"A Spirit of Unity"

It is the first Sunday in the season of Lent, and communion Sunday.  It’s a good day to conclude my series of sermons on Paul’s Letter To The Romans!

Our forty-day period of Lent is based on, and always begins with the Gospel story of Jesus’ baptism and subsequent 40 days of temptation in the wilderness.  As we discussed last week, symbolic language is used in the telling of this story, in an effort to point us toward an understanding of the spiritually charged event that marks the beginning of Christ’s ministry.  At his baptism the holy spirit descends from heaven in the form of a dove.  Heaven, like mountaintops and angels, is located “up there,” symbolizing in an external sense that this is God’s revelation from “on high.”  But the spirit descends on Jesus and he is “filled” with the spirit, and then led by this indwelling spirit into the wilderness, which is another powerful symbol.  For Jews the wilderness had always been a place of spiritual testing and the discernment of God’s will.  The temptations are also couched in symbolic language.  This holy spirit, dwelling in the heart of Jesus, in his very “Christ-consciousness,” is leading him in a process of spiritual discernment.  His consciousness has been transformed.  He is fully aware that he is God’s son and that nothing can ever separate him from the love of God.  Now, what to do with that knowledge - become a wonder-working super-hero who can leap tall buildings at a single bound and stop speeding locomotives?  Feed and clothe the huddled, starving masses?  Work from within the system by running for political office, or perhaps become a revolutionary and define his movement in opposition to the rulers of “this world?”  Those are the vocational options, the temptations that Jesus has to deal with in his period of spiritual discernment.  Now that he’s aware of the power and the presence of the holy spirit in his heart, what does that mean, and what’s he supposed to do with it?

It’s exactly the same question we’re confronted with during our own 40-day period of spiritual discernment, and Paul has perfectly set the stage.  Let me just walk you through the journey we have been traveling together with Paul.

We live in dark and troubling times, just as Paul described in his opening chapters.  And, we can’t save ourselves.  But God so loved the world that he gave his son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.  God hasn’t given up on us.  God acted decisively in the person of Jesus Christ, and by faith we are justified – returned to a right relationship with God. 

Think of it this way.  In the brain there is a neural circuitry and communication signals flow through this circuitry via connectors called synapses. Each completely new, original thought creates a synapse that did not exist before.  Once that synapse has been created by the first thought, new thoughts of a similar nature flow through that synapse.  Jesus Christ is a cosmic, spiritual synapse for the flow of God’s love, creating a whole new connection between flesh and spirit, between humanity and God.  Engaging that “Christ-synapse” is called faith, and by being “in Christ” we become a new creation ourselves.  Nothing in all creation can ever again separate us from the love of God.  And, what’s more, universal implications flow through this new synapse because, as Paul writes, the whole creation, the earth and sky, the rivers and streams, the rocks and trees have all been groaning in travail, waiting for the children of God to assume our place as faithful stewards of the earth’s resources, tenders of the garden that has been entrusted to our care.   Everything that happens, even when it seems like a denial or rejection of that synapse, is now subject to this new information, this new saving grace.  That’s why Paul is so confident that even those who oppose the historical Jesus are still a part of the universal plan of salvation that is opened by the cosmic Christ. 

And that’s it in a nutshell.  So, now I return to a question that Paul asked earlier.  If you really believed this stuff, what difference would it make in your life?  And that’s where this season of Lent comes in.  This is where our personal spiritual journey and Jesus’ 40-day period of spiritual discernment intersect. 

Paul tells us that just as Jesus, at his baptism, was called and claimed as a child of God, so are you a child of God.  Just as the holy spirit entered from “on high” and descended into the very heart and mind of Jesus, transforming and empowering him, so God, through Christ, has implanted the holy spirit in the depths of your heart.  And just as Jesus had to struggle to discern the practical implications of his identity as God’s son, so each of us has to likewise enter a time of discernment.  You are a new creation.  God’s love has entered your heart.  Nothing in all creation can separate you from God’s love.  So what?  Now, what are you going to do with it? 

Chapters 13, 14 and 15 are Paul’s teaching about how we practice righteousness – in the church and in the world.  As always, Paul’s words are complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often confusing to our modern way of thinking.  On the one hand he says we’re to be faithful, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens and, for the most part, he was.  But, as we read over and again in Acts and in his letters to the churches, he also follows a higher, and a deeper calling.  When he feels a conflict between obeying God, and being a citizen of his nation or of the world, there is no contest.  He gladly suffers imprisonment for his beliefs, submitting his physical body to worldly authority, but inwardly lifting his eternal spirit to the God of all creation.  And, as always, the source of his strength and conviction is rooted in Christ. 

So, I’ll conclude this series on Romans with Paul’s own words, his ringing affirmation of a confident, a universal, and a timeless faith:  “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”  [Romans 14:7-9].  And, “May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you [a spirit of unity] to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Welcome [accept] one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed [and accepted] you, for the glory of God.” [Romans 15:5-7]

May the God of all love, the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and of Jesus, the God of Mary and of Paul, bless us as we once again enter this sacred season of Lent, gathering to feast on the manna that has been provided in the wilderness of our lives, the very bread of life in the flesh of the living Christ in whose name we pray.  Amen.