For All Of Us--March 1, 2023

For All Of Us--March 1, 2023

"But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.  And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all." [Romans 5:15-18]

If the Christian story is true [and I'm betting my life on it], then nobody has room to brag.

I'm not sure we really give enough thought to the way the Christian story equalizes us--and I mean for ALL of us.  Or at best, we nod our heads at Paul's words, agreeing in some abstract hypothetical sense, but when it comes to living out the implications of those words, we somehow don't seem to get it.  But Paul himself here keeps reiterating the idea that ALL of humanity is entangled in sin and its consequences, so nobody has grounds for boasting about their righteousness.  And he is equally as clear [and repetitive] in asserting that being in "right" relationship with God is also, from beginning to end, completely and totally a free gift of grace.   We're all in Dutch because we're all implicated in sin, and we're all dependent on grace that God lavishes freely through Jesus.  We all stand condemned for our part in the grand conspiracy of human sin [sort of like you can prosecute everyone in an organized crime scheme or mafia family for their participation in a RICO case], so nobody gets to plead, "But I'm innocent..."  And just as universally, Paul says that Christ's own righteousness gets put on all of our accounts and means God is giving grace all around.  He's the one using the word "ALL"--that's not some trick of translational sleight-of-hand, a bit of sloppy theologizing, or merely my own wishful thinking.  It's Paul himself who keeps using the "A" word--ALL.

And for whatever else that means, Paul certainly believes that our collective guilt and God's comprehensive grace for all of us takes away any right any of us had to put ourselves on a pedestal in arrogance or to push someone else down to make us feel bigger or superior by comparison.  Grace levels the playing field, and grace undercuts all of our grounds for arrogance.  And that means, too, that grace makes genuine love possible.

We can't forget that for Paul, as well as certainly for Jesus, theology is never just an abstract head exercise.  You don't find any of the New Testament writers waxing philosophical about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin--you hear them talking about how the good news of Jesus shapes us for love.  You hear them moving from claims about our status with God to the implications of those claims on how we treat one another, and how we respond even to those who are hostile toward us.  In other words, theology is never just an academic field of study, but always points toward a new way of life that takes the shape of Christ-like love.  Paul's point here in talking about how we are all universally bound up in the consequences of sin as well as in the ubiquity of God's grace to set us free from condemnation is that none of us gets to look down on anybody else.  Nobody is beneath me.  And on the flip side, nobody else gets to foist themselves up over me, either, to pretend like they walk six inches above the ground on a pillow of their own self-righteousness.  The bad news and the good news alike put us all on level ground.

In plenty of other places in Paul's letters, he'll go on to specify just how many of the old dividing lines and categories we put each other in don't matter anymore because of that equalizing power of grace.  "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female," Paul will write to the Galatians.  Or to the folk in Corinth, he'll tell them that all the little parties, cliques, and [dare I say] denominations they are fragmenting into are nothing--Christ is everything, and they all belong to him.  And earlier in this same letter to the Romans, Paul went to great lengths to show that even the Torah-observant people of Israel were sinners alongside all "those wicked and impious Gentiles" [as many in Paul's audience would have thought of anyone non-Jewish]. At every turn, Paul puts us all on the same footing, regardless of whatever qualities we thought made us better, holier, or more worthy of God's acceptance.  

We need this reminder if we are going to let the Spirit grow Christ-like love in us, because authentic love doesn't look down on others.  I'm reminded of the insight of the 20th century theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, who says, "If there is no friendship with them and no sharing of life with the poor, there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals."  That's just it--to love like Jesus means letting go of the arrogant way we put ourselves in the category of "more worthy of love" while others are deemed as less worthy.  We're not--we're all in the same ditch of sin, simply by virtue of being connected to the whole sinful mess of our fellow sinful humans... and we're all in the same grip of grace, simply by virtue of God's goodness shown to all in Christ.

So the moment we start decreeing that "those people" are just unacceptable as they are, while simultaneously declaring ourselves as worthy, good, and holy [especially because we're "not like THEM"], we've forgotten the truth--we're all messes, and we're all graced. There is no valid exception of, "But they are different because..." To hear Paul tell it, the free gift is for all of us. For as many of us as are entangled in sin, Paul says, all of us are also enfolded in the righteousness of Jesus.  It's for all of us.

That means that there is no one you will ever meet or cross paths with who has not been given the free gifts of Christ's own righteousness and life. So before you and I start dividing up the people around us into categories of "good enough" or "unworthy sinners," the gospel tells us that even though none of us are untouched by sin, all of us are held by grace. Before we start lobbing condemnation or hate, the gospel tells us that the ones we would have excluded are already included in the scope of God's free gift.  Before we deem anybody--ANYBODY--as "unacceptable" in God's eyes, the gospel has already said, "Sorry [but not sorry], Jesus has already given his life for them and given his righteousness to them."

How will that change the way you and I see people in this new day?  How will it change the way we treat them?  And how will it affect the ways we love?

Lord Jesus, let us see ourselves honestly--as both complicit in sin and included in your grace--so that we can see others in the same light.