We have just heard 700 words of scripture but it's one word I want to call attention to this morning at the start of the second reading in Romans 1 verse 12 and its ‘therefore’.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
In Greek this is a little word oun just three letters but it’s a great hinge so that the ethical teaching in Romans 1 to 15 has been called oun ethics. All the doctrine taught in Romans Chapters 1 to 11 brings ethical implications spelled out somewhat unsystematically in Romans 12 to 15 and the key or hinge conjunction or adverb is oun – therefore.
Christianity is something beautiful that holds together without seams doctrine, worship, ethics and prayer so that you can’t have one without the other. Starting from the catechism at confirmation classes, and going on from there, we teach the Creed, the sacraments, the Ten Commandments and the Lord ’s Prayer and we teach them as interconnected as they are.
For the last two months we’ve followed St Paul teaching in his letter to the Romans the new life from God Jesus brings. Now he goes on from Chapter 12 to spell out application – how the new life from God becomes a new life lived for God and verse 2 of our reading gives us a major principle: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
A great novelist was sitting down after Church to Sunday lunch with his mother and she asked about the sermon. ‘It said the obvious’ he replied. ‘But what did it say about applying the obvious’ his mother replied.
Here’s the rub for any preacher. Paul knew this because all of his letters, even this most theological letter to Rome, contain help to apply the truth revealed in Jesus Christ.
People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed wrote Dr Johnson. One of the most difficult things to comprehend is how people can forget events and gifts on which their life and salvation depends.
I would summarize the core teaching of Romans as dynamite with two blasts concerning law and history. Romans challenges the part of us that seeks to earn good will legalistically through good actions and the other part of us that’s deep down lost hope for the future of the world.
The first eleven chapters of Romans says reaching into a right relationship with God is impossible from our side but that God has reached down to us in Jesus to lift us to his heights. The righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith is the banner heading of the letter, Chapter 1:17 saying we’re saved ultimately not by following laws but by welcoming grace.
The second blast of Romans is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the world, making the church God’s new Israel and tying in the very destiny of the cosmos with that of God’s children so that, as we read in Romans 8:21 the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Saint Paul, having taught this in Romans 1-11 moves on to describe its practical or ethical implications and how the doctrine of Christ has power to reset our life and our hope if we apply it. From next week we shall hear more of the practical outworking of faith as the Sunday Lectionary moves forward into Romans 12. Like this practical advice from verse 9 headed in my Bible ‘Marks of the True Christian’: Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Paul’s teaching against legalism finds application in outdoing one another in showing honour. His teaching against pessimism about the state of the world is applied by the fortitude that Rejoices in hope, [is] patient in suffering [and] perseveres in prayer.
There is a link between what we believe of Christ and how we live our lives and this extends into how we worship and how we pray.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Christianity is a seamless robe. It is very different to the patchwork of post-modern society which stitches a bit of this belief and that practice together, gives a nod to worship at Christmas and admires Buddhist meditation.
Our Christian faith is something very beautiful, a beautiful as the One who holds us together in his church that weaves together without seams doctrine, worship, ethics and prayer.
If at times I get despondent about change in the Church it’s because so much of the propounded changes tear that seamless robe, or patch onto it things that are alien to it lessening its beauty. Marriage and holy orders are sacraments, fountains of grace instituted of God, with age old disciplines. When we change those disciplines or doctrines even there’s a knock on effect that has implications for ethics, prayer and worship as well as the doctrine.
There is a link between what we believe and how we live our lives and this extends into how we worship and how we pray. All of this is implied by those first two verses of our second reading this morning from Romans Chapter 12.
In the life of Holy Trinity our worship and prayer links into its biblical and doctrinal moorings and into outgoing care for the community.
We have a great brand as Christians but, individually as much as together, we need to value its seamless beauty and use it to cloth the needy God sends to us.
I end with what’s probably that simplest of prayers of application we call the choristers’ prayer:
Bless, O Lord, your servants who minister in your temple. Grant that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may show forth in our lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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