Lord of the Lake Lutheran Church
Web page http://lordofthelake.org
By The Rev. Jerry Morrissey, Esq., Pastor
E-mail pastor@southshore.com
Heavenly Father empower each of us here at Lord of the Lake Lutheran Church to know our identity as your children through our baptism. Amen.
Romans 10: 8-13
Title: Grace
In chapter nine Paul reflects on what went wrong with his own people, the Jews. He concludes that they tried to do it, righteousness, a right relationship with God, their own way and on their own terms. They put God’s revelation, what they called the “Law” second and their own power first, a fatal mistake. In trying to avoid sin by their own power they committed a greater sin, the basic one, the sin of Adam, idolatry. They ultimately worshipped themselves in the form of their own will power. Paul knows that this is a misinterpretation of revelation not restricted to the Jews. All are vulnerable. All the more reason to get things right. Simply put, we cannot get it right with God unless we get Christ right, unless we go to God, relate to him and others through Christ and his power. The Law came to represent something it was never intended by God to represent. The Law, God’s revelation of himself, was meant to be a challenge, yes. But not a challenge a human being could meet without grace. Overcoming all other temptations begins with recognizing that one cannot do so alone. Humans need a savior, one more powerful than themselves. Recognizing that is not merely an intellectual exercise, it is a full time commitment to that savior, a dependence upon him for, in, and above all, all things, all people, one’s life.
In verse eight, “the word is near you”: In Deut 30: 11-13, Moses is quoted as saying of the old Law that it is “not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky…Nor is it across the sea.” Paul is quoting verse fourteen, here to make the same point. The word is near, accessible to all open to it. It is only “difficult” and “distant” if faith is lacking. Without faith, the Law, the Word, the will of God, God himself remains inaccessible. Faith is the key to the door, the path to the goal, the light in the darkness.
That is, the word of faith that we preach: Though Paul understands “word” to have several other levels of meaning, here he restricts it to “faith.” But not any faith, the faith as preached through Paul but by Christ himself, the faith, he says in several other places, which he himself received.
In verse nine, “if you confess with your mouth”: Paul is commenting and expanding on the quote from Deut 30:14. He clearly means something deeper than just mouthing the right words, namely that “Jesus is Lord.” One, of course, must mean them and that is demonstrated by living out what they mean. Faith allows and enables this to happen.
Jesus is Lord: This is probably the oldest creedal formula and the shortest of Christian faith. “Lord” was a term for God. It is now applied to Jesus.
“And believe in your heart”: The heart was considered to be the seat and center of the intellect, emotions and will. In other words, “with all your being,” totally, really and truly.
“That God raised Jesus from the dead”: It is all God’s initiative and doing. Faith does not bring these transcendent events about, that is, the incarnation, the resurrection. God does. Faith does not cause them. God does. Faith accepts them- as saving events.
In verse ten, “justified…saved”: Paul repeats his point for emphasis. To be justified, in a right relationship with God by being declared by God as “not guilty” and to be saved, given the very life of God, amount to the same reality. It presumes and depends on faith.
In verse eleven, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”: Paul quotes Is 28:16. “To be put to shame” means “disappointed,” “shaken,” “proven guilty.” It was pretty risky business for a Jew to convert to Christianity. At a minimum he or she would be disowned by family and publicly ostracized, that is, put to shame. Over time, Gentiles would have it no easier. Yet, Paul assures them that where and before whom it counts, there would be removal of shame. This is the shame that comes from guilt, not the “shame” that comes from rejection.
In verse twelve, “no distinction between Jew and Greek”: Paul does not mean that both will equally suffer rejection from their peers, family and nations, though they will. Rather, he means that the “word of faith” is accessible to all, regardless of birth, status, position, etc. Christ is an “equal opportunity” savior. Open to all, salvation is not accepted by all. Those who do accept it are not accepted by the world.
“The same Lord is Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him”: He reinforces his point, a point that would horrify many Jews of his day.
In verse thirteen, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”: A quote from Joel 3:5 is now applied to Christ. There is surely more involved in this than the mere saying of “Lord, Lord” as Jesus makes clear. Paul presumes the sincerity of the one calling on the Lord, represented in good Jewish style by “the Lord’s name.” As Jesus taught, this verbal event must be backed up by behavior consistent with the will of God. Good works do not induce God to act and humans do not initiate the process of salvation. The necessary faith is itself a gift from God, a gift denied to none, though not accepted by all. But to all who do accept the consequences are eternal.
The covenant relationship God established with his people and the Law that spelled out its terms had been misinterpreted by some, unfortunately the influential members of the nation. Because of their positions of influence-kings, government officials, priests, teachers, false prophets- they had many followers. They believed and taught that the Law, really the laws, gave them a blueprint for behavior. If they matched their behavior in every detail to that blueprint they would be “perfect.” Then and only then would God like them and he would be duty bound to do for them whatever they wanted. They could hold God to his word by force of their conformity to the blueprint. In effect, they would be God and he would be their servant. Of course, they did not spell it out this way, but Jesus did and so did Paul. These legalists were half right and all wrong. God does want us to align our behavior to his “blueprint,” really, more like an agenda than a blueprint. He does want us to become and behave like him. What they missed was that he does not leave it completely to us, to our own unaided efforts to do it. He helps, more than helps; he makes it all possible by his grace. Grace is what they left out, the key ingredient. So, they learned by bitter experience and failure that the Law could not be kept by human endeavor alone. Yet, many refused to believe this. They remained stubbornly in denial. To admit that the direction of my life has been all wrong requires not only humility, but changing old embedded habits; habits, no matter how wrong, unfulfilling, and self-destructive I have become familiar with and comfortable with. I know them. A new direction is unknown and scary. I might fail. So, I deny the truth. I would rather expend my energy covering up the lie than uncovering and discovering the truth.
Enter faith and grace. If I cannot do this on my own power, is there a power available and accessible to me to either do it for me or help me do it? The good news: the answer is “yes.” It is Jesus, the Lord. We do not have to work our way to Jesus. We need only trust in him and he will give us the power. Good works will not earn us a place at God’s table, but once there we will do good works in gratitude for being there. Paul’s position is that we do not do good works in order to be saved, but because we have already been saved. Good works are the consistent outcome of what we have become in Christ, God’s adopted sons. We can grow to “look like,” by our behavior and actions, our adoptive Father, by imitating his only Son, now our brother. It is by his generous gift of love that we can have faith in so great and unique an example, instance, image of the Father. God even provides that. Yet, he requires one thing: that we, in effect, give him permission to work his good works in us. He will not force himself on us. We must believe and confess with all our beings that we have freely chosen to abdicate our self-made thrones and let the Lord be Lord in our lives, over our lives, of our lives, and through our lives. When we truly call on him and not just mouth the words, “Lord, Lord,” we are heard, we enter into his presence, enjoy him and receive all the guidance we need to do what no Law, no rigid adherence to rules and regulations, could ever come close to doing. We are saved!
The imprint, the Spirit within us, has replaced the blueprint, the Law outside of us. This ensures that every move is an authentic representation of the character and nature of God, not a deviation issuing from human imagination or aspiration. It ensures that the quality of life God himself enjoys is embedded on our hearts, expressed in our words, and lived out in our actions.
The Law seemed like God’s attempt to control humans. Actually, humans turned the observance of it into an attempt to control God. Neither approach, given human free will and God’s freedom, can work. Salvation is not about control, but freedom, God’s and ours. Obedience to God is more than compliance. It is surrender. Once we surrender freely and without coercion, we accept his terms unconditionally. Oddly, surrender results in freedom. The war is over and peace reigns.
God is everywhere and can easily be contacted by listening to his written word, Scripture, as well as to his created word, the universe and everything and everyone in it.
Listening to God and listening for God is a form of faith, trusting he is there and loves us.
We cannot even listen to or for God without his help.
He gave us and continues to give us all we need in giving us his Son, Jesus Christ.
Salvation is for all, even though all do not accept it.
All, regardless of distinctions, racial, religious or otherwise, are equally in need of salvation and equally offered it. There is no place for prejudice among those saved or against those who refuse salvation.
Salvation: This word comes from the Latin root meaning “whole” (salvus). Thus, salvation is wholeness. We fracture more than our bones as we live our lives. We fracture our wills, our spirits, our beings, when we refuse to accept our true human condition and limits, especially our absolute dependency on God. We might fracture a bone by accident or someone else might fracture it. However, we are always responsible for fracturing our spirits. Yet, we cannot make ourselves whole again. That takes a power greater than ourselves. That takes a savior, a healer, one who will set things right again, right with God. When we take matters into our own hands and ignore the wise counsel of God, especially as we find it in the Scriptures, we really take God’s place in our lives. We arrogantly believe that we can do it, live our lives, on our own power. It may seem that we are claiming our own freedom, our own salvation, and in a sense we are. However, it’s all bluff and bluster. What we are doing is assuring that we remain in the state of s-l-a-v-a-t-i-o-n, not really a word but a clever play on words. We remain slaves to all the evil within us and within the world. It is not freedom at all. Nor is it wholeness or holiness, but a condemnation of ourselves to h-o-l-e-n-e-s-s another made up parody of a word. We remain in a hole, living beneath even the level of light, any light at all. It is our very nature to be dependent on a power greater than ourselves. We are creatures and by definition dependent. It is an aberration of our relatively exalted place in the scale and scheme of things “a little less than a god” as Psalm 8: 6 puts it, to claim a higher place. It is ironic that when we try to be more than human we end up being less than human; even a little less than an animal. To be our own god, to be our own source of power, to determine for ourselves and all by ourselves what is right and wrong, good and bad, leads to disaster, for we are not really capable of any of those things. On the other hand, salvation is something we receive, not achieve. It is a gift empowering us to do good, not a reward for having done good. We do good not in order to be saved, but out of gratitude for having been saved.
Like Jesus in the gospel, Paul was fond of quoting Scripture. He did so not as ammunition for an argument, but as food for thought. His thoughts and God’s were so much in harmony that it was impossible for him to speak or write for very long without either quoting God or Scripture or paraphrasing him. This helped him to keep his vision, his attitude and his actions in line with God’s. It also helped him to teach his listeners how to do the same themselves. He did not always quote verbatim. Sometimes it was a mixture of a direct quote and a paraphrase. Other times it is impossible to tell where Scripture stops and Paul starts. Of course, Paul’s letters eventually became part of Scripture themselves and for that very reason. This same wonderful reality is available to all, just as is salvation. We are invited by God to live a life so in union with him that neither we nor others can tell where God stops and we start. The lines of demarcation are first blurred “The word is near you,” v. 9 and then merged “in your mouth and in your heart”. Scripture is food not ammunition, for nourishment , not for discouragement, not for shaming people into salvation on some sectarian terms. Amen.
