Christ Church Cathedral Lent 2
March 8, 2009 Proper 288
Lent reminds us that Jesus did not die in a bed at home in Nazareth. He was publically, legally and officially executed by the authority of the Roman Empire. Or, as John Dominic Crossan adds, that is by the normal exercise of civilization's violence in his time and place. He goes on to emphasize that this was not simply death and resurrection but execution by and therefore resurrection against Rome.[1] Paul, however, shifts the scene to his own time (and ours) but using DEATH rather than execution or crucifixion and thus Death and Life as describing the condition which results from our participation in Christ. He seems to be uninterested in developing ideas of the atonement as relevant to the human condition.
The Pauline view of the world which he sets out particularly in the Letter to the Church at Rome is one that has sparked much controversy and several crucial movements of reform over the 2 millennia of the church's existence. It is focused upon a very nuanced set of relationships between law, grace, faith and works wherein their interaction tends to blur the boundaries between them which dogmatic theology is committed to establish. In doing this, Paul carefully fashions what I like to think of as an alternative view of the human condition which lies between the closed categories of the secular and heaven based worlds. I suppose I am trying to establish the notion that in Romans there is something perpetually protestant but not in the sense that we read CHURCH but more like what Paul Tillich had in mind when he spoke of the Protestant Principal. Let us look briefly at the four key words to see how they establish our commitment to be forever Protestant.
For Paul, all Law is sin. Not just Jewish law but Roman, all human law and divine law because law establishes knowledge, asserts we know this or that is wrong and thus should not be done. But, at the same time that law establishes knowledge it does not inherently bring with it the power of obedience. What Paul tries to establish is a structural or systemic understanding that is applicable to humanity - the ultimate failure of law in spite of best intentions. What he is not clear about is what might be termed the Protestant paradox - the necessity of law and its failure at the same time. Is this condition meant to describe only those aspects of life which we call religious and thus is the basis for what is called grace and faith? Or, is it possible to establish a secular version of sin, grace and faith which reflects our experience of the human condition but has no claim beyond itself except that it seems to be the best possible way of making life on this planet bearable? What I have in mind is something like a distinction between respect for the law and obedience to it. Certainly the issue itself is very much before us as the rise of gangs and their threat to social order illustrates. [2]
Grace means a free gift. It is a part of creation and possibly best pictured by the physical example of the air itself. It is there for us all the time, totally available for everyone in every place at any time. We do not need to do anything to obtain it. It is not a matter of whether we deserve it or not. It is absolutely transcendent in the sense that we depend upon it totally. It is absolutely immanent in that it is everywhere inside and outside of us. When our relationship with air is terminated - it is not the air itself which is active in this action but rather we are prevented for some reason in accessing that which is always there. The good news, according to Paul is that God's righteousness is a grace, like the earth's air and offered to us for the making of a just world. But if Grace is universal like the air, then how does it relate to human striving for justice? Is it possible to understand that Grace is the source of justice wherever and whenever it asserts itself? Or, is it like any gift - it is actuated by its acceptance - the condition of faith.
Under these circumstances we can understand faith only as a total lifestyle commitment. This means it is to be seen as an interactive process. That is what we are shown in the life of Christ which for Paul is described as a life in Christ. In our reading today we see that Abraham is depicted as the common ancestor of Gentiles who live by faith without circumcision as well as Jews who live by faith with circumcision. In both circumstances the God of Jews and Gentiles is one and the same. What both have in common in their righteousness is the commitment to the One who is above all just and being justified in this sense means to be committed to being just.
It does also seem to me that in later Christian thinking justification has been taken to mean giving up on this world. It has been taken diverted towards a meaning which has more to do with making available an alternative to life on earth using the symbols and structures developed in apocalyptic thought such as that found in Revelation. This belief is expressed in the notion of heaven and life after physical death as the point at which the real meaning of the Christian life will be revealed. I so not think that this is what Paul expected. As we have seen, for him, Christ's resurrection was against the violence of established Roman Law seen as the ultimate normalcy. The victory he won was over that world of the here and now. Hence the crucial importance of what is meant by the idea of Works.
Before considering what Paul understands by this term, I want to make a short but critical side excursion. There is nothing in his thought which in anyway anticipates what we have come to know as a secular world. But, with its dependence upon a picture of the universe in terms of science, secularity has become the dominant fixture of the modern world. So, to challenge certain of its contentions does not mean that they do not hold - only that a claim is made to be able to rule out its implications. How can this be done? In order to make room for some features of a previous world view, traditional Christian apologetic has held that there is nothing new - all aspects of reality have been anticipated in the old order and can therefore be subsumed under one or the other of its categories. An example of this understanding would be the doctrine of natural law which in somewhat different ways is a part of both Catholic and Muslim theology. Another view to which I would ally myself is that the modern world is in fact something new and therefore our faith is at loss as to what to do in it and with it. So we continue as a community to repeat the narrative which outlines where we have been and in Christ we continue to reject the violence of the law on which our civil life is dependent so that our faith both drives and question the works by which we live and move and have our being.
The closest that Paul came in his lifetime to our situation may be found in the discussion he had with fellow Jews about justification apart from works prescribed by the law. Paul would have been quick to note that there is no faith-works dichotomy but at the same time he acknowledge that there was a problem in his argument when it came to understanding the role and position of the pagan sympathizers who were members of the community. Here is the way John Dominic Crossan calls it
What the God-worshiper does could very well be described as works before faith rather than works from faith. You, Paul would have said to that God-worshipper are lost between worlds, you are working not from pagan faith, from Jewish faith or from Christian faith. You may be working merely from religious superstition or social association......Paul's antithesis of faith versus works stands at that delicate interface between valid apologetic argument from a Christian to a God-worshiper and a valid polemical argument from a Jew to a fellow Jew. [3]
Where does this distinction fit into our current situation? The polemics are long gone. First as a matter of history with the destruction of the Temple in 70 and the increasing persecution of Christians their position became either untenable or irrelevant. With the Christianisation of the Empire being an outsider was both a civil and a religious impossibility. Increasingly in the modern era civil status and religious affiliation became separate to the point where it was largely a matter of indifference how or whether the connection was made. These circumstances have made it possible for many in our society to consider whether they wish to be a God-worshiper and they form a important presence within many congregations. Their works remain indistinguishable and their faith may stay unknown. But we are joined by the conviction dare I say faith that asks who are we and finds -humble stewards of a fragile creation - victims demanding justice - stragglers hastening to find the way in Christ.
[1] John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L Reed, IN SEARCH OF PAUL, Harper, 2004, p 384
[2] I have taken this idea from Crossan.
[3] Crossan and Read, pp 386-7
