So, What We Do Doesn't Matter?

Brad Sullivan

2nd Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 4^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38     

            Our Gospel for today certainly has taken on a bit of a Lenten tone.  Deny yourself.  Take up your cross.  This adulterous and sinful generation.  Adultery was common way of describing Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with God.  So Jesus was calling out his generation of Israel as being unfaithful in their covenant with God.  This should be no big surprise to us.  Just last week, we heard the story of Jesus going to the Jordan river to be baptized by John.  John was calling all of Israel to repentance, to cleanse themselves, and renew their covenant faithfulness to God. 

            Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, however, that “it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] descendants, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham...” (Romans 4:16)  Previously in Romans, Paul writes “that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law...” (Romans 3:28)

            Is Paul saying that Jesus was wrong, that Israel didn’t need to have covenant faithfulness to the law to be right with God?  Is Paul saying that what we do doesn’t matter, that so long as we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins, then no matter what else we do, we’re right with God? 

            There are many who would misread Paul in this way.  There are those who would say Lent is a silly time when we deny ourselves good things and follow meaningless religious rules in order to justify ourselves before God.  Some would say we’re relying on our own actions, our own works rather than relying on faith in God.  They misunderstand what we’re doing and what Paul wrote.

            Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, not only to believe in him.  Jesus told his Jewish disciples that he expected them to keep covenant faithfulness to God by upholding the law of Moses.  People’s actions, what they did, was tied to their faith and tied to their being put right with God.

            Paul was not saying that what we do doesn’t matter.  Paul was telling gentile Christians that they didn’t have to keep the laws of Moses because they were gentiles.  Their faith in God was what mattered for them, not the laws of Moses.  Paul was also telling the Jewish Christians that keeping the law of Moses was given live through their faith in God. 

            In our context, without faith in God, giving up desert for Lent simply means you go without yummy desert for a month.  With faith in God, giving up desert for Lent is a way to refocus, to help us realize our desire for God and to help us take a good hard look at ourselves.  

            Are we an adulterous and sinful generation, like Jesus described his generation?  We’ve likely head arguments on both sides.  Some think we are, some think we aren’t.  Maybe we are, maybe not.  In either case, we have to deal honestly with our sin and take our sin seriously.

            God takes are sin seriously.  God is wrathful against our sin.  That’s why God chose to die, as a consequence for our sin.  God took his wrath against sin on himself, rather than on us.  So God’s wrath against sin is greatly to be feared.  God’s love for us, shown in his kindness by taking his own wrath upon himself, God’s love for us, is then to be remembered. 

            Does not God’s very love for us, the kindness that he showed, prove that what we do doesn’t matter?  By no means!  “God’s kindness,” Paul writes in Romans 2:4, “is meant to lead [us] to repentance”, not allow and excuse our behavior.  Paul even says that those who live as though what they do doesn’t matter are storing up wrath for themselves, that God repays everyone according to their deeds.

            Now I can hear questions already forming.  Did God die on the cross for our sins, or does God repay people according to their deeds?  Did God take his own wrath against sin, or is there still wrath building against sin since Jesus died on the cross?   Those are good questions, except they’re asked largely out of fear of punishment.

            Fear of punishment worries about the correct formula for sin and redemption in order to avoid punishment.  Fear is a motivator.  Fear of God’s wrath can bring us to repentance, but love is a better motivator.  Love brings us to repentance not out of fear of punishment, but out of love for God.

            Love doesn’t worry so much with the formula for sin and redemption.  Rather, love looks with gratitude at God’s kindness, taking his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and love looks seriously at one’s own sin and shortcomings, acknowledges them, and repents of them, not out of fear of punishment, but out of a desire to do less harm, more good, and to love more completely. 

            That’s why we have Lent, to take a good honest look at ourselves, to look with eyes of love, and to see how we might love God, love others, and love ourselves more completely.  It takes effort and soul searching.  It can be painful as we take seriously our own sin.  It can be a difficult process, and it is well worth the effort as we seek to do less harm, do more good, and love more completely.  We are all well worth the effort too. 

            Behind, in, and through Lent and any honest appraisal we make of our lives, is God’s great love for us.  In Jesus, God lived out the covenant faithfulness that Israel had not been able to do, that none of us could do, and so Jesus showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God took his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God created the world anew, giving us a taste of the life to come in the resurrection, and by doing so, Jesus showed God’s love for us.

            And so with this backdrop of God’s great love for us, we hear Jesus’ words.  “Deny yourself.”  “Take up your cross.”  We even hear Jesus say, “this adulterous and sinful generation.”  In these words, we hear God, who loves us enough to die for us, calling us to repentance.  We hear Jesus calling us to leave behind those parts of our lives which lead us to harming others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to put to death those parts of our lives which lead us to harm others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to love more completely, with the full assurance of God’s complete love for us, that God can cover our shortcomings and our failings. 

            “Deny yourself.”  “I love you.”  “Take up your cross.”  “I love you.”  “This adulterous and sinful generation.”  “I love you.”  Amen.