Romans 6:1-14
I don’t know how many of you know this, but some years ago
I spent above five years behind bars – serving drinks while working in various
hotels in Newmarket and Cambridge.
Today sees the start of Prisons Week which runs until the
19th October.
And prisons are very much to the fore at the moment in the
UK, where we incarcerate more people than any other European country.
Where to quote a former PM, we have been tough on crime
and criminals – but yet we have failed to be tough on the causes of crime.
The average IQ for 57% of male prisoners across the whole estate
is that of an 11-year-old.
However, I am not going to talk about prisons or prisoners
but will address the text we are engaging with, Romans 6.1-14.
But should you wish to know more about a charity I
volunteer with, the Prison Fellowship, check out there web site. Home - Prison Fellowship
What I will say however, is that if we were searching for
a text that would help us to meaningfully reflect on prisons and prisoners, we
would be hard pressed to find a more suitable section of Scriptures as this
one.
Tom Wright in his ‘Everyone’ series splits these fourteen
verses up into three sections.
And if you are not familiar with these very accessible
commentaries that cover the whole of the New Testament, I cannot commend them
highly enough.
Wrights three headings are...
1) Leaving
the state of sin through baptism
2) Dead
to sin and alive to God
3) The
call to Holy Living
We can easily see the progressive nature of these three
headings.
And this progressive concept recalls our journey as God’s
people here at St Oswald’s. Where we continue to explore and seek to walk into
a life lived for God where holy habits are formed and shaped.
Where we are seeking to learn how to practise the way of
Faith both in our individual lives, but also as a Community of Faith.
Let’s have a look at each of these three steps towards
holy living.
1 1) Leaving
the state of sin through baptism.
I remember the first vicar I worked with at the Church of
the Holy Cross, Marsh Farm, Luton. When preparing for baptism he used to say
that symbolically, when you hand your child into my arms, you are giving up
that child. You are dedicating this child to God. In effect, you could walk
away and leave the child with me. Rather like Samuel’s mum did. I accept the
gift of your child to God, and then hand that child back to you into the care of
parents and Godparents.
Baptism remains a contentious issue and something around
which I have heard hundreds if not thousands of conversations offering
different views and understandings.
But let us not wander down that rabbit hole and see if we
can discern the main point that Paul is driving at here.
Paul has just been exploring the grace of God in the face
of human sinfulness. Basically, there is no level of sinfulness that will
separate us from God’s love. Therefore, it might be argued, as it would appear
from this letter, some where saying, great, if we want to experience more of
God’s love and grace then we must sin even more.
That was Rasputin’s take, and he became involved in the
most awful types of depravity on the understanding that where sin abounds, so God’s
love and grace abound even more.
I don’t know if any of you recall an episode of ‘Only
Fools and Horses’ where Rodney had married Casandra. The hapless Rodney after a
day at work, came into the flat where he used to live with his older brother
Derek, (Del boy). He sat down and made himself comfy, asking what was for tea.
Del’s response was, ‘I don’t know, you better ask your wife, you don’t live
here anymore.’
That’s Paul’s point here in a nutshell. If you have been
baptised, then you have died and been raised to new life. Paul has the Exodus
in mind and the release of Isreal from captivity in Egypt.
Symbolically we once lived as slaves in Egypt, but we passed
through the Red Sea, i.e. the waters of baptism, and we emerge as God’s free
people, led not by Moses, but by Messiah Jesus.
We were therefore buried with him through
baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6.4
We have entered a new state of being. We have exchanged
landlords, and we don’t live there anymore.
Our former landlord may threaten us, tempt us and try to persuade us to
come back. But we have moved and now belong to Christ.
And if I may slide in one comment about prisoners. Surely
this is what we pray for and work towards. That being held captive to sin and
as a result finding themselves physically imprisoned, that they can find
freedom and change their landlord. I have seen the results of this happening,
and it is truly beautiful to see.
But some cynics may say, they are using the system to get
an easier ride.
Which leads onto Paul’s second point which Wright
references as…
1) 2) Dead
to sin and alive to God
So, you have moved in, got a new landlord, and a new life.
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an
instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have
been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an
instrument of righteousness. Romans 6.13
When we lived in Saltash, Cornwall I remember being
invited to preach on a Sunday morning at HMS Raleigh Shore Training Facility in
Pymouth. One of the Officers told me that one of the first things they did with
new recruits was to get them out of the civvies and into uniform. This gave
them an immediate sense of belonging. They were now, quite literally, going to
march to a different drum.
We don’t have anything like a uniform that declares we
have put ourselves under the authority of the just and gentle rule of God.
However, our behaviour is our distinctive clothing, our speech is our badge and
our actions our code of conduct.
That’s how you can tell if a prisoner has truly exchanged
landlords.
That’s how people can tell if we have truly passed over
through the baptism of death and been raised to new life, as Jesus said,
“By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:35
Of course, of course, of course we will mess things up and
get things wrong this side of glory, because we are still living in the world
as it is, not yet fully redeemed and restored and conjoined with heaven.
This is the now and not yet – the beginning of the end but
not yet the end. But let us remember, always remember, and forever remember…
“…sin
shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the
law, but under grace.” Rom 6.14.
This is Wright’s third point,
3) The
call to Holy Living.
Alan Redpath in his book ‘The Making of a Man of God’
wrote ‘The conversion of the soul is the miracle of the moment; the manufacture
of a saint is the task of a lifetime.’The Message has a great way of putting this in Hebrews
10.24 and a good way to end this brief exploration of Romans 6.1-14…
So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that
we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that
keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in
encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do
but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
In
summary therefore, let us ensure that we have moved from Adam humanity to
Messiah humanity, through the waters of baptism, now accounted dead to sin but
alive to Christ, and clothed with the robes of righteousness freely provided by
God so we can witness to the best way, the only right way, of living and
navigating our way through God’s world on its journey to a full and final
redemption.
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