Proving that my seminary education was worth something this sermon is partially based on an exegesis paper I wrote for my Romans class.
Romans 6:15-23
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now what? That’s the question that came to mind as I preparing today’s sermon on Romans 6. Now what? There’s this great scene in the movie Finding Nemo at the very end. Nemo, a clownfish from the Great Barrier Reef, has been taken from the ocean by a dentist and placed in a tank at the dentist’s office. Inside the tank he meets a motley crew of other sea creatures who dream of regaining their freedom and returning the ocean. At the very end of the movie, after Nemo has been rescued the fish finally make their escape. They’ve ruined the tank cleaner and the dentists has removed the fish from the tank and placed them all in individual plastic bags which they use to roll to their freedom out the window, through the lawn, across the intersection, into the bay. They land in the water finally free. Except for the plastic bags. The last line of the movie is one of the fish simply asking, “Now what?!”
Paul asks the same question. What then? Now what? Then he lobs a huge question out there: Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? In other words, what now?
Paul offers an emphatic “NO” and then moves onto a metaphor that makes us quite uncomfortable: slavery. You are either slaves to sin or slaves of obedience, righteousness, and God.
For those of us who grew up in the school system in this country one thing we learned pretty early on was slavery, especially the slavery that existed in this country is bad. And not just bad. Horrific, terrible, cruel, and awful. We watched and remembered the scene from Roots where one of the main characters and a slave, Kunta Kinte, is whipped until he acknowledges his new name. Though, surprisingly, there aren’t many movies made depicting slavery pretty much any movie that goes for depicting it as it truly happened is bound to get an R-rating. And these movies that do feature slavery are often harrowing for the viewer to watch.
So, to hear Paul associate our relationship with God as slavery is disturbing, to say the least. Now, two things to point out before we get all up in arms. First, Paul actually acknowledges later in the passage that he knows this is not a perfect illustration. He’s doing the best with what he has which includes language, culture, and our human instinct to misunderstand and misinterpret our relationship with God. Second, slavery was very different back when Paul was originally writing this letter. Though there were certainly some of the same cruelties associated with slavery in America and viewing people as property, believe it or not, slavery could also be a choice and a prudent one at that. Slavery could be a choice. People would sell themselves into slavery as a way to work off their debts. Once they worked off their debt they were free again and it was often the case that people did just that. Chances are there were quite a few slaves or former slaves in Paul’s target audience in Romans. It wasn’t insulting to them, it was something they had lived and they knew. It wasn’t a perfect metaphor but it spoke to that audience.
And even though we live in the land of the free it can speak to us, too. Because we, too, are either slaves to sin or slaves to obedience, righteousness, and God.
I just finished a novel called “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. I’d say he kind of reminds me a little of Stephen King so if you like Stephen King you probably would like Neil Gaiman. The books follows the main character, a man named Shadow, as he gets pulled into a war between the old gods and the new gods. The old gods are pagan gods that were brought to America when people emigrated and brought their beliefs in these pagan gods with them. The cast of characters includes gods from the pantheon of Norse and Egyptian gods that you might have learned about in your humanities courses or from the Marvel movie Thor. What I found most fascinating were the new gods Gaiman portrayed. Gaiman isn’t a Christian. He grew up with a Jewish family who also practiced scientology. Gaiman himself admits to not knowing whether or not there’s a God or gods and doesn’t really care. But in his book he nails the new gods that we as Americans worship. Media. Fame. TV. News. Internet. Plastic surgery even makes a horrifying appearance.
People don’t worship the new gods in quite the same ways they worshipped the old gods. But people do worship them by giving them their time, their devotion, their attention, and their money. In a sense they enslave themselves to these new gods.
And we do the same thing.
This past week I spent part of the time up at Camp Nawakwa for confirmation camp. Camp Nawakwa happens to be located on an absolutely dead spot for cell phone service. I could maybe, maybe receive text messages but that was about it. There was no cell service which meant no internet. No facebook. No streaming the World Cup or Netflix. No news. No checking email. No mindlessly surfing the net.
Though it was hard communicating with Adam during that time it was actually quite lovely. This was actually how I was able to nearly get finished with American Gods. I got to do some work on my sermon on a pad of paper with a pen. I know, how retro of me. I hung out with the campers. I enjoyed the sunshine. I made new friends with other local pastors and youth directors who were there. I went on numerous walks. It was really quite freeing. Which only goes to show I was enslaving myself to these things, these new gods as the book calls them.
Though we talk a good game about wanting and loving freedom, though we rightly and readily condemn slavery both in the past and in the present time we are really quick to enslave ourselves. We enslave ourselves to success, money, fame, sex, beauty, food, knowledge, alcohol, status, power, technology, and all sorts of things. While none of these things are necessarily bad, in fact, all of these things are gifts from God, we make gods out of them and readily and willingly enslaves ourselves to them. We break the first commandment, you shall have no other gods. We so easily enslave ourselves to sin. And the wages of sin is death.
This is why we are given Jesus. God sees we are enslaved to sin and death and gives us Jesus so that we may be set free through Jesus’ death and resurrection and through baptism into Christ. We are forgiven! But, now what? We’re back to where we started. Now what? We’re free like the fish in Finding Nemo. We’re free from sin and death. Now what?
Paul is quite clear on this answer. We are now enslaved to obedience, righteousness, and God. Which seems counter-intuitive. We have been set free from sin to be enslaved to God? Isn’t that kind of like we’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?
But as opposed to being enslaved to sin where the end product is death, being enslaved to God brings about something different. It brings about obedience that we can’t muster on our own. It brings about righteousness, being right with God that we could never earn. It brings about our sanctification or being holy in the sight of God that we could never accomplish on our own. While the wages of sin is death the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What we receive from God is a new kind of freedom even as we are “enslaved” to God. This freedom binds us to God as God’s own children through baptism and through this free gift of grace. It means that we are God’s. We belong to God. This slavery doesn’t bring about death. Instead being freed from sin and enslaved to God means we are in God’s service. And being in God’s service means we get it all, the whole kit and caboodle. Grace. Forgiveness. Eternal life. Even though we are prone to wander we are still God’s. Always.
There’s a story I read on a blog by Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham who happens to be an avid fan of Luther. It’s told as a modern parable about Jesus and us.
Before the Civil War and before America’s slaves were freed, a northerner went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, the man turned to the girl and told her, “You’re free.”
With amazement she responded, “You mean, I’m free to do whatever I want?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And to say whatever I want to say?”
“Yes, anything.”
“And to be whatever I want to be?”
“Yep.”
“And even go wherever I want to go?”
“Yes,” he answered with a smile. “You’re free to go wherever you’d like.”
She looked at him intently and replied, “Then I will go with you.”
So it is with us. We are free. We are no longer enslaved to sin. We no longer are enslaved to death. Not only that, but as Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.” Like the fish in Finding Nemo we aren’t going back to the prison of the tank. Like the girl in the parable we will not sell ourselves back into slavery. We are free. Free from sin. Free from death. Free from the false gods. Truly free. We are God’s. It’s a done deal. God who offers true freedom that can only come from the one who is truly free to whatever He chooses and He just so happens to choose us.
Now what? This is who we follow. We follow the Lord. Because we are free and because we are God’s. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because after we’ve received this gift we can do nothing else with our life but enslave ourselves to God whose love and grace has forever changed our lives and set us free from sin and death. Now what? For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, we follow and serve the Lord this day and always because this is who we are through Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.