Producing a Certain Kind of Character: Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (NRSVUE)
It is a
strange thing—and it was not my intention—that my first sermon and my last at
St. Luke’s both come from Paul’s letter to the Romans. This is what comes of keeping to the
lectionary; it is fairly consistent in its connecting patterns.
Romans, while
dense, is one of my favorite letters in the New Testament because it is a
primer to Pauline theology. Because he
had not met the churches in Rome when he wrote, he didn’t have his usual
pastorly advice—say hi to Phoebe, tell John I’m sending another letter for him,
don’t forget to take care of Judith and Tabitha now that they’re widows, let
Timothy run some interference on the gossiping problem you have. For all that we think of Paul as this Great
Theologian tucked away creating new and important biblical books, he was first a
pastor. He was also a great theologian,
but there was room for his theologizing and for his attempts to corral the
rambunctious congregations under his care.
With Romans,
however, the great theologian has room to move.
Because he is not tied up in making sure that the factions of the church
stop fighting over misconduct or how to allocate their money so it makes it to
the poor, Paul gets to unfold his understanding of why the gospel is, in fact,
good news.
Because this
is a long-form theological treatise, it’s difficult to drop in the middle and
pull out a few verses. “Therefore,”
today’s verses begin? Therefore—Paul has
just finished making his argument that Abraham is the father of everyone,
Gentiles and Jews, and therefore his righteousness is available to both
Gentiles and Jews. Therefore; because of
that righteousness, because of our entwined history, because we are justified
in faith, all of us have access to peace.
Today is Peace
with Justice Sunday, one of the six so-called “special Sundays” that call for
targeted donations to the work of the broader Church. It’s in the United Methodist Book of
Resolutions, a companion to the Book of Discipline, that “[w]e will
celebrate Peace with Justice when all people have access to adequate jobs,
housing, education, food, health care, income support, and clean water. We will
further celebrate when there is no more economic exploitation, war, political
oppression, and cultural domination.”[1]
That’s peace
with each other—and some days, it seems further away than ever, so having a day
to recognize it matters. But what is
this peace with God? Why would we need
peace with God? Isn’t God a naturally
peaceful sort?
There’s a
friend of mine who is naturally, almost eerily, calm. He speaks seldomly but always has important
things to say; he does everything with a sort of economic grace; and he does
not pick fights.
Unless.
There are a
handful of people who are his people, and any kind of equanimity flies
right out the window when there is any kind of threat to his people. Woe to the one foolish enough to anger such a
peaceful man, because there is no peace to be had until he’s sure his people
are safe and happy and well again.
My friend
Naomi Garcia is fond of saying, “You are God’s favorite.” The joke—and the truth—is that she says it to
everyone. We are all God’s favorite,
which is not at all how favorites work and is definitely how God works. And God, like my friend, is roused to anger
when God’s favorites are threatened.
When we are
cruel to each other; when we are mean, or threatening, or dismissive to each
other; when there is no peace between us; when we threaten God's favorite—peace
with God becomes more difficult. No
amount of Abraham’s righteousness is enough to counteract that—but, says Paul,
Jesus is.
“We have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is not only Abraham giving us the benefit of his experience and
relationship; it is also Jesus. Jesus,
Who taught His disciples—and, by extension, us—how to live as though we are
God’s favorites. Jesus, Who showed us
what life looked like when it was lived like no one is unworthy of acknowledgement
as a fellow human. Jesus, Who understood
viscerally that some days, it seems the only things we have are “economic
exploitation, war, political oppression, and cultural domination.”
In this faith,
we understand Jesus to be God, and suddenly the entire picture changes; we are using
one man to escape a wrathful god avenging his favorites because we have slipped
in some unrighteous way. “It is not that
we are striving to reach God, it is that God is striving to reach us–grace. It
is not that we use Jesus to attain God’s mercy, it is that God sends Jesus to
enact the mercy that God has intended from the beginning of time…It is not that
we reach longingly toward heaven but that heaven reaches out longingly to us.”[2]
We have grace—sure,
we have justification, and faith, but we have grace that buoys us
through the times when we are mean to God’s favorite (which, you’ll remember,
is also you). We have grace for the
times we shatter peace with each other, for the times we ourselves are
absolutely graceless. As I said, my
first sermon here was also from Romans and I promised this: “We are going to do
the things we hate even when we promised ourselves we wouldn’t; we are going to
get mad at each other, to fight with each other, to struggle with the sin that
lives within us as we lose trust in the God Who is reshaping us. I am going to have moments when my words or
actions do not contribute to your wholeness and healing, and you are going to
have moments when your words and actions cause me pain.”[3]
I was correct
on all counts—and I have obtained access to this grace in which we stand
because I am justified by Abraham’s righteousness and given peace by God
through Jesus the Christ. That doesn’t
mean that none of us have to apologize when we harm each other, and it doesn’t
mean that everything is fine all the time.
It means that there is no moment when we wander far enough off that God
stops reaching out to draw us back. It
means that there is no part of us that God cannot handle. It means that each one of us can get up and
try again to be human with other humans, grace-filled by this God Who gives us
peace.
What a
marvelous thing, that kind of grace!
What a wondrous act by a God Who loves that much, loves so much that He
gave His only begotten Son because He was unwilling to let any of us be unable
to be at peace with Him! No wonder Paul
goes on to say he boasts in that kind of grace, that kind of love. He boasts in the hope of sharing that kind of
glory because we all could use a little peace these days.
And then Paul
also boasts in afflictions, and I want to be sure we are very careful with this
part of these verses.
“We also boast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.” Many have
tried to use this sequence as a way to brush away people’s suffering in the
sort of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” dismissal. This is not that. For one thing, what doesn’t kill you
sometimes maims you for life and something doesn’t have to kill you for you to
recognize it wasn’t a good thing to do.
For another, Paul is not boasting in afflictions because they themselves
are good for you; if God were a god who delighted in punishing people just to
see if it breaks them, that would not be a god of love at all. Rather, Paul is boasting because the
afflictions can create a cascade that leads to hope, hope so strong that we are
remade by it.
“Affliction produces endurance.” This sounds a bit like “no pain no gain,” but
Paul is writing to a group of persecuted believers navigating a
sometimes-hostile empire; they know how to endure. We, although we are not in the least
persecuted for our faith in 21st century America, have spent the
entirety of my pastorate here in a pandemic.
A full million people have died of it here in the U.S.[4] We have had wars and rumors of wars. We have had supply shortages, inflation,
attempted governmental insurrection, war and rumor of war, loss upon loss upon
loss. It is not the same kind of affliction
as Paul’s Romans, but we have learned a ferocious kind of endurance.
And itt has,
indeed, produced a kind of character—not always the best. I am very tired in a way that I can’t quite
put into words, or at least into polite words.
My body aches in ways it should not at my age; my soul sighs. Sometimes, my character is one that does not
commend hope, or affection, or anything other than hostility. It is true for all of us that some of our
endurance has made us bitter and harsh, producing a kind of character that has
nothing to do with grace and everything to do with the sheer intensity of
making it to tomorrow.
I am also aware
that the sermon I gave two years ago did not stop with the recognition that we
would sometimes fail each other. “But I
will promise you this right out of the gate,” I said. “I take on this pastorate believing that God
has called me to it, that God is equipping me to lead, to serve, to teach, to
learn, and to love. I take on this
pastorate trusting that the Spirit is already here ahead of me, at work in this
community among you in a thousand thousand ways.”
“Character
produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
“[T]his
passage gives us the idea of partnership: God works and we work. In this
passage, God does it (makes us righteous) AND we do it (develop Character
through enduring hardship). But even here…character and endurance are enabled
through God and the Holy Spirit.”[5] Again, God makes peace possible; we have
grace through Jesus Christ and we have love through the Holy Spirit. None of what we endure is endured alone; none
of our afflictions are suffered alone; none of our character is shaped without
God’s presence, even the parts that are bitter and harsh. God wraps us in the fullness of God’s self
and says, “Peace, peace, My peace I give you.”[6]
On this
Sunday, my last in this pulpit, we are going to take communion together. It will be tricky because we have masks on,
and I ask you to be mindful of putting your mask back on as soon as you can
once you’ve taken the elements. This,
too, produces character, this navigation of new and difficult things. But the fact that we do navigate them with
the grace of Christ and the love of the Spirit thrumming through our veins
gives us hope, hope that does not shame us, hope that we can boast in, hope
that brings us peace because our characters are made by it.
Therefore,
church; therefore we gather, and worship, and say goodbye, and say I’m sorry,
and say I will remember, and say I will forget, and say peace, and peace, and
peace be upon you, for there is grace enough at the hands of the God Who is
always, always offering it. Amen.
[3]
7/5/20 sermon
[4]
1
million have died from COVID in the US. Experts wonder how this seems normal. -
ABC News (go.com)
[6]
John 14:27
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