Sermon: Called to Be Raised Up

Grace Presbyterian Church

June 21, 2026, Pentecost 3A

Romans 6:1-11

 

Called to Be Raised Up

 

One of the great challenges in reading (or preaching) through Romans is that there are very few places in this letter where you aren’t automatically dropping into the text in the middle of something. It’s not quite a theological stream-of-consciousness, but it feels like it sometimes, and unless you are reading the entire epistle straight through (a feat of stamina, that) you are coming in either in the middle of an idea or in the middle of a transition from one idea to another. The latter is the case with today’s reading.

The question that begins our reading makes the transitional nature of this passage quite clear. “What then are we to say?” only makes sense as a follow-up to some previous discussion, in this case chapter 5's exuberant expounding upon sin and grace, with Adam as the one through whom sin entered the world and Christ as the one through whom grace is introduced to overcome the power of sin, finally concluding with (in 5:21) “so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It may not be the most poetic verse in all of scripture – Paul was no Shakespeare – but it is in its own way beautiful and powerful.

Thus we come to Paul’s transition: “What then are we to say?” How do we respond, fellow followers of Christ?

Now it’s not exactly clear whether the question that follows this one is an actual question Paul faced in his work, or if Paul is employing a rhetorical flourish that allows him to get to the point he wants to make. The question has certainly come up in the literature of theology since Paul introduced it here, but mostly in the writings of long-ago figures such as Augustine. To us today, it sounds ridiculous (I hope!), maybe something like the smart-aleck retort of an overly cocky high-school sophomore:

“Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?”

Say what?

Before getting to Paul’s answer, one thing needs to be clarified. Note that Paul doesn’t say “should we continue to sin”, but “should we continue in sin?” For this passage, and really for almost all of this epistle, we need to lay aside the idea of individual particular transgressions and understand that Paul is talking about a condition of sin – a separation from God, an inability (apart from the grace of God) to live in any way apart from the power of sin as mentioned briefly last week.

So, continuing, Paul’s answer is another rhetorical flourish – translated here “By no means!” while the old King James Version offers "God forbid!" – but you might get more of an understanding of Paul’s incredulousness by substituting a more modern equivalent. My mind keeps coming up with “No way!”; a younger generation than mine might come up with “As if!” Whatever conveys for you that the suggestion is utterly ridiculous and almost impossible to take seriously, go with that.

What Paul would have his readers (and us) understand is that being in Christ means not just "not liking" sin or not wanting to sin; it is to be dead to sin. It is to be no longer under its domination, no longer willing to choose to submit to its power. Our reality is no longer the rule of sin, but the rule of grace given by God; to suggest that we might sin more in order to get more grace is to misunderstand most profoundly what grace is and how it works in us.

But that idea of being dead to sin is what Paul works out here, and in order to do so he turns to something that his Roman readers are most familiar with, an act that the community engaged in on a fairly regular basis; the act of baptism.

To be sure, baptism in this early period of the church looked not at all like it does in churches today, and I’m not just talking about churches that sprinkle from the font like us Presbyterians. For one thing, archaeological evidence strongly suggests that, in those locations that came to be built or dedicated or used specifically for worship, the baptismal pool was in fact in the center of the room – not a pulpit nor even a table for communion. Such structures were round and descended by steps down to the pool at the lowest point in the room. Even if the group or groups in Romans did not regularly meet in such a place it is most likely that they sought out such a location for the ritual of baptism.

You can see what that does to the baptismal rite. The convert being baptized actually had to descend to the pool and ascend up from it after being baptized. As a result, the image of baptism is actually pretty easy to tie to Paul’s description here and elsewhere; in being baptized we go down (with Christ) to death and are raised up (with Christ) to new life.

These early church groups often added another element reinforcing this visual image of descent and ascent with another signifier of change; the one being baptized cast away the garment they were wearing before entering the water, and then they put on a new garment upon coming out of the water. Being changed visually became a sign of being changed in every other way.

It’s no surprise, then, that Paul would turn to an image his readers could readily identify in order to explain what it means to be dead to sin; it was a visceral way of communicating the importance of the idea, one which affected the entire community, many if not most of whom had experienced the rite of baptism in becoming part of that community (and those who hadn’t yet were possibly in the process of getting to that point).

But Paul is not merely concerned with being dead to sin, no longer under the power of sin, but he also wants the Romans to understand the consequence of being dead to sin. Being dead to sin is being alive to Christ. Paul wants his readers to understand that being dead to sin (marked by passing through the waters of baptism) was deliverance from slavery to sin, and deliverance to freedom and life in Christ – not just immediately, but also for eternity.

This is the call of the follower of Christ; to know oneself, in Christ’s crucifixion, to be dead to sin – not bound to that power any longer but to be raised up, in Christ’s resurrection, into new life in the grace and love and freedom of Christ.

We are not immune from individual acts that would be called sins, but we are not bound to them. We are not under the power of sin over us as an ongoing condition. One “sin” does not equal the power of sin. We repent, because we have sinned, but we are not enslaved to it. We don’t drop the Prayer of Confession from our order of service, but we don’t say it without an answering Assurance of Pardon, reflecting the grace into which we have been delivered.

So, sin more to get more grace? No way. Live in the resurrection, now and forever.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #409, God Is Here!; #482, Baptized in Water; #---, Come walk in this new life!

 

 

See, the cat gets it...

Homily: Hope In...

Joint Worship Service East Moline/Milan/Rock Island

First Presbyterian Church, Milan, IL

June 14, 2026

Romans5:1-5

 

Hope In...

 

I had a little bit of online dialogue several years ago with a seminary classmate who was preaching on this same passage, and this subject of “hope” and just what kind of hope we’re talking about here. She was making the point that for us, far too often, hope (despite what Paul says in verse 5) really does disappoint us, or at least it sure seems like it.

And the thing is, she’s right. Hope does disappoint, most of the time.

We hope our loved ones will recover and continue to live among us, and they don’t. We hope the institutions of our society will seek justice instead of merely enforcing order, and our daily headlines make it clear they do not. We hope that we ourselves will truly live up to our best dreams, and we do not.

And Paul still says, right there in verse 5, “hope does not disappoint.” And he’s still right too.

The question is, are you hoping for, or are you hoping in?

We know what it is to hope for – whether it’s the child hoping for a new bicycle for Christmas or me hoping for a clean result every time I go for a cancer screening, we hope for some thing, usually something fairly specific, something good or beneficial or at least not harmful. Sometimes our hopes are fulfilled – sometimes the child gets the bicycle, and my cancer screenings keep being clear after thirteen years – but painfully often we are disappointed. The new job doesn’t come, or it turns out to be a horror show when it does. We send our child into the world and things don’t go well. Maybe they end up back home in disappointment. Our own health fails.

When we hope for, inevitably we will be disappointed. Bodies fail us. Other people fail us.

But we hope in God. And that hope does not disappoint, because God does not disappoint.

God doesn’t promise us a bicycle or a perfect new job or perfect health. What God promises us is God, God’s own self, the love that is God.

As Paul points out, we already know that love because God has shown us that love in dying for us. So, we know God’s love, and that does not disappoint. When others around us disappoint and harm and murder and commit gross injustice, God’s love does not disappoint. When our very world spins recklessly off its axis and the very fabric of our basic living together is trashed and torn by purveyors of hatred, God’s love does not disappoint.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus warned his disciples that his coming to them was no guarantee of peace; he did “not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt 10:34). But here’s the thing; even when the sword has come, even when we are set child against parent, when we are beset by those who mockingly call us brothers and sisters … God’s love does not disappoint.

It may not seem like much; it might not seem like anything more than survival at times, as my pastor friend said, but God’s love is there, holding us up when we don’t even realize it. And that hope, that undying love of God, is where we are not disappointed. 

And for that, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Sermon: The Promise Through Faith

First Presbyterian Church

June 7, 2026, Pentecost 2A

Romans 4:13-25

 

The Promise Through Faith

 

 

It was slightly disorienting, upon first showing up at my previous interim church, to see a number of signs, vanity plates on the fronts of cars, and other such displays, quite boldly displaying the word ROMANS typically in all caps. I wasn't really expecting to find the town being such a hotbed of interest in Paul's longest epistle (slighly longer than 1 Corinthians). I'll confess I was mildly disappointed to figure out that it was the name of an automotive dealership and a couple of other businesses in the area.

Quite coincidentally, the Revised Common Lectionary offers up an extensive series of readings from this epistle to the churches at Rome for post-Pentecost study and preaching, and it's worth taking advantage of this opportunity. Because Paul is here writing to a church or group of churches he did not found and has not visited, and also because he's hopeful for some support for a planned journey to Spain (that never happened), this particular letter is much broader in scope than his other letters; those tend to dwell on specific matters in those churches, while here Paul is introducing himself by letter and being much more thorough about explaining his beliefs and actions to a community that only knows him by distant reputation. As a result, the letter is probably the most comprehensive exploration of Paul's message (or the message of the very early church more generally) that we have in scripture.

The Roman church (more likely a group of smaller churches in the city) is relatively typical in some ways of the other churches to which Paul writes; not large, diverse in interesting and sometimes provocative ways for its time, made up of both Jewish and Gentile converts to following Jesus. That latter characteristic means that this group of followers is likely marked by the same disagreement Paul has run into more than once in his travels; the question of whether male Gentile converts should be compelled to undergo the Jewish practice of circumcision in order to be part of the church. Paul had come under attack in some quarters for his opposition to such a requirement, and likely as a result he begins this introductory letter to the Roman churches with an exposition on his view of this subject, a part of which is found in today's appointed reading.

For Paul, that question comes down to how one is "put right with God," you might say, and Paul is quite insistent that it is all the work of God, not anything that humans can earn by any act or any law-keeping. Therefore, in verse 13 and after, Paul emphasizes that, through the grace of God, it was Abraham's faithfulness by which Abraham found favor with God. The first part of this chapter reminds readers that while Abraham was indeed circumcised, that did not happen until after the promise of God had come to him and he had accepted and believed in that promise. It wasn't the act of circumcision that made God look upon him favorably; it was his faithfulness in believing the promises God had made to him, for example, in today's reading from Genesis as well as later passages from that book.

That faithfulness of Abraham is further elaborated in verses 17 and after, as the experience of being promised a child to him and Sarah in their very old age became another example of holding faithful to God's promise despite all the evidence to the contrary, and that "that faith was reckoned to him as righteousness." Keeping the law (which, you'll remember, was still a few generations from being given on Mount Sinai) was not how Abraham was "put right with God." And if that was the case with Abraham, so also to the many "descendants of Abraham" now numbered among the faithful.

All of this was not to denigrate the law, but to point out that it was not designed to make people faithful in the eyes of God; all that the law could do was point out when those descendants of Abraham failed to be faithful. And yes, at the last it does come down to Jesus, in case anyone was wondering; the Jesus whom God raised from the dead, who died in our trespasses and was raised up for our justification.

What might often get overlooked in this passage is that first phrase of verse 15. After his plain statement of how "faith is null and the promise is void" if only adherents of the law are heirs of the promise to Abraham, he makes a rather bracing statement that "the law brings wrath." This looks frightening, to be sure, but in some ways it might be even more frightening than it looks.

Notice that statement again; "the law brings wrath." Notice what isn't there; any indication that we are talking about the wrath of God. It isn't the law brings God's wrath or the law brings down the wrath of God; just "the law brings wrath." So what exactly does that mean?

It's quite likely that Paul is speaking from experience here. In the epistle to the Philippians, chapter 3, Paul reminds those followers of his past:

If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

(Philippians 3:4b-6, emphasis mine)

 

Here we are reminded of how we first met Paul; the one who minded the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death and approved of that act; who then set out on his own mission to round up and arrest or detain (or, if necessary, kill) those followers of Jesus, not only in Jerusalem but in Damascus as well. We also remember it was on his way to Damascus that Paul's quest was interrupted by the intervention of Jesus himself, in a blinding vision, and Paul ended up becoming one of those followers of Jesus himself.

When Paul says "the law brings wrath," again, it's hard to imagine his own past is not on his mind. He remembered how he had been trained in the law as a Pharisee, he remembered how he had so zealously kept the law to the point of being "blameless"; and he also remembered how that zeal for the law had turned him into a persecutor of the very church for which he now was an apostle of the faith.

While it would be possible to point out any number of examples of this phenomenon playing out in the church today, depending on what streaming services you have available to you on your home television or computer, there are two interesting documentaries that might just point to this consequence of zealous adherence to the law. Currently available on Hulu is The Secrets of Hillsong, a four-part examination of the rise and spectacular fall of the leadership of Hillsong Church, the expansive and wildly popular megachurch operation that started in Australia and spread worldwide. A large part of the story is how those zealous leaders themselves went astray in marital infidelity and abusiveness against women; another part is how, despite its outward projection of welcome and acceptance, it turned out to be not that accepting of women, blacks, and other minority groups.

On the other hand, if you have Amazon Prime Video, you can stream Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, about the family made famous by the various "18/19/21 and Counting" TV shows and the extreme theological teachings behind their organization. This came, of course, after the arrest and conviction of one of the sons of that family for obtaining child pornography, and allegations that he abused others in the family. (As if this weren't enough, another Duggar son was arrested on abuse charges just this past March.)

Something about that kind of zealous law-keeping seems to bring out the worst in us. Whether religious leaders or family leaders or frankly anyone caught up in it, it just seems inevitably to turn destructive, maybe even into wrath in Paul's words. It doesn't seem to bring life. It sure does seem to bring a zealous urge to persecute or take down those who don't keep that law exactly the same way you do. It brings wrath.

It is so important to understand, perhaps especially in this age of legalistic zealousness thinly disguised as faith, that the promise God gives to us is not one we've earned. We don't "get right with God" by checking off rules on a list or by making any great display of our righteousness. And we certainly don't "get right with God" by checking off a set of beliefs that we will defend with great vigor and maybe a bit of wrath. We aren't justified by what we believe; we are justified by the one we believe in, the one we trust. All of that promise comes of God's doing, and our calling is to accept that grace and then to live that grace (not that law) to others.

For the promise that comes through faith and nothing else, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal): #49, The God of Abraham Praise; #---, Lord, show us a faith; #506, Look Who Gathers at Christ's Table!; #838, Standing on the Promises

 

Notes on the Hymn Sing 5/31/26

  

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

May 31, 2026, Trinity A

2 Chronicles 5:11-14; Colossians 3:12-17

 

Notes on the Hymn Sing

 

 

Today actually is Trinity Sunday, on which the church is called to reflect upon the mystery that the same God who is one is also three - "God in three persons, blessed Trinity," as our first hymn of the day puts it. Trinity is an occasion on which an earnest preacher can get tripped on some fine point of doctrine if not careful, ending up somewhere between serious error and outright heresy. Having a hymn sing today, therefore, sounded like a good idea.

The three hymns that appear in the regular places in the service are reflective of the day's focus on the Trinity; they are not among the requests given for the hymn sing. That includes Hymn #8, possibly recognized by some as "the Navy hymn" but in fact a fine Trinitarian hymn. In addition to the five here, there is one more request included in the service, but it seemed useful to place it in the response spot after the offering and let it recur for a few weeks at least.

The first hymn of the sing is a long-familiar one in the church, with its original Irish text dating back to at least the tenth or eleventh century. It takes a particular Irish form known as a lorica, which is a form of prayer for protection; two other hymns in Glory to God, #6 and #543, also take the form and function of the lorica. The Irish text was first translated in 1905, and adapted to verse for singing in 1912, by two Irish women.

(sing, standing)

The next two hymns both come from a twentieth-century  impulse toward a loosening of congregational song from particular forms and structures in place for many decades by this time. The author and composer of this first hymn was quite insistent that the verses were meant to be sung by a soloist or soloists, with the congregation singing the refrain in full. Since I didn't think to acquire a soloist, we will all sing the whole song.

(sing, sitting)

Like the previous hymn, "On Eagle's Wings" comes from that twentieth-century song movement that was rooted in the Catholic church. This one you might remember being included in the presidential inauguration ceremonies of January 2020.

(sing, standing)

Our next hymn harkens back to the earlier twentieth century. Its author indicates that, unlike many popular and long-lasting hymn texts, this one was not prompted by any particular event in his life; it simply grew out of his familiarity with two particular scriptures (James 1:17 and Lamentations 3:22-23), particularly in the King James Version which was most prominently in use in the 1920s.

(sing, sitting)

The story behind the creation of our final hymn in this set has something to say about student-teacher relationships. To wit; the tune was composed by the famous composer and teacher Charles Villiers Stanford as an accompaniment to the familiar hymn text "For all the saints." It caught on quickly and became quite popular, but two years later in editing the English Hymnal, Ralph Vaughan Williams replaced the Stanford tune ENGELBERG with his own SINE NOMINE, which remains paired to that text today. (And yes, Stanford had been one of Vaughan Williams' composition teachers. Gotta wonder how that relationship was.) It took almost seventy years for a hymn editor to suggest to the hymn writer Fred Pratt Green that he create a new text for the tune, and this pairing has become almost as fixed as the "For all the saints" pairing.

(sing, standing)

It is interesting to me that, with the exception of "Be thou my vision" and the Doxology to come later, all of today's requested hymns are from the twentieth century. It's probably just as well that such hymns have their day as ever more texts and tunes are created in these early decades of the twenty-first century.