Shall we go on sinning?

"What should we do? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?"

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, 

and a daughter against her mother, 

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 

and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household."

To a nation divided against itself, Jesus might say “Today this very difficult and troubling gospel is fulfilled in your hearing. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear”. 

And to baptized Christians obliviously lost in sin, Paul derisively says “Now that we are baptized, what shall we do? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?”

This week I was surprised, saddened and disappointed at a posting on social media that pictured a white man saying

“Have you ever noticed? 

The police leave you alone 

if you aren’t doing anything illegal”. 

It was a snapshot of obliviousness, glibly, flippantly dismissing, tossing off without caring enough even to try and understand the running-scared life that black Americans are protesting.

On Fathers’ Day my mind is on Saint Paul’s bristling sarcastic impatience with Christians in Rome: "Now that we are baptized, should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” 

That’s the profaning of baptism that Paul is railing against: What shall we do now that we’re baptized? Well, we love to sin, God loves to forgive sin, and we love being forgiven: so shall we keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? 

Paul confronts the absurd incredible: that after baptism, Christians do nothing but act out a song from the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar”

    

    Christ you know I love you. 

    Did you see I waved?

    I believe in you and God 

    So tell me that I'm saved.

a parody on ludicrous religion. 

Jesus is not about high and holy, Jesus is about Love, agapé, how we treat other people. Paul confronts human sin that we do not even see in ourselves, sins unknown, oblivious to deeply-embedded, systemic evil: sin, over-against the Life in Christ that in our baptismal covenant we vow to live. As with Black Lives Matter protests that continue to rock America, if Paul’s correction burn is unceasing, unrelenting, perhaps eventually the Romans will “get it”, and maybe we will too.

Do you believe? Our Creed is not what we believe about Jesus. Our Creed is Life, our Creed is Attitude, our Creed is Obliviousness, how we tolerate our fellow Americans being treated. 

How America treats people of color is not behind some political fence that’s out of God's sight and none of God’s business. Status Confessionis: Black Lives Matter is a gospel imperative for every Christian, and if we fail in it, we show ourselves not members of the household of Christ, but disciples of Beelzebul.

“Do you believe?” Well and good, but we are not baptized into belief, we are baptized out of the death of sin into the Life of Christ. Life is real, Life is what we think and say and do. Paul demands to know: “How can we who died to sin go on living in sin?”

Do we strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? 

Ask your black neighbor.

The Epistle

Romans 6:1-11

What should we do? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The Gospel

Matthew 10:24-39

Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, 

and a daughter against her mother, 

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 

and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”