Under Construction, Part 3: Wired for Power

Romans 8:1-11

There have been times during this chancel renovation project when it feels like nothing is happening. Every morning I come in and open the sanctuary door with anticipation. And there have been days when I would see – well, nothing new. Day after day it looked the same. Like nothing was happening.

But something was happening, actually: the wiring. All kinds of work was going on under the surface to wire us for power. 

We have electrical outlets, and audio connections for speakers and microphones. We have special outlets for the organ to be plugged in when it arrives. And wiring that will all be needed for the organ to play. So much was happening under the surface. As it happens in life, many critical works are hidden from our eyes.

Such as the work of the Spirit. 

We don’t see the Spirit of God. We hardly know what to say about this third person of the Trinity. We think of her as breath, as wind – and I say her because the Hebrew word for spirit, ruach, is feminine. The Spirit blows where she will. As Jesus says to the Pharisee Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

In the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans, Paul conveys to us that it is the presence of the Spirit of God that marks us as Christ’s own. Because where the Spirit is, Christ is also.

And just as we can see the effect of the wiring by the sounds that it will enable, we can see the effect of the Spirit by the life she enables.

Paul contrasts the life of the Spirit with the life of the flesh, using language that, unfortunately, is easy to misunderstand. You might infer from it that anything that gives pleasure is sinful. Eating good food, dancing to beautiful music, playing games – and throughout history there have been faith communities that have drawn that line, saying bodily pleasure is, by definition, sinful. Some Christian communities have banned dancing. Some have prohibited singing anything other than the Psalms. Some have even tried to ban enjoyment of food, by making food so bland and tasteless, who could enjoy it?

But that’s not what Paul is talking about. What Paul means here is something a bit more nuanced. When he speaks of the flesh, he is not referring to our physical bodies, but rather our orientation to the world, to life. The life of the flesh is a life turned inward so that the self becomes the center of everything, and the central priority is consuming pleasure. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,” Paul writes. The life of the flesh is a life of idolatry, where one’s own pleasure takes the place of God.

It sounds kind of crazy, extreme, and it certainly can be. For that reason, it is a real danger. It is important for people of faith to examine ourselves for signs that we may be turning inward in these ways. 

Even Christians sometimes choose the flesh – that is, choose to trade in God’s care over us for sin’s control – which is choosing a kind of spiritual death.

God did not make us for the life of the flesh, as Paul sees it. God offers us new life in the Spirit.

The life in the Spirit, in contrast, is to be set free from bondage to sin and self. To be in Christ and to receive the Spirit is to turn your life over to God, and to turn your life over to God is a freedom unlike anything else. Because we understand here that we are not doing any of this under our own power – it is the power of the Spirit.

The transforming work of the Spirit changes us, allowing us to live according to the Spirit, set our mind on things of the Spirit. And perhaps surprisingly, this reorientation connects us with our world in a deeper way. For to live in the Spirit is to live not only for ourselves but for the community, for the world God created. 

Through Christ, God offers us this different kind of life – to live at peace with God and our neighbors. And that is a powerful thing.

The writer Walker Percy wrote a story that illuminates these ideas Paul is presenting. It is called The Thanatos Syndrome. It was the last book he wrote before he died. It’s a strange sort of sci-fi story where residents of a small town start changing, all in essentially the same ways. They are becoming duller. Their language becomes much simpler, with short, abrupt sentences, and an apparent inability to follow a logical flow of thought. Their speech is flat, lacking any emotional resonance. 

They appear to be losing their ability to care about anything other than base appetites. They are losing some of the essential qualities that make them human, regressing to a less-than-human state. And, it turns out, there is an enemy who is doing this to them.

It is, literally, something in the water. Chemicals are being added to the town’s water supply that are having these dulling effects. The intention is to create a more subdued and controllable populace. A people who are, as Paul might say, living in the flesh rather than the spirit.

What happens when we turn from the power of the Spirit? We become dull, thick. Not less intelligent, per se. Just less interested in the fullness of life that God offers. Maybe bored. And boredom can lead to more regression. 

This turning away from the Spirit and toward the life of the flesh causes the people in the story to be more placid about anything that is happening in their world. But the Spirit leads us in the opposite direction. The Spirit gives us power to rejoice in beauty and goodness, and power to reject evil, to resist evil in all its forms. Life in the Spirit gives us power to care for all life. 

For a person who is in the Spirit, it can be very disturbing to see signs of this kind of regression in the ones who lead us. Such as -

When our leadership presents a view of the world God made that we may not recognize, a world that is only “dog eat dog,” lethal competition. 

When our leaders speak and act as though there is no reason to care for someone who cannot do something for you, that everything in life is transactional. 

When our leaders prioritize self-interest at the expense of others, particularly when it comes at the expense of those they are entrusted with leading.

A life powered by the Spirit enables one to speak against these things, to resist these forms of evil. Our baptismal vows call upon us to renounce these and all forms of evil.

Here is a beautiful thing: A life powered by the Spirit enables us to see a different way, to live a different way. And in that living, to show others a different way.

picture: ChurchArt.com

Under Construction, Part 2: The Scaffolding

Psalm 100

Romans 5:1-8

Sometimes when you are doing a big construction or remodeling project, one of the first things you have to do is build scaffolding – a framework that enables you to work at high levels. The scaffolding provides the support you need while you are getting the work done. And then when you finish the work, you take the scaffolding down. Scaffolding is always meant to be temporary. 

For this chancel project we haven’t needed that kind of scaffolding, because the work has been pretty much at ground level. We did need it, however, a few years ago during the project to repair and refinish the sanctuary walls. You can see how high the walls are. Scaffolding was necessary.

Scaffolding is a familiar term in construction. But it is also used in education to describe the tools and processes that are useful in helping someone learn a new thing. Very often it involves bringing in a more advanced student to work with the new learner, to model the kind of behavior that is being taught. That more advanced person serves as human scaffolding for the other.

The idea is that when there is something that the learner cannot do on their own, you provide help for a while, until they have learned it well enough to work without the help. And when they reach that point, the scaffolding is no longer needed.

So with this in mind, I have been wondering about how we might need scaffolding in our life of faith. Are there kinds of scaffolding that help us to grow as disciples of Jesus?

In the letter to the Romans, Paul writes, through Christ we have obtained access to the grace of God, in which we now stand. In Eugene Peterson’s translation called The Message he writes it this way: “We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand – out in the wide-open spaces of God’s grace.”

When I think of it that way, finding myself in a new, unfamiliar, wide-open space, it feels slightly intimidating. In fact, I might need some scaffolding to help me learn how to live in this space. 

When this platform first went up it looked to me like a wide-open space – too wide and open. But people helped me to make sense of it by drawing pencil lines on the floor to show me how it would be organized. Lines showing where the pulpit will be, where the organ will be, where the low wall will be placed. All of this has been helpful to me, to be able to imagine what will be and how we will use this space.

This kind of scaffolding is also needed for us as disciples of Jesus. God welcomes us into a brand-new space – a space that is different from the world as we know it. We arrive here not by our own power or wits or goodness. We arrive in this space of grace by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God gives us access through Jesus. If I am standing now in God’s amazing grace, through no credit of my own, how do I learn to live in this space of grace? How do I build a life fitted to this space?

I definitely need some scaffolding for that.

We know that our role model for this life is Jesus. He is the one we watch and learn from, by reading the gospels. This is where we learn about how Jesus spoke with other people, and who he chose to speak to. We learn how he treated people. We see what he prioritized. Every follower of Christ needs to hear the gospel to grow in understanding of how to live in this space of grace. Jesus is our model, our guide.

But then I am reminded of the story about the little boy who awakened in the night terrified by a thunderstorm. His mother came to his bedside to soothe him, and she assured him he need not be afraid because he always had Jesus with him. And the boy said, “I know, mama, but I need Jesus with skin on.” You and I might need models – scaffolding – with skin on.

Who do we know who inhabits the space of grace well? 

If grace is fundamentally about forgiveness, how God extends forgiveness to us for all our offenses and shortcomings, bringing us into this space of grace, then the big question for us becomes one of forgiveness. How do we extend forgiveness to others?

There is a song called God Will that is about forgiveness. Each verse asks the questions about who will forgive you for all the lying and cheating and betraying you do, and the refrain is, “God will, but I won’t. And that’s the difference between God and me.”

It’s a funny song. But it’s not a song to live by. Because if our answer is that God will, but I won’t, then I think we have missed the fundamental point in being a follower of Jesus.

When God moves us into this wide-open space of grace, it isn’t to continue in our old, selfish, unforgiving ways. It is for the purpose of being changed into a new being.

One who accepts the grace and sees the glory of God in all things. One who experiences suffering and challenges quite differently. A new being who recognizes that we are at peace with God only because God has done the work of making peace with us. But because we are freed of trying to do that work ourselves, we can turn to the work of making peace with our neighbors. By the power of God, extending grace to one another.

Again, I am going to need some scaffolding for this.

I think that, as a nation, one of the ways we struggle with forgiveness is seen in the remembrances of 9/11. This week we commemorated the 25th year of remembering the things that happened to us back then. Even now, 25 years later, there is a heaviness to the memory. We do this because we don’t want to forget – ever. But should we seek to forgive? And what would that forgiveness look like.

There is something called the Forgiveness Project. It was started in 2003 by a journalist, Marina Cantacuzino, who began collecting stories of reconciliation and forgiveness. This was at a moment when the memory or 9/11 was still fresh and the war in Iraq was beginning. Marina began a project of gathering stories of people who had been harmed by violence and, in response, chose forgiveness instead of retaliation.

The foundation has continued for more than 20 years to gather stories of forgiveness from all over the world. I read several of them this past week, and I noticed a pattern. In every case it seemed that part of the process was being able to see the person who harmed you as a human being. Just as much a human as you are. One storyteller described the exact moment she looked at her perpetrator and was oddly struck by how goofy he looked, how vulnerable he seemed. Another told about seeing the offender and being struck with just how young he was. The people who harmed them were just people – not monsters. So many of the stories described a process of either getting to know the person or learning more about them, helping them find forgiveness. 

Understanding that you share the basic human condition with a person who harmed you can be a powerful thing. But sometimes the ones who have harmed you are hard to put a face on. One of the stories was written by a woman whose struggle centered on the war in Iraq, which was a significant part of our nation’s response to 9/11. Her husband came home from the war carrying the burden of severe PTSD. Because of his actions, she lost almost everything, including her sense of self. Her anger was initially directed toward her husband, but eventually she was able to forgive him. It was then that she had to come to terms with the larger burden of anger she was carrying, which was directed toward the American people and government who wanted this war. That, it seems to me, is a hard enemy to live with.

Eventually, she found ways to talk about it and through conversations with other Americans who supported the war or, at least, did nothing to oppose it, she was able to work toward reconciliation. She was finally able to find some peace.

The pattern of finding some glimmers of humanity in the others, even in our very real pain, creates the conditions where grace may begin to seep into our hearts. When our very bodies may become a space of grace.

On Friday, Kim and I went to the 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony along with others from our community, including a few from our congregation. There were words of remembrance from our police and fire officers, words that expressed grief for where we have been and a sense of responsibility for where we are now and the choices we make for our future. I sensed a desire for Americans to be reconciled with one another, and felt hopeful that we might allow space for grace.

At the end of the ceremony a bagpiper played a very familiar tune – Amazing Grace.

We have to learn how to live in the wide-open space of God’s grace – it is our calling. It is a process of learning, often slow and hard. And no one does it all on their own. We need the scaffolding of others who can help us find the way, until we are doing it ourselves. Remember, scaffolding is meant to be temporary.

The truth is, though, we are always going to need some scaffolding, as long as we are in these mortal bodies. As our buttons say, we are a work in progress, and we will always be a work in progress. God is not finished with us yet, and as long as we are “in the flesh” God will not be finished with us. Beloved,

May you stand in God’s grace, knowing that you are standing with a host of other human beings who are also a work in progress.

May you seek out the models, the human scaffolding of one another, with a heart willing to learn, willing to hope.

May you open wide the space for God’s grace.

Photo by Josue Isai Ramos Figueroa on Unsplash

Under Construction, Part 1: Blueprint

 

Psalm 139:13-16

Romans 3:21-28

One of the things my mother used to say was, “Move is a four-letter word.” You see, we moved a lot during my childhood, and it was never a thing she was excited about. I think it is safe to say my mother did not like change all that much. 

In that way, she was no different from most people. They say the only one who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper. That’s almost true.

Change is, most of the time, a pain. It is disruptive. This work we are doing right now in the sanctuary is clearly disruptive to our worship patterns. We have to adjust. We have to do some things differently.

Change is messy. And that covers everything from changing the baby’s diaper to renovations to repaving roads and everything else. There is always some clean-up to do after a change.

Change is sad in some ways. Because every time you make a change you are losing something. And there is some sorrow there, even if you feel like the change is for the better.

Yet, with all these negatives, change is what the Christian life is about. A person who chooses to follow Jesus Christ makes a commitment to a new life. Choosing to follow Jesus involves repentance, which means turning, changing. Choosing to follow Jesus is choosing to let yourself be transformed. 

From the very first disciples he called to put down their fishing nets and follow him, every person called to follow Jesus is asked to change in some ways. In the letter from Paul to the Romans, he lays this out beautifully.

Martin Luther called Paul’s letter to the Romans “the purest gospel.” It was here that Luther found the hope he needed. Luther’s epiphany was understanding that his attempts to earn his salvation by good works would never succeed. All his efforts to lift himself out of sin were and always would be futile, making him feel even more the failure. No one can work their way into salvation. It is a gift from God that we may receive by faith.

The simplicity of this doctrine is beautiful. But it is perhaps not as simple as we might believe. It hinges on just how we understand the word faith.

Faith is a word that appears prominently in English translations of the letter. It is from the Greek word pistis, which can mean trust, or trustworthiness. When speaking of the faith of God, we might understand this as God’s trustworthiness. When speaking of the faith of human beings, we understand this to mean our trust in God. The word includes concepts such as loyalty and honesty, because these are qualities that contribute to trust. 

To say that we are justified by faith is to say that our trust in a God who is trustworthy puts us on the right path. 

This is the beautiful simplicity of this doctrine. We put our trust in God. We surrender our self-improvement efforts to God’s design. We don’t change anything – God changes everything.

When we say we have faith in Christ, when we put our trust in him, we make room for change.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul makes it very clear that things have to change. Things have to get cleared out, cleaned up. Renovated according to God’s plan. The blueprint for it all.

When you start a building project you have a plan – a blueprint. And the blueprint shows what the current situation is and the ways you hope to change it. To make a blueprint, you have to take a careful and thorough examination of the structure, so you know what you are dealing with.

When we began this project to renovate the chancel for the new organ console, we had people in here looking around, under, inside, over, and behind it. There were discussions about the electrical wiring, the heating and cooling systems, the floor and the subfloor. All of this goes into the blueprint. 

It is also helpful in a project like this to have some history. We have some people here who hold valuable knowledge about the history of this building. Knowing what has been done before, when it was done, and how it was done, is very helpful in preparing for what we want to do next.

And I suggest to you that Paul is offering the church a kind of blueprint in this letter to the Romans.

In the letter, Paul is saying that God has been working throughout history for the redemption of the world. When God called Abraham, God claimed a covenant people, saying “I will be your God and you will be my people.” In the scriptures of the Old Testament, we hear about God’s relationship with this people, Israel, through centuries of ups and downs. We hear of the times and ways they were faithful, and we hear of the times and ways they were unfaithful, when they broke the covenant, and the consequences they suffered. And we hear, through it all, how God was with them always. Even when the people broke covenant with God, God never broke covenant with them. Because God is faithful. And God has purpose.

When God called Abraham, God’s promise to him said, “By your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” God chose to work through history, through all our human weaknesses and defects, all our brokenness and willfulness, to bring redemption that will be fully realized through Jesus Christ. God chose to work through a particular people to affect all people. This history is important to Paul. It tells us where we have been and where we are going.

Paul recounts the history because he wants the church to know we are on a timeline. To know that God is working things out to transform the world. To understand that it is a choice – a decision – for each and every one of us to be a part of this work. This transformation.

In other words, we have a blueprint. We know where we have been. We know where we are now. And we have the decision about where we will be; to allow ourselves to be transformed by Jesus Christ. Even if we have always been Christian. Even if we were born and raised in the church. It is still a decision that faces each one of us daily, to turn away from our sinful nature and turn toward Christ. To rely on Christ. To be in Christ.

As Paul wrote, our righteousness comes through faith in Christ. and this faith, pistis, is about trust. It is about surrendering ourselves to Christ. To give up the old self and put on the new self.

John Calvin said “to be in Christ is to be out of ourselves,” and that is precisely what trusting in Christ can mean for us. Reaching out to receive the grace that is offered, takes us outside of ourselves and into Christ.

That’s big. That’s consequential. 

To accept the lordship of God through trust in Jesus Christ will mean a radical reorientation of the very core of our being. When we receive the grace God offers us, we no longer have to prove our own worth to be acceptable, to be loved. We no longer need to be self-centered in this way. When we receive this grace, we are free to open ourselves to others and to turn our concerns toward others. We are reoriented. Reformed. Redeemed.

These are so many big words. Evidently, Paul had a lot of faith in the Christians of Rome to be able to digest some really heady stuff. But, I have a friend who I know would say to me right now, “So what? 

“What does any of this mean for our lives?”

Kim and I went to see a movie this weekend about Anthony Bourdain, the famous chef. The film followed him for a summer in his youth where he discovered his passion for food working in a restaurant kitchen. During this summer he starts out as an arrogant, obnoxious, defensive liar. He boasted to everyone about the academic fellowship he was sure to be awarded, and when he didn’t get it, he just lied to everyone. He stole, he took advantage of people. He acted as though he was superior to everyone else but watching him you got glimmers of a different truth. Anthony seemed to be ashamed of himself. 

There was one man who was a constant presence for him that summer. A mentor with a gentle, kind nature. Chef Jose was a man who could see something better in Anthony. He looked out for him and forgave him, again and again, until Anthony was finally ready to confront himself just as he was. And begin to change.

This was not what anyone would call a Christian film. But it was the faith of Chef Jose that played a key part in the story. His Christian faith shone through him and gave him the ability to stick with Anthony. It gave him the vision to see something redeemable in Anthony and enabled him to give Anthony the grace he needed to find his way.

Chef Jose’s transformation in Christ shows in his interactions. And watching him shows us how we may be transformed by faith in Christ. It is his grace-filled attention to Anthony that gives him the chance to become a better version of himself. 

That is one thing that Paul’s letter to the Romans can mean for our lives.

Each one of us has a history with God, who formed us in our mother’s womb, who knew all the days that were written for us, as the psalmist wrote. And collectively, we have a history with God, who called Abraham and made a plan to bless all the people of the world through him.

There is a plan for us. A blueprint. And the decision for each of us about what to do. Put our trust in God? who works on us through Jesus Christ, allowing ourselves to be transformed into something new? 

It is a choice, a decision, to renew every day of our lives.