HOLY TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH

 

 

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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.