Tag Archives: Apostle Paul

Sin: What it is and what to do about it—Paul’s message in Romans 6

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Ted Grimsrud

A sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation—Harrisonburg, VA, June 14, 2015, Romans 6:1-23

Sometimes little things are powerful—the most dangerous spiders are those little brown recluses. The hottest chili peppers are the tiny Carolina creepers. And the word “sin”—with only three letters—has all kinds of significance for religious people, and those who know religious people.

Problems with “sin”

One of the problems in North American Christianity is that the word sin is used mainly by people on one side of the theological spectrum. It feels like a harsh and finger pointing kind of word. So good peaceable progressives tend to avoid it. The result is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy where everybody cedes the meaning of sin to those who do use it in hurtful ways.

We all do know that to call something a sin is to say it’s very bad. It’s like the famous story about President Calvin Coolidge back in the 1920s. He was notoriously a man of few words. One Sunday he went to church and later met with some reporters. “What was the sermon about,” he was asked. “It was about sin.” “What did the preacher say about sin?” “He said he was agin it.” … What more is there to say?

Well, a few decades later, the Louvin Brothers, one of the great country music brother singing acts , recorded a song called “Broadminded” that did say a little more: “That word broadminded is spelled s-i-n. I read in my Bible, they shall not enter in. Depart, I never knew you. That word broadminded is spelled s-i-n.” The song goes on to list the really bad sins—to “gamble now and then for pleasure,” to “drink a little whisky to please a friend,” and to go “dancing with friends.”

Of course we can think of even more hurtful ways the label sin is used. If it’s people others want to exclude or silence or marginalize, they can be accused of being sinful, of “living in sin.” One of the reasons this hurtful use of sin language is too bad is that many of us tend to react against using it at all then—and that makes for a challenge when we want to find language to use to talk about things that are genuinely wrong—like war and environmental exploitation and racism. We don’t find it meaningful to say those things are sinful—but we don’t have other words that work, either.

But there is another problem with the way “sin” is used among Christians. If it’s used as a word for the evils of “broadmindedness” or if it’s a word we refuse to use—in both cases we think of “sin” mainly as rule violations or moralistically objectionable behavior. To think of sin in these ways makes it harder to understand one of the Apostle Paul’s use of sin language—and we miss Paul’s helpful contributions to how we might approach life in healing and creative ways. Continue reading →

It all starts with love: Paul’s message in Romans 5

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Ted Grimsrud

A sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite, May 17, 2015, Romans 5:1-21 

You know, growing older is a crazy thing. On my birthday a bit more than a week ago my sister posted on Facebook a picture of me when I was about one year old. I looked at that picture (which I don’t remember having seen before) with wonder. That happy, chubby little kid was me—sixty years ago! Then I realized that I am as far from that picture now as I would have been then from a picture taken in 1895.

Or, as I put this sermon together I was thinking of a popular song I remember by folksinger Joan Baez called “Love is Just a Four Letter Word.” Written by Bob Dylan, it was a song I liked when it was new. Well, it came out in 1969. Back then, a song as old as that one is now would have been released in 1923—before country music was invented, and about thirty years before rock and roll.

As is typical with Dylan songs, the lyrics are a bit cryptic, unclear, oblique, and obscure. But the title, repeated many times as a chorus, has stuck with me. Is love “just a four letter word”? We Christians would say, no way. Love is one of our most important positive words—love is the opposite of an obscenity. God is all about love. If we believe in God, we believe in love, right?

God is all about love

But what do we actually mean when we say “God is all about love”? We might even say, quoting one of the letters of John, “God is love”—I certainly believe that. I think the Apostle Paul did, too. And I think this statement, “God is love” is an important clue for understanding Paul’s letter to the Romans.

It’s interesting, though, that sometimes it seems difficult to articulate what we actually mean by love—both when we attribute it to God and when we think about what exactly it is in human experience. I think more than ever, it is important to think carefully about love. Like the British poet W. H. Auden famously wrote at the outset of World War II, “we must love one another or die.”

The fifth chapter of Romans is an important love chapter—maybe not quite as potent at 1 Corinthians 13 (“These three remain, faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love”) yet potent enough, if we can get a sense of what Paul is saying. Continue reading →

Abraham’s gospel: Paul’s message in Romans 4

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Ted Grimsrud

A sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite, April 19, 2015, Romans 4:1-25

Kathleen and I love to go on road trips. We’ve been all over the United States and seen some amazing views. We especially love mountains and oceans. We don’t agree with our friends from Winnipeg who say they don’t like mountains because they block the scenery. Although in our time in South Dakota we came to love the prairie too.

In my mind, the greatest viewing experience we ever had came in the mountains of western North Carolina. We were on the Blue Ridge Parkway. In general, we believe the west is best, but the Parkway, especially in North Carolina, is probably about our favorite drive ever. A few years ago we spent the night in Little Switzerland and greatly anticipated the next morning when we would drive by Mt. Mitchell, the highest spot east of the Rockies, and then see points west.

But when we got up, it was totally foggy. As thick a fog as we’ve ever seen. Now, the forest has its own eerie beauty when you can barely see the white lines on the highway. Still, we were uneasy when we drove twenty miles or so and never saw another car. But then came the moment. We turned a corner and without any warning the fog was gone. We had the most incredible vista, in the bright sunlight, mountains, valleys, forests. It was amazing. Then, we were back in the fog for several more miles. It was just those few moments, but the picture is still vivid in my memory.

Embracing the entire Bible

This experience came to mind as I was thinking about Romans four, believe it or not. A lot of Christians, maybe especially a lot of Mennonites, are pretty suspicious of the Old Testament. And pretty suspicious of the Apostle Paul. And, deeply suspicious of the book of Revelation. There is the great bright light of Jesus, his picture of a God of love and mercy—and much of the rest of the Bible is kind of foggy, wars and rumors of war, legalistic religion, abstract doctrine, with the finale of Revelation’s unspeakable bloody judgment.

This is the analogy; the Bible can seem like that foggy drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There is but one spot of incredible beauty. It can redeem the whole thing—but the rest isn’t of much value. I want to say: No! The Bible is actually more like our return trip coming back home. Then the Parkway was clear and sunny all the way and we had one beautiful scene after another. Likewise the whole Bible has great beauty. Continue reading →

Mercy all the way down: Paul’s message in Romans 3

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Ted Grimsrud

A sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite—April 12, 2015—Romans 3:9-31

There is a famous story that almost for sure didn’t really happen. But it’s kind of funny and it provides a metaphor I want to adapt for this sermon. Some big time philosopher (or maybe it’s a scientist) lectures about the infinite cosmos and is challenged by an elderly woman in the audience. “What you are telling us about the universe is rubbish. The earth rests on the back of a huge turtle.” “Oh yes,” the philosopher says, “and pray tell, what holds up the turtle?” “Why, another turtle, of course.” “And what holds up that turtle?” “Ah, I get where you’re going. But sir, it is turtles, all the way down!” Turtles all the way down, we don’t need anything more.

Now, I don’t want to make any claims about the infinity or not of the physical universe this morning. My concern is the Apostle Paul’s account of the gospel. However, I want to use this metaphor of “turtles all the way down” to think of the moral universe. In many readings of Paul—and, hence, many understandings of the gospel—we have something like this: God can forgive only because God’s justice has been satisfied by Jesus’s sacrificial death. Or, maybe it’s God’s holiness or God’s honor.

The point is that God can’t simply forgive—the moral nature of the universe requires some kind of satisfaction, some kind of payment, to balance out the enormity of human sin. Reciprocity. Retribution. Tit for tat. It can’t be mercy all the way down. The moral universe rests on something else—retributive justice or justice as fairness. Mercy is possible only in ways that account for this kind of justice—which means salvation is not truly based on mercy. Rather, salvation is based on an adequate payment of the universe’s moral price tag placed on human sin.

Today’s Romans 3 passage has often been cited to support what has been called the “satisfaction view of the atonement.” This view sees the meaning of Jesus’s death as the sacrifice of a sinless victim that satisfies God’s need for a payment for human sin. This payment allows God to offer us forgiveness if we accept Jesus as our savior. I’m going to offer a different reading this morning. Continue reading →

How empires go wrong: Paul’s message in Romans 1

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Ted Grimsrud

Sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation—November 16, 2014—Romans 1:16-32

The Apostle Paul was a pretty passionate and opinionated guy. He was also a pretty deep thinker. I have come to conclude that he’s a friend of peacemakers, a friend of justice-seekers. Of course, not everyone agrees….

I argue for a peaceable Paul in these sermons on Romans. Today is the second of maybe sixteen I will do over the next couple of years. A big hurdle in understanding Paul peaceably is today’s passage—the second half of Romans, chapter one.

Before I make my case on Paul’s behalf, I want to read the verses—a bit of a condensed version. As I read, listen and think of a word or two you can share about how Paul’s thoughts here strike you.

I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who is faithful. In it the justice of God is revealed; as it is written, “The one who is just will live by trust.” At the same time, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth.

What can be known about God is plain to all people, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s divine nature has been understood and seen through the things God has made. Unjust people are without excuse; for though they can know God, they do not honor or give thanks to God. They become futile in their thinking, and their minds are darkened. Though they claim to be wise, they become fools. They exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.  Continue reading →

Paul’s antidote to empire

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Ted Grimsrud

Sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation—October 12, 2014—Romans 1:1-17

One of the arguments I have had with several of my friends over the years concerns the writings of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. The issue, in essence, has been whether Paul is a friend or enemy for radical, social gospel type Christians. I’d say “friend!”; they would say “enemy!” And on we’d go.

Concerns about Paul

Part of the problem for me has been that many of Paul’s biggest supporters have not been people I necessarily would want to be allied with—those who oppose welcoming gays into the church, those who support patriotic wars, those who teach a gospel of human depravity and the need for an individualistic kind of personal conversion (what I was taught years ago as the “Romans road to salvation”).

Just the other day, in one of my classes a student talked about the kind of deep pleasure he gets when he hears people speak against Paul. And that’s not surprising—Paul’s most famous piece of writing, his letter to the Romans, contains what are surely two of the most hurtful, destructive passages in all of the Bible.

I’m thinking of the part of chapter one that seems to condemn gays and lesbians. These verses are almost always cited when Bible-believers speak against Christians taking a welcoming stance. And I’m thinking of the verses in chapter 13 that begin, “let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” I know from “my scientific research” that Romans 13 is by far the most important part of the Bible for those who argue against pacifism and in favor of “necessary” war.

Yet, still, I want to say, to paraphrase Paul’s own words: “I am not ashamed of the Apostle Paul and his letter to the Romans.” And, beginning today, I want to use my “bully pulpit” here at Shalom to make a case for why this is so. I’m starting another series, this one on the book of Romans. I will show why the typical uses of Romans to support hostility toward gays and to support going to war are misuses (you’ll have to come back for those, though; I won’t get there today).

More than refuting misuses of Romans, though, I want to show how Romans can a powerful resource for peace in our broken world. I want to show how Paul gives us an “antidote to empire.” Paul presents a story that is meant to subvert, counter, even overturn the story the Roman Empire told about what matters most in life. And, sadly, we need this subversion, countering, and overturning of the story of Empire as much today as ever. Continue reading →

Justice Apart from the Law (and Empire): Paul’s Deconstruction of Idolatry

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Ted Grimsrud—Peace Essays #B.8

[Paper presented to the Bible, Theology, and Postmodernity group, American Academy of Religion annual meeting, Chicago, November 10, 2008]

This paper comes out of my interest in Christianity and violence, focused especially on biblical and theological materials that point toward ways of overcoming violence.  The biblical story often portrays violence and injustice having roots in idolatry.  Trusting in things other than the creator God who made all human beings in the divine image leads to a diminishment of the value of some human beings—a prerequisite for injustice and violence.  Torah, the prophets, and Jesus all emphasize the centrality of loving the neighbor as part of what it means to love God above all else.

The struggle against idols characterizes the biblical story from the concern with “graven images” in the Ten Commandments down to the blasphemies of the Beast in Revelation.  Certainly at times the battle against idols itself crosses the line into violence and injustice.  However, for my purposes here I will assume that those accounts stand over against the overall biblical story.  When anti-idolatry takes the form of violence, a new idolatry has taken its place.  In Walter Wink’s terms, our challenge is to seek to overcome evil without becoming evil ourselves.[1]

I would like to suggest that we find in the biblical critique of idolatry perspectives that are important, even essential for responding to the problems of violence in our world today.  If we use violence as our criterion, we could say that whenever human beings justify violence against other human beings they give ultimate loyalty to some entity (or, “idol”) other than the God of Jesus Christ.

It could well be that forces that underwrite violence today—loyalty to warring nations, labeling those outside our religious or ethnic circle as less than fully human, placing a higher priority on gathering wealth than on social justice—are contemporary versions of the idolatrous dynamics that biblical prophets condemn.

In the first three chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul offers an analysis and critique of idolatry that I believe remains useful today.  Paul takes on two types of idolatry.  First, he criticizes what I will call the idol of lust in the Roman Empire that underwrites violence and injustice.  And, second, he critiques the claims of those (like Paul himself before he met Jesus) who believed that loyalty to the Law requires violence in defense of the covenant community.

Our present-day analogs of the forces Paul critiques—nationalism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism—all gained power with the rise of modernity in the Western world.[2]  The much-heralded turn toward post-modernity may offer a sense of awareness to help us break free from such totalisms that foster so much violence in our world.  These various “’isms” all have been thrown into question in popular consciousness.

This task of resisting demands for ultimate loyalty unites biblical prophets (including Paul) with present-day Christians seeking to further life in the face of death-dealing violence.  Modernity did not create death-dealing idolatries so much as give them new impetus.  The task of breaking bondage to the idols of injustice that Paul engaged in remains ours today. Continue reading →

Romans commentary (chapter six)

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The sixth chapter of my running, preliminary commentary on the book of Romans is here.

These are some of the key points I discuss in the commentary,

1. Paul makes clear that his point about “grace abounding all the more” due to the “increase” of sin when “law came in” (5:20-21) has an ethical agenda at its heart. His thought is not that the abundance of God’s grace has to do with “going to heaven after we die,” but that it has to do with the empowerment of believers to live faithful lives in the present.

2. Paul sees a direct link between, on the one hand, Jesus’ own faithful life leading to the cross leading to vindication through resurrection and, on the other hand, the fate of those who seek to walk with Jesus. Paul’s central concern in these verses is to exhort his readers to share in Jesus’ way of life – the only authentic outcome for those who indeed do trust in God’s mercy.

3. The way to life is to give up trusting in idols. Easier said than done! This is why Paul places such an emphasis on the epoch transforming effect of God raising Jesus from the dead – and the believers’ identification with this work of God. We can be freed when we trust in God’s power of love.

4. Because Jesus himself was raised from the dead, his way of living free from the Powers, free from idolatry, free from the dominance of sin becomes the norm for all who would worship the true God. And Jesus’ way of living also is revealed as possible. Hence, Paul can exhort his readers to “not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies” (6:12).

5. When we respond to God’s mercy with faithfulness, “sin will have no dominion” over us (6:14). When we respond thus, we are “under grace” not “under law” – just like Abraham. Paul’s point here is not a chronological one, that in Old Testament times God wanted people to be “under law” and now, with the advent of Christianity, God wants people to be “under grace.” Romans four has made it clear (as do Jesus and the prophets) that God has always wanted people to be “under grace.”

6. Paul argues that we all are “slaves” to something – either to sin or to obedience. One kind of slavery fosters a narrowing down where we become like the lifeless things we are giving our allegiance to. The other kind of slavery is actually freedom.

7. Being in bondage to the Powers keeps one from living according to justice. The way to true life involves a complete upturning of the dynamics of slavery/freedom Paul has identified as leading to death. The person moving toward “sanctification” is a person who as a “slave of God” becomes “free in regard to sin” (6:22).

8. Paul seeks to challenge the imaginations of his readers. What seems in the present and to superficial sight (dimmed by the dynamics of idolatry, Romans one) as attractive about enslavement to the Powers and unattractive about enslavement to God is a false impression. Genuine life results only from freedom from idolatry and trust in the only true God, the God of Jesus Christ.

Romans commentary (chapter five)

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The fifth chapter of my preliminary, running commentary on Romans may be found here.

Here are some key points from chapter five that I discuss in the commentary.

1. Because trust in God as revealed in Jesus is the one non-idolatrous trust, we may indeed “boast” in “our hope of sharing the glory of God” (5:2). “We boast in our sufferings” (5:3) because when we walk with Jesus we will mark ourselves as threats to the Powers. And they will retaliate, causing us to suffer, leading to endurance that enhances character and produces hope (5:3-4).

2. As evidence that God will reward our faithfulness with healing, Paul points to the presence in our lives right now of God’s love through the Holy Spirit. Paul certainly believes in an ultimate future vindication, but with this reference to the present reality of the Spirit of love, he points to a genuine experience of wholeness with God in the present as well.

3. As a rule, people do not give up their lives for others (5:7). However, God does precisely this. Paul overtly couches the mysteries of Jesus’ crucifixion strictly in terms of God’s love. There is no hint here of retributive justice, no hint of any kind of mechanistic dynamic whereby a “holy” God needs some act of propitiation in order, according to the dictates of a love-less “justice” to offer pardon.

4. We have been made whole (“justified”) by Jesus’ “blood” (5:9; that is, his life of faithfulness unto death leading to his blood being shed as a witness to the transforming character of his life that evoked such hostility from the Powers).

5. God reaches out to us while we are still God’s enemies. God’s initiative is centered on the witness of Jesus, who loved even to the point of a self-sacrificial death at the hands of the Powers (and we should remember that Paul surely had himself in mind here as an “enemy of God’ who used violence against Jesus’ followers).

6. By pointing back to Adam, Paul makes clear that the Law was not to blame. Sin was in the world before God’s revelation to Moses. However, it takes the Law to be able clearly to define sin (idolatry) for what it is. The Law, though, was never intended to solve the problem of sin. What it does is offer guidance for transformative obedience as the appropriate response to God’s mercy – mercy that does indeed solve the problem of sin.

7. Following Adam’s path leads to condemnation. Following Jesus’ path leads to “justification and life for all” (5:18). Adam’s way unleashes the Powers who tighten the spiral of death and injustice, resulting in many people being “made sinners” (5:19).

8. How does “the one man’s obedience” lead to the making just of the many (5:19)? We should think in terms of Jesus’ “saving work” having to do with his model of freedom from the Powers, vindicated by God raising him from the dead, and sustained by the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit among those who do trust in God’s mercy.

9. Paul is committed to the conviction that God’s grace will have the final word. As distressing as the reality of sin is, and as troubling as having the insight to see the deadly dynamics of idolatry might be, Paul insists that God’s mercy will be more powerful yet. Ultimately, the growth of sin will lead to a growth in mercy. The more need there will be God’s healing justice, the more God will bestow healing justice.