Death and Life

One of the lectionary selections for this Sunday, 19 June Romans 6:1-11. I preached on this passage earlier this year (27 Feb. to be exact) as part of a Lenten deries entitled "A New Look at an Old Faith," attempting to look at Paul's writing in Romans with fresh eyes.

Scripture: Romans 6:1-14

One of my three favorite books as I stand on the cusp of thirty is Life After God by Canadian author Douglas Coupland – thanks to whom those of us born in the United States between the early/mid 1960s to the mid/late 1970s have been pegged Generation X. In Life After God, Coupland presents a series of vignettes whose characters grapple with the existential realities of what it means to be the first generation raised without God. In the last vignette, which shares its title with the book itself, the primary character, Scout, recounts his life; by the end, he is at the end of his rope, and has called in sick to his job for a couple of weeks. As the story closes, Scout finds himself in the woods, sitting at the edge of a flowing creek, reflecting on the transitory things which he has tried to find life’s meaning in. In the final two paragraphs, Scout confesses he needs God as he enters the flowing water, letting it wash over him; he needs God so that his life can have meaning again; he needs God so he can have something to strive for, so that his ways of pursuing false idols may die. The reader, in effect, becomes a witness to Scouts baptism, and his pledge to walk on a new path.

For a moment, reflect upon your own baptism, or the stories that may have been told to you about your baptism, or even that moment you felt awash in the presence of God. I myself was baptized by full immersion in a church that was so big that its primary service each Sunday was broadcast locally throughout the area. I don’t remember the exact words the minister said as I entered the baptismal pool (after all, it was a production made for television), but I remember the words he said as I was being submerged, “… to be buried with Christ unto death…,” and I arose from the water, “… and to walk again in newness of life.”

As I reflect back upon this now, I hear the theme echoed in my own baptismal vows echoed in this morning’s selected reading from Romans 6. Paul in recent years has been seen as a champion for right wing theology, supposedly advocating such things as the discrimination against women and queer folk, among other things. As I was trained in my younger days to testify to people about God’s salvation for humanity through Jesus, we quoted one verse from the gospels, that being John 3:16, while the remaining verses were all from Romans, such as 3:23 (“…for all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God…”), and 6:23 (“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”). However fundamentalist these passages sound, there are verses in Romans that are championed by those on the theological left, such as chapter 12, which can be summed up in verse 21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good;” or 13:9-10 wherein Paul says “[All the commandments] are summed up in this word: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds good to me; and such passages help me more fully appreciate the entire book of Romans more fully. Paul was as popular then and now because he was a master of rhetoric; and what he says in the negative in one part of Romans, he reinforces in the positive later. For me, the primary theme in Romans is that as Christians, we are to live in right relation with and in accordance to God’s grace and love.

As Paul begins the discourse he embarks upon in chapter six, he names the tension believers both then today feel as Christians, as being strangers in a strange land: “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?” Once we have been touched by the hand of God’s grace, does that mean we should continue living in our old ways so we can experience God’s saving grace again and again? Of course, the answer is a resounding no.

Paul continues: “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 that we too might walk in newness of life.” According to Paul, the baptismal rite is a simulation of Christ’s death and resurrection. As we enter the baptismal waters, or as they are sprinkled upon us, the ways of death are to wash away, and we are to share in the joy of Christ’s resurrection. Indeed, Paul contends that our old self is crucified with Christ so that we no longer be enslaved to our old ways of being; we are called to consider ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Wow! To say this is an intense theology of baptism is an understatement. I know that when I was baptized at age ten, I had no comprehension of this; and I assert that the quickest way to return to our Puritan/Congregational roots would be to instill and raise kids and new converts… Could you imagine saying to a three year old, “The desires of your flesh have been crucified with Christ, and now behave accordingly.”

How do we begin to look at this passage from Paul with new eyes? Whether or not we have been baptized by water, we all have experienced God in different ways… a walk on the beach… the giggle of small children… holding hands with your partner… driving across country with a friend. Paul is asking us to remember God’s grace, and act according to that grace. As Paul says, we have been brought from death to life. May God’s grace rule in our hearts, so that we are able to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, and to each other.

Amen.