A Sermon By: The Rt. Rev. Drew Smith for the First Sunday in Lent
Posted on
First Sunday in Lent A March 5, 2017 Trinity Church, Hartford
In between the dramatic stories of the serpent confronting Adam-Eve and the devil challenging Jesus, there is one verse in this morning’s lessons that struck me as if I had read it for the first time.
Here’s the verse: “The free gift is not like the trespass.” (Romans 5:15)
It is a very short verse from the fifth chapter of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In his teaching for the Christians at Rome, whom he had not yet met, Paul wrote extensively to make the point that what God has done and given us in Christ Jesus is completely different from anything the world has ever known before.
It’s as if he holds up two things, one in either hand.
On the one hand, there is disobedience of God (the story of Adam-Eve), which is trespass, sin, and leads to death.
On the other hand is God’s free gift (the story of Jesus Christ)— which is just the opposite from the other hand; this hand is new life..
Earlier in the fifth chapter, Paul tumbles on and on about the free gift. It comes from Christ Jesus. Rather than enmity with God which trespass brings, the free gift brings peace with God. We’re flooded with grace, righteousness, in which we stand, he wrote. And in everything we have hope, hope in sharing the glory of God: us, you and me. More: through this free gift, love the greatest gift is poured into our hearts — poured into our hearts — through the Holy Spirit, which also has been given (freely) to us.
And so we can stand before God, rescued, cleansed, reconciled! Given life abundant and eternal! And that’s a gift which is free.
You think Paul meant to underline that? We heard the phrase “free gift” no less than five times in today’s epistle: Free gift. Free gift. Free gift. Free gift. Free gift. He made his point.
(15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For the judgement following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 16 For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.) (not read in sermon)
Let’s go back to the “beginning” — “the trespass” — the Eve-Adam story, parts of which we read this morning. The setting is Eden which God had planted. There they were, Adam-Eve all made in the image of God, placed in Eden’s garden to till and keep it. From Genesis:
1 Now God (also) had made the serpent, which was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ 2The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ 4But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of that tree your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
What were they to do? What they really needed and didn’t have at that moment was a fact checker. For what the serpent had said. It was true that if they ate of the tree, they would be more like God, discerning good from evil — which they didn’t recognize in the serpent. But it wasn’t true that they would not die. That was — how shall we call it in this day — an alternative fact. Truly, fake news. And there wasn’t anything to check back to, no laws, no manuscript, nothing written down, no video clips of the meeting with God. So, trusting, they did what I think any of us would have done: not knowing, the fruit looking mighty delicious, and nutritious, and believing it would make one wise, they both ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil..
And the wrath of God broke loose. Harsh confrontation over the truth. Harsh judgment: exile for both. Before they could also eat from the tree of life and live forever, God forced them out, setting up fearsome creatures and a flaming turning sword to prevent their ever returning to Eden. Disobedience, even in innocence: sin, leading to Condemnation: Enmity, with God and with creation, bringing murder and death.
So we see the complexity of what it is to live knowing good and evil: rights and wrongs became more and more codified, and had to become more and more specific, with rewards and punishments, and judgment was more clearly determined, and there was no way before God or one another that anyone can live up to the righteousness of God.
The difference, Saint Paul wrote the Romans, came in Jesus Christ. In him was the love of God, his teaching, his person, his example, most especially in his dying — condemned by law gone wrong — and above everything in the victory over that condemnation: his Resurrection. All that had been of condemnation he took on, and something new was born which is given freely and has the power to move us into a new dimension and joy of living — rather than trespass, sin, enmity and death — rather,to growth and life and God living in us and us in God.
And it’s free. Not like a reward which has to be earned, or condemnation which is a consequence deserved, but a free gift, growing up in a new life lived in Christ, and with one another: a free gift freely offered by God to all.
“The free gift is not like the trespass.”
So what takeaway for Lent can there be in all this?
For me, there are two things I will share — in the hope they might open something for you.
First, getting back to Scripture. For decades I have struggled with the Anglican practice and expectation of praying Daily Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer from the Prayer Book. I would sit in the morning, look up the lessons and psalms, mark out the pages each day, find the correct antiphons, check the Lesser Feasts and Fasts for saints’ commemorations (did you know that yesterday was Paul Cuffee's Day?) and then work my way through the rite and the lessons and the offer prayers from a little journal book, and my mind would wander, and I might doze, or become impatient to get on with the day, and it was really not satisfactory to me nor, I think, to God. As i went through the day, I couldn’t remember what i had read in the morning. So more often than not, I gave up. Sure, I pray during the day and at night, but without daily Scripture I have felt more and more distant from, neglectful of, God.
Today’s lessons woke me up: when the serpent tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, they were adrift without the touchstone and witness of Scripture but when the devil came to take on Jesus in the wilderness it was Scripture which time and time and time again was the template, the touchstone weapon if you will, to answer, parry, the temptations and for Jesus to move deeper into righteousness and the call of God’s ministry.
So, learning from Adam-Eve, and taking the example of Jesus, I’ve come back to Scripture, and have begun reading just the gospel appointed for each day in the morning. Our fact-checker withy God. What joy! It’s just the Word, not cluttered up by all the other stuff of the Rite of Daily Morning Prayer, and I now spend morning time, fifteen or twenty minutes, just with the gospel story, fresh with Jesus, exploring, imagining, questioning, remembering,
The second take-away from these lessons is the thought of asking someone else — I’m not sure who that would be — to challenge me specifically and directly to grow in the new life we have in Christ Jesus, given so freely as a gift.
Traditionally Lent is a time for self-examination and repentance. But self-examination can only go so far. Often spiritual counseling or direction depend on what “I” bring up and want to explore. But what if in Lent I were to invite someone else — someone deeply trusted and living in God’s love — to nudge me in ways which would lead to repentance, to newness of life? The thought’s a little scary. “Where do you think I should grow?” Would you allow, or ask, someone you know to be that specific with you, from his or her knowing you to encourage you to grow spiritually in new ways, challenge you to move into a relationship with God that is different from where you are now?
In a sense, that’s what the devil did for Jesus: his confrontation with our Lord in the desert actually made Jesus face temptations which may have been very real, and from the victory of that encounter, Jesus then moved into his public mission . This thought isn’t asking someone to lead and one of us into temptation, but rather to open the way for deliverance from evil!
I hope in Lent this year, in Scripture and worship, and perhaps from a trusted relationship, there is something that strikes you, maybe for the first time. And opens you, and me, each of us, in different new ways, maybe life-changing ways, to the unbelievable free gift which God gives us in Christ Jesus — that we may grow more fully into the fulness of grace.
The free gift. It comes from Christ Jesus. Rather than enmity with God which trespass brings, the free gift brings peace with God. We’re flooded with grace, righteousness, in which we joyfully stand. And in everything we have hope, hope in sharing the glory of God: us, you and me. More: through this free gift, love — such love — is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which also has been given (freely) to us.
All this freely given through Jesus Christ, to whom be our adoration and praise, now and forever.