand all there is to know about this mysterious God. We ignore God. Sometimes, we cease believing in God. The danger of our affliction as I see it in this scientifically and technologically advanced 21^st century of ours is to believe that we don’t need God or God’s mystery to get by, to survive, to thrive, to evolve. But we do. We really do. "As in the Reformed tradition, the church as well as theology lives under the banner ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, the church reformed always in the process of being reformed, soscience, too, is always being reformed. Understanding of truth, therefore, is always incomplete,somewhat inadequate, even contradictory at points, and always open to revision. While both inscience and theology we can conceive of truth as ultimate, in our finitude we cannot know thetruth either finally or absolutely. Therefore, in science as in theology, we live by faith and not bysight" (http://www.pcusa.org/.../dialogue.pdf). We think we are so smart, so advanced. We certainly don’t need a God to tell us how to live or behave. We can be ethical, good creatures. We can be kind to one another. We don’t need a Bible or church or pastor to tell us how to live. It is a dangerous and slippery slope, my friends. Because, ultimately, there is no real joy in having figured everything out or in thinking that it has all been sorted out. The thought that life on earth, as we know it is as good as it gets is a rather depressing and hopeless state of being. And it is hubris. Certainly hubris is a sin of monumental proportion. And that takes me back to my original thoughts on this text from Romans, chapter 7. The error, the sin that seems to be instilled in us, in human beings is pride and arrogance. What sets us free from this compulsion to sin is relationship with Jesus Christ. And isn't that the point that Paul makes in Romans 7? There is the acknowledgment that sin dwells within each one of us, and this becomes an inward focus. We are so worried about ourselves and our immediate circle of family and friends that we fail to get beyond the myopia of self-interest. But then there is the reality that sin is overcome by the knowledge that Jesus Christ has won for us victory over sin and death--an outward focus. If we spend too much time thinking about how much we know, how much we sin, how much it doesn't matter to us--whatever--then we remain bound to our sinful nature, bound to that part of the law. If we turn the focus outside of ourselves, if we are able to find delight in Jesus Christ, if we recognize that it is God's grace that sets us free, then, in this freedom, we are able to look outside of ourselves and focus on the needs of others. To clothe the naked, to heal the sick, to set the captives free. I don't mean something as trite as "what would Jesus do" and then try to do that, but to truly ponder the life changing greatness and significance that is a life in Christ and to endeavor to do something worthy of a gracious and loving God like ours. My words fall short of being able to eloquently state this clearly...but I think Karl Barth had a pretty good sense of this idea 50 years ago: "We can sum it all up by saying that what God wants of us and of all [people] is that we should believe in Jesus Christ. Not that we should believe like Jesus Christ--that aspect is better left on one side seeing that He is God and we are only [human beings]--but that we should believe in Jesus Christ, in the gracious action of God actualized and revealed in [Jesus Christ]. The essence of faith is simply to accept as right what God does, to do everything and all things on the presupposition that God's action is accepted as right. That is why it can and must be said of faith that in and by it we are righteous before God. In the last resort, the apostles had only one answer to the question: "What are [people] to do?" This was simply that they should believe, believe in Jesus Christ. All the answers of theological ethics to the same question can only paraphrase and confirm the imperative: "Seek those things which are above, where Christ is." (CD, II.2, 583). Seek those things which are above, where Christ is.

 

Believe it or not, at this point, I am quite ready to end the sermon. I am flying in my comfort zone--we've read some gorgeously complex scripture, we've read a little Barth. I really do enjoy the pondering. But that doesn't do much for us as we prepare ourselves for the Lord's Supper, as we prepare to go out into the word. What comes next? What do we do now as this particular community of believers called St. Philip Presbyterian Church? We live in a complicated world. There are so many things pulling at us--family obligations whatever they may be, our jobs, our friends, our own limited interests. And that, brothers and sisters, is the inward focus. You've heard these questions before: what is St. Philip Presbyterian Church going to be as it moves into a new reality with new pastoral leadership? And it will be a new reality, friends. Is this church going to remain focused on the people who sit here in these pews right now or is it going to begin to look outward, to peer outside itself and into a different kind of future? A future in which you are focused not on the number of kids in your youth group but on the number of kids you have fed through some amazing mission project that hasn't even been thought of yet? A future in which you are focused not on worrying about how well you can lock up and secure this building, but on how often this building can be left open and used by groups and projects outside the church? A future in which you are focused not on why you can't have a new child development center and building but on the incredible possibilities for mission and outreach a child development center will surely bring to this congregation. I can't answer these questions for you, but I can continue to encourage you to face your future boldly and with enthusiasm and with commitment and with love. The love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. "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? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Amen.

 

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Bibliography

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, The Doctrine of God, Volume II.2. T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1957.

Johnson, William Stacy. The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology. Westminster John Knox: Louisville, KY, 1996.