Part II: Theological Proclamation and Teaching
Present a sermon you preached related to the situation you’ve described, or compose a sermon indicating how you might preach in that situation.
I want to talk about Guilt this week.
Guilt is so common
Lutheran Guilt
Catholic Guilt
Jewish Guilt
Buddhists & Hindus have the idea of Karma
which I think would be worse, feeling guilty over something that happened in a previous life
But being a Christian just can’t be about feeling guilty all the time
I just can’t believe that’s how God operates
No, Guilt itself is not a very helpful or uplifting thing
It makes us feel terrible
It reveals to us that we can never live up to being the people that God created us to be
That sinking feeling in your stomach or the lump in your throat when you realize that you just keep falling short is not pleasant
In fact, Guilt can have only one good purpose
to drive us to seek God’s grace
That is the simple fact of God’s grace, that we don’t deserve it but God gives it anyway.
I’m not alone in this idea
St. Paul happens to agree with me (well, I agree with him anyway)
6:21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.
6:22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.
6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul uses the word “ashamed” instead of “feeling guilty” which is a slightly different concept.
His culture, and Roman culture was more oriented toward Shame
What other people think
We tend to be more oriented toward Guilt
Evaluating our actions against an absolute sense of “right”
For us to understand this in our context, we need to be a bit free with the translation.
“What advantage did you then get from the things about which you now feel guilty?”
Paul is describing here as being a “slave to sin” has a dual meaning.
Not just about sinning
Carrying around guilt – not believing God’s Grace is for you too
That’s also being a slave to sin.
The two things are actually inextricably linked
In fact, to operate under the false assumption that we can somehow earn our salvation by doing good deeds or avoiding sinning is the biggest sin of all
In medieval times they called it Pride
To say that we can earn salvation is to say that Christ died for nothing
It is to say that we don’t need God
And as Paul points out, then we are still enslaved to sin.
Think about that last line because Paul is making an important distinction
6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wages are what you deserve for your days work
When you get your paycheck, you don’t run to your boss and profusely thank him or her for the generous gift of money.
Grumble about how small it is
Because wages are what we have earned
So the only wage we can possibly earn in life is death
Because everything we do is tinged with our own sinful selfishness
Even if you live a perfect pious life,
isn’t that just a selfish attempt to earn your own salvation?
We can never earn God’s grace
But the radical and amazing good news is that we don’t have to
Even if our only deserved wage is death
God gives us life as a free gift
6:15 What then? [Paul Writes] Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
It’s easy to get caught up at this point, or to assume that Grace doesn’t work, so we should still pretend that we earn our eternal reward.
How does Grace work?
Personal story – Grace to do the dishes
Disclaimer: I don’t think that not washing your dishes is a sin. I just want to use this as an example of how easy it is to get pulled in to that sense of Guilt and how much accepting God’s grace can turn us around. I can be this neurotic but this story is also slightly exaggerated for comedic effect.
A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in my kitchen staring at a sink full of dirty dishes.
I felt completely paralyzed, “How could I let it get this bad?”.
I like to cook at home, so in any given day I produce a few dirty dishes and cups.
I had let it get out of hand and in that moment,
after a tiring day,
I was staring at a sink of dishes and feeling like my life had spiraled out of control.
Obviously I was overreacting, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Sometimes we all hit a point where we drop the ball on something minor and it feels like everything is falling apart.
I was wracked with guilt.
So what was my response,
did that guilt empower me to get those dishes done?
No, I retreated into the living room and turned on the TV,
I’d just try not to think about it.
But I couldn’t ignore it.
I started thinking of all sorts of other things that I fell short on,
the times I had said the wrong thing and hurt someone.
That time in the 5th grade when I had cheated on a math test.
Oh and didn’t I need to do laundry too?
Finally, I buried my head in my hands and closed my eyes and I prayed
“Oh God, please take this guilt away, I am so sorry, take this burden don’t let me stay enslaved to this feeling of guilt. Forgive me!”
And then I thought about Jesus,
about how God had lived in our midst and knew what human life was like first hand.
How he had submitted himself to be crucified, and showed us the depth of his love.
If God would do that for me, I know that he will forgive me for this.
And just like that, the guilt was gone. I felt alive again, invigorated.
Did I turn back to the TV,
happy in the feeling that it was ok to have dirty dishes because I knew that God had forgiven me?
Heck no! I got up and cleaned up those dishes right away, I even did the laundry after that.
That’s part of the power of God’s Grace. Once we realize that it is for us, we are freed from being a slave to sin (As Paul puts it)
Not necessary freed from the consequences of our past actions
But freed from the guilt and regret
We become bound to righteousness
And God fill us with life and inspires us to work in the world
To make things right
Not to earn something
remember, all we can earn is death
But in gracious response to the amazing gift of eternal life
So for your homework this week, I want you to practice this:
When you feel that sinking feeling, that lump of guilt in your throat
Even if it’s for something as silly as not doing the dishes
Stop and immediately pray to God for forgiveness
Really do it
Ask God to take that sin and guilt and turn it around
And believe it,
God will forgive you
6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Amen
(Soli Deo Gloria)
Following your sermon, write an essay in which you explain how the text that you used addresses the situation and what you intended to do in your preaching. How did you seek to engage the situation in your preaching? Describe how your preparation was informed and motivated by the situation. Indicate what matters to you and to your audience as you undertake the work of exegesis and other tasks of preparation.
This particular text is an interesting one. At it’s heart I think it is about Grace, and yet it could so easily be twisted into works-righteousness. Even though Paul is explicit, writing “we are not under law but under grace” and “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”, he is also trying to address the problem of so-called “cheap grace”. I think the way he addresses this is by a focus on Conversion and Sanctification, that is, being freed from Sin through Grace and becoming a slave to God. I chose to tell a somewhat lighthearted story to express this idea rather than talk about Conversion or Sanctification, because I think those terms are loaded or confusing for many people, especially those who are new to church.
I preached this sermon at my internship site, so that context was the primary consideration. I have found that clear and focused sermons work best with this congregation, so I chose to stick with a single text. The previous week, we had had a guest preacher raising money for an organization called “Food for the poor” who had preached a very heavy handed sermon with dubious theology, so part of my intention was to heal the hurt that he had caused and focus on a word of Grace.
In terms of exegetical work, I focused mainly on the logic and flow of the passage rather than word study or context. The context of Paul’s audience in Rome is very similar to our current context. Roman society was highly cosmopolitan and religiously pluralistic. He was writing to a mixed group of Jews and Gentile converts which closely parallels today’s mixed audience of longtime members and new “seekers”. Because this particular passage talks so much about sin and righteousness I think it is easy to miss the central point and get the opposite impression of Paul’s intention.
My primary intention with every sermon is to help the hearers make a connection between the scripture that they’ve heard and their own lives. At the same time, I also always try include a basic outline of the theology of the cross. I agree with Luther that the cross is the key to scripture, and I think it’s worth mentioning in almost every sermon. To me, that must also include mention of the incarnation. I do this for two reasons. First, because there may be a first time visitor hearing it, and they deserve to hear the Gospel proclaimed in clear and simple language that isn’t overly “churchy”. The second reason is that lifelong Christians still need to be reminded about the core of their faith. During my internship I have had a few conversations with older people who have been Lutheran their entire lives and I am amazed that some of them still seem to have a works-righteousness based theology.
