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Supplication and DeliverancePreached at St. Barnabas Church, Bellville, TX Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 2009 by The Rev. Stephen E. Stults Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Our Epistle comes from one of the “core” sections of New Testament Scripture, St. Paul’s wonderful eighth chapter of Romans. Some commentators have called this Epistle Paul’s tour de force, as he expounds on the doctrines of grace, hope, sin, justification, forgiveness, and salvation. It is certainly one of the key books in the New Testament and one of my personal favorites, because it was chiefly responsible for my adult “re-conversion” at the tender age of 22. I can honestly say that Romans reawakened my own slumbering faith and made me see, starkly, my desperate need for Christ’s saving Grace. The eighth chapter brings some central Christian themes to our remembrance, the chief being the “tension” of law vs. grace. In the very first verse, Paul reminds us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:1-2). He builds on this theme while reminding us of the struggle of the carnal man against God and against spiritual things, telling us even that the end of the fleshly, i.e., non-spiritual, man is death, while the spiritual man’s spirit is aimed towards peace. We who mind spiritual things even have a Helper that lets our spirits cry: “Abba” (Father)! We don’t have a stern, dispassionate deity like Allah, who wants nothing but our submission, nor do we have a non-personal entity like the Tao into which we hope someday to slip like a “teardrop into the simmering sea.”1 No, beloved, we have a God who desires a personal, one-on-one relationship with you. He wants, if you are willing, to “abide” with you, be close to you and to befriend you, being helped by the Spirit of God to realize that we are not only children of God, but heirs of His Kingdom. Yet, this glorification that St. Paul speaks of comes at a price. He tells us that if we suffer with Christ, we shall be glorified with Him. Now, while our sufferings as Christians, thank God, in this country are slight, especially as compared to other parts of the world, we do suffer in various ways as Christians. Personally, I know of one occasion where I was refused further consideration for a teaching position because it came out during the interview that I was studying for a Master of Divinity degree. The principal quietly and rather coolly ended the interview after hearing that. I later learned from another teacher that she was, in fact, a professed atheistic humanist. Yet, our sufferings are slight. In fact, St. Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). None of us in this room, to my knowledge, have been asked or compelled to shed our blood for Christ. My only bloodletting in the Church resulted from an old, brittle, Sanctuary lamp that shattered in my hand as I attempted to change it. As I said, our sufferings are slight indeed! So what is St. Paul talking about when he speak of the “the glory which shall be revealed in us”? Also, what does he mean when he says the “earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God,” or as the New American Standard version puts it, “the anxious longing of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God”? We are given a hint of what he is saying when he says that the Creation was subjected to futility or vanity, by reason of him who subjected it in hope. What? This doesn’t make sense until we read the verse (Romans 8:21): “because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Thus, putting it all together, we get a sense of what he is saying. It is this: all of Creation, consciously or subconsciously, waits for the consummation of history, when it and all things in it will change. Things now are indeed vain or futile in this sense: we humans expect all things to go on the way they are now, even ourselves. While we know intellectually that all things change, decay, and eventually pass away, we really don’t want to believe it. Thus, love songs speak of “forever”; grants and trusts are constructed with the words “in perpetuity”; and the Psalmist says, “Men call the land after their own names.” In fact, Psalm says, “Their inner thought is, that their houses are forever, And their dwelling places to all generations; They have called their lands after their own names.” Yet, as the Preacher reminded us in Ecclesiastes, “Vainity, of vanities! All is vanity.” (Eccl. 1:2). How true, how utterly true that statement is. We are all in a state of entropy, of drawing into ourselves. Yet, why would the Apostle say that we are “subjected in hope”? It is because, while all things have a passing, they also will have a resurrection. This, St. Paul confidently affirms “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We and all Creation will be set free from our “slavery to corruption” into the freedom of glorious perfection in Christ. The Book of Revelation speaks of Jesus presenting Creation as his spotless Bride to the Father. We also know that we will change this corruptible body for incorruption and our mortality for immortality. Thus, we will escape our bondage to finality and will assume our inherited places with the Church Triumphant in Heaven. In the meantime, we have a job to do on Earth. Our job is to love God with all whole heart, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to show God’s love for us by loving others in the same way we want to be loved. We Anglicans know the word that fits this bill: it is charity. We are to be charitable in our thoughts, in our words, and in our actions. We are simply, to treat others the way we want to be treated. Perhaps in so doing we will ease the “groaning” of Creation, as it awaits its glorious consummation to what God wanted it to be, before it was tainted by sin and death. Our example does make a difference. Our doing good for and thinking well of our fellow man makes a difference. Although it sometimes does not feel like it, our witness to Christ, in whatever way we it manifests itself, makes a difference. We are all one body and what we do matters to all. The mystical body of Christ, the Church Militant, moves on this earth according to God’s Purpose. However marred by sin and human frailty, how ever imperfectly it moves, God has a purpose and direction for His Church. We have just seen, for example, the formation of a new province of the Anglican Communion, the Anglican Church of North America. This is clearly evidence that God wills that an orthodox expression of Anglicanism continue and it is wonderful and hopeful. Thus, our job continues while we wait, in hope and joy, for our ultimate deliverance from sin and death. Although we know that the victory has already been won and our salvation procured through Christ, we also know that our communal and individual battle against sin, the flesh and the Devil continues. Paul says that we, even we that have the first fruits of the Spirit of God groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption. Yet, while we struggle against sin and we strive to persevere in righteousness, let us also strive to do it with joy. Ours is certainly not an easy journey, nor one without pitfalls and dangers. We do have enemies and adversaries, both spiritual and temporal. As we strive for holiness and godliness, do not expect the world’s approval, but rather its reproof. Expect its scorn as you seek after righteousness and even its ridicule as you hunger and thirst for the things of God. Remember, if we were of the World, the World would love us. We are not, ultimately, seeking the approval of men, but of God. We are seeking a different type and source of approval. Again, let us seek to do with joy. Difficult as this way may be, yet it is one filled with hope and with help. We are never far from our Helper, the Holy Paraclete, as He seeks to tabernacle with us and we with Him. We are never far from help that is always fresh, ever-present and abundant. We are never far from Joy, if only we would seize it! Let us then, take a hold of this joy and cherish it. Let us wrap our spiritual “arms” around it and hold it close to our soul. This is our comfort, this is our aid, and this is our hope as we wait for “the redemption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” This redemption is our hope and our destiny. Romans 8:22 “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN 1Levi, Fr. Frank, Ethics, Cranmer Theological House, Houston, TX |
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