The following homily, based upon
Romans 6:3-11, was delivered by Father Johnson on Sunday, June 29,
2008:
When I was a Chaplain Intern at
St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee, one of the things I was asked to
do was to act as a witness for anyone who wanted to make out a
living will before surgery. The doctors and nurses were not able to
do this because it was considered a conflict of interest, but
Chaplain Interns are considered relatively benign, and so we were
asked to take on that role if needed. Our first day at the hospital,
one of the administrators explained the process to us. One of the
things she told us was that we needed to make sure the person had
some basic grasp on reality. We were supposed to ascertain if the
patients knew things like who they were and have at least a general
idea of the date. So, when called upon to sign as a witness to the
signing of one of these documents, I would enter the room and
introduce myself. The patient would do the same, and I would make
sure that the name that he or she gave me matched the name on the
door of the room. Then I would chat for a few minutes, and usually
bring up something about the President of the United States or the
Green Bay Packers (this was Milwaukee after all), and determine
whether the patient seemed to be able to locate himself or herself
in the summer of 1996.
In our reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans today, St. Paul
is addressing these two questions: do you know who you are, and do
you know the era in which you are living? Paul writes, “Do you not
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death?. . . For if we have been united with him in
a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his.” These words are not only pointing toward a
future destiny, though they do that also. Paul is asking us if we
know our identity and if we know the age to which we belong.
Do you know who you are? Do you know the age to which you belong?
Earlier in his Letter to the Romans, Paul wrote about the problem of
our identity as descendants of Adam. In Adam, every human who has
ever been born has had to face death. Death entered the world
through Adam’s decision to rebel against God, and it has been
casting its shadow over every life since then. The reason for this
is that Adam allowed sin into the world, and the natural outcome of
sin is death. That is why Paul wrote earlier, “All have sinned . . .
” That statement seems rather sanitized until we stop to consider
the list of vices that Paul mentioned at the beginning of his
letter. It is one thing to say, “I am guilty of sin.” It is quite
another thing to say, “I am guilty of malice, envy, pride, lust” and
the list could go on. What makes all of this even worse is that,
through Adam, we were enslaved by sin. Even when we recognized the
problem, we were unable to do anything about it. We might be able to
get one vice under control, but another vice would rise to take its
place.
Sin and death both belong in the age of Adam. It is an age marked by
forcefulness and the rule of the violent. It is an age marked by
divisions between Jew and gentile, slave and free, between nations
and races. It is an age marked by the fear of never having enough,
driving men and women to hoard what they have and to fight to get
more. It is the age of uncertainty, where security is fleeting and
dependent on momentary circumstances.
Part of the good news of the Gospel of Christ is that Adam no longer
defines our identity. Paul says that we are no longer in Adam
because we have been baptized into Christ Jesus. Because we have
participated in the death of Jesus on the cross through our baptism
and the confession of our faith in His faithfulness, death no longer
casts its shadow over us. It no longer has the final word. Even if
this mortal body is destroyed, we will be raised again with Christ
Jesus. Furthermore, our sins have been expiated. We are no longer
accounted as guilty of those sins that we have committed. Instead,
by the righteousness of Christ and the faithfulness of God to His
covenant, we have been declared righteous. To make things even
better, we are no longer enslaved by sin. This does not mean that we
will not face temptation, and if we are honest, we know that at some
point we may well give into temptation. It means that through the
Spirit of God given to those who are baptized into the death of
Christ, things like malice, envy, pride, and lust can be overcome in
our lives. We no longer have to serve the old vices that chained us
in the past. Instead the Spirit of God can fill our hearts with
love, humility, and purity.
Life and virtue are the marks of the age of Christ. Those who live
in the age of Christ live together in unity under the one Lord
Jesus. In the age of Christ, we no longer need to live with the
insecurity of not having enough, because God has given His church
everything that is necessary for us to sustain our lives and the
lives of our brothers and sisters in abundance. We no longer need to
take what we want by force, rather we can give what we have out of
generous hearts. In the age of Christ, our security is certain
because just as Christ has been raised from the dead, we too can
walk in new life in Him. This is all a bit like standing with the
women at the tomb on that first Easter morning before sunrise. The
resurrection has come, ushering in the age of Christ, but there is
still enough darkness that it is difficult to see exactly what has
happened.
What St. Paul is urging us to do in this pivotal passage of his
Letter to the Romans is to grow into our Christian identity. By our
baptism we have died to our identity in Adam. It is contrary to our
identity to continue living as servants of sin. We have been given a
new identity in Christ. When Paul writes, “Consider yourselves dead
to sin and alive to God,” he is using an accounting term. He is not
talking about an approach to life which is based upon positive
thinking. He is saying, “Do the math. If you add up the numbers, you
will see that you are already dead to sin. It no longer has a place
in your life. Instead, you are alive to God. You are already
standing before the throne of grace.”
As you make day to day decisions, remember your identity and the age
to which you belong. When you encounter those who are hungry or
thirsty, and those fears of not having enough begin to creep in,
remember. When the old sins try to drag you back into malice, envy,
pride and lust, remember. When the shadow of death attempts to cast
its terrible shadow across your path, remember. Remember through the
grace of God in Christ, you are dead to sin, and alive to God.
A selection of Father RJ's
homilies are archived on this site. To read them,
click here.
