The Third Sunday Within the Season of Lent
Romans 5:1-5
There is so much during the day that clamors for our attention. Friends, family, work, classes, household tasks. And the noise! We are bombarded with sound, from the clock that awakens us to the telephone, the radio, the television, the conversation that we have or overhear. Where is the time and place to listen for the still, small voice of God? Sometimes it seems that God would have to speak in a whirlwind to be heard above the clamor! Listen now. There is a place of quiet rest, and it is the place where God dwells within you. Close your eyes. Be aware of the place. In Lent we journey to the parts of ourselves known only to God, beneath the clamor. Let the story of Jesus reach us there. Let it teach us wisdom in our secret hearts.
(Silent time.)
As we extinguish this light, we acknowledge the darkness and pain of violence.
(A candle is extinguished.)
Let us pray:
All: Draw us together in your love, O God. May our restless hearts not resist you, but continue to search until they find their rest in you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Romans 5:1Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
“Justified”
Perhaps you will know that I am an expert in Law Enforcement. I come upon this expertise by watching criminal procedure television shows. Law & Order. In Plain Sight. Castle.
But, the best of all might be “Justified,” based on a character named Raylan Givens, created by the greatest crime fiction writer, ever--Elmore Leonard.
In the show, Raylan returns to his home in Eastern Kentucky, charged with enforcing the law against people he grew up with--even having to arrest his father!
Raylan has a pesky habit of shooting people--but only just before they shoot at him.
Brought in to account for his shootings, he simply says, “He drew on me first. It was justified.”
Being justified means that you can be in two states of being at the same time. On the one hand, Raylan did kill someone--he’s guilty of that.
On the other hand, the killing took place in the course of enforcing the laws of the United States.
So, Raylan is a killer, but justified in so doing, and therefore innocent.
In today’s lesson, we encounter this concept of being justified in a slightly different context.
In Jesus Christ, we are justified before God. This means that even though we are sinners, we stand before God blameless in Christ. Sinners by nature and by practice, we stand before God pure and innocent.
Now, this is not an easy concept for we Americans to grasp--or to accept. We want to see things as they are--and we want to earn things for ourselves and to get what we deserve. If we stand blameless before God, we want it to be of our own accord. We want grace the old fashioned way--we earn it.
And yet, justification by faith is one of the cornerstone of reformation Protestantism--in whose lineage we are.
And we still so frequently see faith is Christ as something we do--a work, if you will. We are justified by having faith in Christ--as if it’s all up to us.
Look at this verse from Galatians 2. I’m showing it to you in the King Jimmy translation because sometimes, the older texts get it right--ar at least better than the newer translations,
“ Knowing that [one] is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
You can be the best person in the world. You can open doors for little old ladies. You can fix breakfast for the less fortunate. You can ring bells for the Salvation Army every Christmas. You can teach Sunday School and give a tenth of your income. And trust me, I want to encourage you in the strongest possible terms do all of these things.
The world will be a much better place if we would all do these things--repeatedly and frequently!
God wants us to do these things.
But that doesn’t make us acceptable or even pleasing to God.
Grace means that nothing you can do will make God love any more than you are already loved.
Grace means that nothing you can do will make God love you any less than you are already loved.
Let’s say that together: Grace means that nothing you can do will make God love any more than you are already loved. Grace means that nothing you can do will make God love you any less than you are already loved.
In the second chapter of Ephesians, Paul talks about faith being anything but something we do. Faith is a gift from God--not something of our own doing!
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works," Eph. 2:8-9
If you’ve done any good in your life, it isn’t by means of your own goodness, but rather God’s goodness projected through you!
And if you have faith in Christ, that is not what justifies you before God--it is rather Christ’s faithfulness which brings us to that state of justification.
Yesterday, I preached the funeral of two fine gentlemen--one of whom was also my neighbor. He and I had a number of discussions about grace and salvation. He told me that he didn’t think he was good enough to belong to God--that he had to keep doing constantly in order to curry God’s favor.
I rather gently suggested to him that perhaps all the good things that he did for others were gifts entrusted to him by God, who knew that he would not waste that gift, but use it to help others. God love him, he just couldn’t see it that way.
But, one of the advantages to being pastor is that in the funerals, I get the last word. And I am confident that Bill is held in the loving arms of God who welcomed him by saying “well done my beloved, faithful servant, well done!”
My sisters and brothers, God has graced each of us with immeasurable gifts, among them the propensity to love and to serve. We are called to use these gifts--not to earn our place with God--Jesus Christ has done that already. Rather we are filled with these gifts so that we are overflowing with them for the whole world.
What shall we do with the gifts God has given to us? What shall we make of being justified by Christ’s faithfulness. Are we not called to share with a world which so desparately needs to know it?
I’d love to know what you are thinking.
