Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Romans 6:1-14

I should warn you, this sermon is going to be controversial. I’m going to ask for a show of hands on a topic which many people feel strongly about one way or the other…who likes beets? I love beets. They are probably my favorite vegetable, especially when pickled. My kids, surprisingly, also like beets. Beets are very good for you. But many people don’t like them. They’re kind of like lima beans and Brussel sprouts…either you like them, or you REALLY don’t. A while ago, I met a woman who was doing PhD-level research on beets…can you believe it? She had devoted her career to getting beets into the mainstream food market in a way that more people would like them and eat them, because beets are that good for you. Powdered beets that you could add to food, beet juice supplements, you name it – any way she could find to get people to eat beets, she was going to try it. It wasn’t an easy job, because as she noted, a lot of people don’t like beets.
For a lot of people, chapter 6 is of Romans is the “eat your beets” message from Paul. You may not like giving up sinning, but being a good Christian is the right thing to do…that’s a bit how this passage has been interpreted, at least. This morning, Paul tries to tackle a question that has been asked by many people up to the present day about living a Christian life. If Jesus died to save us from our sins, and we know we are going to heaven because of God’s grace, not because of what we do, can’t we just do whatever we want whenever we want, because God will forgive us anyway? Or as Paul puts it, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” “By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” is Paul’s answer. “Aww, man!” we might respond. You mean I have to try to be a good person anyway, even if I know God forgives me and has saved me eternally?! Paul’s attempt here at first may seem like someone trying to convince a whole population to like beets – to like something that’s good for them. Paul isn’t just focused on behavior, thankfully. This is not a chapter trying to convince those of us who admittedly like doing things that aren’t good for us, those of us who do still sin (all of us), that we just need to try harder to not sin. Paul is actually trying to tell us some very good news, not about what we need to do, but about who we are. Because, that’s what Paul is really trying to say here…we are in Christ, not in sin. We are not in a perpetual state of sin, Paul is arguing, because we are in Christ…that is who we are!
Maybe another example will help understand what I think Paul is trying to tell us here. As some of you know, my brother Josh is getting married here in Omaha in just two weeks, which has caused me to reflect back on my wedding day. Pastor Rich and I will have been married nine years this July. In this day and age, it takes a lot of planning and preparation for a wedding, and our wedding was a wonderful day. A wedding is often the end-scene of a good romantic comedy movie, right? There’s a reason movies stop at the wedding day and don’t continue into the marriage…marriage is kind of boring, and not always idyllic. When I speak with couples preparing to be married, I always remind them that marriage is for life…it’s a life change, not just one day of celebration. Similarly, when we welcome a new baby into our lives as parents or grandparents, it’s a life-altering reality for our lives. It is an amazing, good change – much more palatable and desirable than trying to convince you to eat your least favorite vegetable. But these life changes and transitions are still difficult. As a parent and as a spouse, we still sin, and behave badly towards our loved ones, but our identity as a parent or as a spouse doesn’t change, and in a healthy marriage or family, we still love each other. What about you? What are some of those big events in life that have changed you forever, so that you wouldn’t be “you” if that change hadn’t happened?
There is one life change we share as Christians that we often overlook. Our baptism, even though most of us don’t remember it, was not just a one-time event, but like a wedding, like adding a new family member, it was a life-changing reality so that we would never be the same. At our baptism, God defined who we are, once and for all. We are “in Christ.” At our baptism, we died the death Christ died to sin. We can’t go on living in sin because that’s not who we are – we belong to Christ, we are in Christ. We may still sin, but sin, death, and the devil have no hold on us. We are forever changed. The life we live, we live to God, then, as Paul says. This is different than expecting perfection – when we’re married we don’t expect perfection to stay married, or when we become parents, we quickly learn we are not perfect parents. As Christians we sin, but that doesn’t change our identity as being “in Christ.” That doesn’t change the fact that we are living under grace!
Today is a hard day for us. There’s no denying it. Bethel has had to deal with a lot of change. We’ve been talking about these changes for awhile, and these discussions are not always pleasant. As Pastor Rich and I have shared with you, we have resigned our call to serve as your pastors and to serve the Nebraska Synod, and we will be moving our family to New York in August. This is a big change for us – it will change who we are, too…the least of which being that instead of Nebraskans we will learn to be New Yorkers. I have received great comfort and courage during this time by reading the book of Romans. Paul’s reassurance to all of us today is that many things change – our jobs and our work status, our marital status, or where we live. The church, too, is changing. As Christians, God assures us that one thing will not change, and that is the identity you were given at your baptism. We, all of us, are in Christ. We are living under grace. Bethel Lutheran Church is a part of a much bigger picture of God’s grace in action, helping people live their lives differently because of faith in Jesus Christ, regardless of what they’ve done and left undone as we sometimes say in our confession and forgiveness.
There are so many life-giving words of hope in this message from Paul for us this morning, but my favorite is Paul’s call for those of us who are “in Christ” to walk in newness of life. Baptism changes us. Baptism in Christ unites us as a faith community to each other and to people we have never met yet – people not yet born and saints who have gone way before us, people who speak different languages than we do and have many different customs and tradition. We share this one unity in Christ with the eternal promise that we can walk together in newness of life. For those of us who were baptized a long time ago and don’t even remember when the date was much less what happened because we were infants, we need to be reminded that God still, today calls us to walk in newness of life: to see our primary identity as being in Christ, proudly wearing and walking around in Christ’s confidence, instead of being paralyzed by sin, fear, loss, and death.
We have a God who meets us at our lowest to remind us again and again and again we belong to Christ, we are on the side of life, not death, and sin has no power over us. Not because we are great people, or because we deserve it, but because of Christ who died with us to be raised with us. Thanks be to God! Amen.