No Condemnation!

If you were to ask me what my favourite book in the Bible is, I’d say Romans. Then, if you were to ask me what my favourite chapter in that book is, I’d say chapter 8. In this one chapter, there is such a wealth of theological truth, that you could spend your whole life just studying this one chapter. Indeed, in reading this chapter, it’s not very hard to simply become preoccupied with verse 1. Verse 1 of chapter 8 of Romans holds so much hope: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

As you know, Paul has been talking a lot about the Law—about the way in which the Law makes us slaves to sin and death. It makes us slaves to sin and death, because when we try to follow God’s Law in our own strength, we are doomed to failure. You and I can never be good enough, never be whole enough, never be humble enough to fulfil everything that God calls us to be. And if we think we have a hope, we’re kidding ourselves. And if we think we might actually do it, we’re stark raving mad!

But I guess most of us are a bit mad, at least just a bit. I am. I made a commitment to Jesus when I was 8. I was certain I was going to be good after that; but of course I wasn’t; so I felt guilty and the more I tried to be good, the more I failed, the more I felt guilty. So, at the same camp, the following year, I made another commitment. And this time I just knew I was going to be good; but of course I wasn’t; and I felt guilty and the more I tried to be good, the more I failed and the more I felt guilty. And so on… I’m not sure when the message sank in; but eventually it did. It wasn’t that trying to be good was wrong. It was just that I’d missed the point completely: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

It’s not that trying to follow God’s Law is wrong; it’s just that trying to do it ourselves is futile; and, as it turns out, completely unnecessary. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

God’s gift is that we are not required to prove ourselves, not required to justify ourselves, not required to get it all right, because we can’t. No, God’s gift is that in Christ, through Christ and because of Christ, we are never, ever pronounced guilty in the first place. In Jesus, God sets us free—not free to do anything; but free to rest in God’s love and God’s grace and to trust God to work in us and through us, despite us. And in that handing of everything over to God, that submission to God, we just may discover that God’s Law of justice, mercy and grace has been fulfilled in us because it was fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus fulfilled God’s Law and that meant death on a cross. Because any way you look at it, fulfilling God’s Law or rather trying to fulfil God’s Law means death to self—death to our sense of wholeness and wellbeing because we are consumed by getting things right; death because God’s Law has never and can never be embraced fully by humans on their own; and death because we don’t like it when someone seems to be coming close to making it on their own and we like to make sure that they know that and know that they can’t. But we don’t have to be neurotic, and we don’t have to be guilty, and we don’t have to be jealous, and we don’t have to fulfil God’s Law on our own because… “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

What a gift—to be set free of guilt, and sin and death—to really fulfil God’s Law because we have been incorporated into the resurrection life of Christ through the power of God’s Spirit. Charles Wesley was just one hymn writer who got pretty excited about that one powerfully brief message at the beginning of chapter 8 of the letter to the Romans:

No condemnation now I dread:
Jesus, and all in him, is mine!
Alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine…
(Charles Wesley 1707–88 alt.)

Accepting God’s gracious, loving embrace of us as the very human creatures which we are is, I think, what the parable of the sower is on about, too. We can hear the message that we are called to love God and love others; but if we do not comprehend that loving God means accepting that God loves us, God’s Word has not taken very deep roots in our hearts. We are hearing the good news only as seed spread on rocky ground—very superficially.

We can hear the message that we are loved by God, but when we keep getting caught up in the competitive, individualistic and consumerist priorities of the very human culture in which we are immersed, we have not really understood the good news that God really does love us, and that that means we are really released from the unhealthy systems in which we find ourselves. We are like seed choked by the thorns.

No, we are called to drink deeply, breathe fully, and understand completely, to let the roots of the good news that God loves us grow deep—nothing else matters; and when we open our hands and our hearts to accept that love, we may just find that loving God and loving others is much, much easy than we ever thought it could be. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

[T]here is … no condemnation when we enter the sphere of Christ's influence and power ([When we are] "in Christ"). Why? Not just because there is forgiveness; nor just because we have someone else to reinforce the authority of the Law in telling us how to be good—[in fact] not at all the latter! Paul explains immediately what achieves the difference: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated you from the law of sin and death" (8:2). (Bill Loader)

In Christ, God doesn’t just provide a marvellous example of idyllic servanthood; nor does God only provide a substitute sacrifice for the sin which binds us. No, in Christ, God says, more powerfully than words… in God becoming human, in incarnation, God communicates that God utterly loves us.

God takes “the initiative to bring about liberation” (Loader). God enters right into the middle of the human predicament in order to restore the broken relationship between humanity and God; in order to disempower the effect of sin in our lives; in order to set us free.

And that freedom—if we choose to accept it—will bear fruit:

…by opening ourselves to God's Spirit which brings transforming love we are transformed to become loving people. When that process starts happening we more than fulfil what the Law intended. Its goals are achieved [not through slavish observance], but on the basis of a loving relationship. Love … reproduce[s] love. Human experience tells us that this really does work. While there is a role for behaviour modification and rules, nothing changes a person so much as the experience of being loved. (Loader)

That is what Paul is on about. And that is what sets the agenda for Christian life. If we truly believe that God loves us, we cannot help but love others, even our enemies.

When we operate out of sin and fear, we reproduce sin and fear. When we operate out of love and hope, we reproduce love and hope. In both cases this is more than living by ideals. (Loader)

It is about a choice of systems: one that highlights sin and failure; and another that embraces love and gives life. Love and life are our hope. Love and life are our calling. Love and life are our inheritance in Christ.

Paul holds out the hope of us all one day being free “from the negative aspects … [that are] instilled into our human condition”, our slavery to sin and death. For Paul, that hope “means a resurrection body”, a new embodiment, a new incarnation of God’s love and God’s grace.

Until then we need to face the reality that we carry about with us both systems and can easily lose focus and surrender ourselves again to the sin syndrome. The ruts and routines don't magically disappear! (Loader)

Our fear and guilty and jealousy and neuroticism have deeper roots for us as humans than the victory of God’s love over all that would bind us to sin and death. For Paul, there is:

no liberation in people with plagued consciences. Paul's gospel lifts people beyond such self preoccupation so that they are now free to "get on with the job" of living. Death does not reign. Life does. There is now no condemnation. There is the Spirit of life. As we allow ourselves to enter this powerful new way of being set free, we ourselves have some chance of also embodying such good news and being good news for others. (Loader)

“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 …” (vv. 1-2). Or as Jesus says in other places, “Go now and sin no more.”

God Welcomes!

So what does it mean to be Christian? In the letter to the Romans, Paul is wrestling with issues that he either knows or suspects other Christians are wrestling with too. What does our Baptism mean? How do we cope with the reality of our lives where, despite our best intentions, we still do wrong? What does the graciousness of God really mean for us now? It is perhaps the most influential book in the Christian scriptures. Some of our most important Christian theologians have found the core impetus for their understandings of who God is and who we are before God in this letter.

But these days, we often hear these profound passages through the lens of a kind of Enlightenment individualistic moralism: “Sin is bad.” “Don’t sin.” “Sinners are bad.” “You are all sinners.” The blame is on us. The guilt is on us. The onus is on us to do something about it. It’s all about us!

And that’s precisely the opposite of where the focus lies for Paul. For Paul, it is always about what God has done; not what we have done or what we do: “ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)

As New Testament scholar, Bill Loader, points out, we need to make sure we read everything in its proper context: “the wages of sin [may be] death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). If we focus only on the first half of the verse, we focus on the system that God has not only called us from, but the very life from God has released us—the system from which God has set us free.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul has been talking about the reality of Baptism. He is challenging believers to take the promises of Baptism seriously—not the people’s promises which he probably thinks the people are taking too seriously by putting the onus on themselves; not the people’s promises, but God’s promise, God’s promise of liberation in Christ. “[W]hen we accept God’s generosity, celebrated in baptism, we enter a new way of life.” (Loader) “Ritual life [is] not virtual life; it [is] real life in its most basic form expressed ritually.” (GBoD) Baptism means something. In fact, Baptism means everything.

Our problem is not that we need to keep turning over new leaves and trying harder (Loader), but rather that we need to accept the new reality into which we have been enfolded. Our problem is that we do not live out of the reality that our Baptism declares and embodies (GBoD).

In Baptism, we enter a new way of being, a new dynamic, “a new set of possibilities”, “a new relationship with God where… by opening ourselves to God's goodness we not only experience forgiveness and hope but also begin a journey where [God’s] love produces love in and through us. God's goodness and generosity reproduces itself [in and through us].” (Loader)

[I]n the light of entering this new life with its dynamic generation of love and goodness … Paul declares [that we should not let ourselves] be ruled by the competing system which generates sin. (Loader)

Sin is the result of alienation from God; of the failure to live out of God’s free gift of mercy and love. Sin is the expectation that it’s still all up to us to get it right.

When we enter the new life with its new possibilities the old patterns and systems do not shut down. The destructive ruts and routines are still there, [but we do not] have to surrender to them [we do not have to live out of them] because [God’s] new life [lifts us] beyond them.

In [verse] 12, [Paul] identifies [sin] as having [its] roots in our human bodies, in particular in our appetites. In this he shares the views of many of his time [and perhaps of our own time too]. [Though] For Paul the body is not evil; nor are its desires, but when we allow our lives to be determined by satisfying our cravings without any thought for the consequences for ourselves or others—whether that is as unsophisticated as [violence and] … abuse or as sophisticated as ripping off the developing world through hogging wealth and resources—then we are caught up into a power network which produces destructive behaviour. Paul is thinking about two different systems: sin and death on the one side and goodness and love [and generosity] on the other. (Loader)

And Paul is reminding us to live out of the new system, not the old, the new dynamic into which we have been baptised. He is calling us to accept the freedom that God gives.

[Verse] 13 is about integration [in] and orientation [to the new life we have been given]. When openness to love becomes a possibility for [us], then [our] journey has just begun. That journey includes the process of bringing all parts of [our] being into the sway of this liberating power [by simply allowing ourselves] to be taken up into the dynamic goodness and generosity of God [by simply allowing ourselves to be open to God’s action]. That is what resurrection life is about. Baptism [means] death to the old system. Christian life means living that reality out so that it affects everything. As [verse] 14 puts it, [the new reality is that] sin no longer rules.

[That same verse] goes on to say that we are no longer under the Law but under grace. [You can almost hear] the hackles of [Paul’s] opponents rise. No longer under the Law, the [Scriptures] (as [they] knew [them])! What does Paul possibly mean? You can just hear them reiterating their argument: "all this talk about love is not enough; you have to have the commandments! That's the trouble with Paul." [But] Paul is being [very] courageous here. [He even seems to court] opposition. [For in verse] 15 he restates [his opponents’] … question for them: doesn't all this mean we should keep on sinning? It echoes the question with which he began [right back at the beginning of chapter 6]. Paul is not, of course, suggesting they dispense with scripture. But he is saying: when you live on the basis that you try to observe the commandments and keep on failing, then you are caught in a system which does not work. The Law treated in this way is bad news. [The next chapter of Romans continues this theme.]
… [God’s promise is freedom] from the old system, so it makes no sense to [keep] surrendering to it. To develop [t]his idea… [Paul] uses the image of slavery (6:16). [H]e refuses to reduce the discussion to rules about doing good. He is [much] more interested in the processes and what they do to people. So he repeats: the sin system produces destructive behaviour; the grace system, … the system based on God's goodness and generosity produces goodness and generosity. Here Paul plays with the [slavery] image: [in Christ] we undergo a transferral of ownership from sin to God and goodness (6:18). Some slavery! But Paul is wanting people to think in systems and the dynamics that they produce.

Ultimately the fruit of living a life which feeds on God's goodness and generosity or grace is not just goodness and grace in our lives (and surely that is even more than the Law demands and more than [what] fulfils it!); [ultimately, the fruit of God’s promise] … is … holiness or "sanctification" … not … withdrawal [from the world] or even [some puritanical perfection, but love].

For Paul God's being is not preoccupied with being untarnished and pure, but with being generous and self-giving, making something out of nothing, raising the dead, helping people from the sin-death syndrome into the goodness-life processes which love generates.

[Verse] 23 then is not primarily about sins leading people to hell, and about the gift of life as escape from hell into heaven… Paul is talking about something much more encompassing and [he’s] doing so with his back to the wall. He is contrasting two fundamental dynamics at work in human beings and their behaviour which had also become the stuff of conflict among Christians [and indeed still is today]. The way of sin and death shows itself in actions, but it is much deeper and stems from powerful forces within our own being which are generated through our alienation from God, from others and from ourselves. They are so destructive they can even take good commandments and subvert them to send us sinking further into the mire [by getting us caught in an impossible cycle of our failure to follow them exactly]. That [cycle] is … death - here and now and forever.

Against it Paul argues the liberating effects generated by the relationship of generous love which God's goodness offers people. [God’s grace transforms us for the sake of extending that] same goodness and generosity [to] the world. That is "eternal life" - beginning in the here and now [and extending beyond…] That is the good news of which Paul is not ashamed (1:16) because it is powerful and is rooted in God's goodness (1:17) [God’s graciousness, God’s generosity]. (Loader)

Baptism happens to us and changes us. We have been buried with Christ in baptism, and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life… If indeed we have been buried with Christ, we are actually dead to and freed from sin. If indeed we have been raised with Christ in baptism, we are actually freed from the power of death.
The key word here is "freed." Just as a captive is set free from bondage, so we have been set free from sin and death. …What former captive in his or her right mind would attempt to live lawlessly after being freed from captivity, unless the condition of captivity has become "home"? Likewise, given that we have been freed in baptism from sin and death, why would we give ourselves to the ways of sin and death again, rather than [opening ourselves to the graciousness ] … of God in which we now stand?

If we have been given grace and power to renounce the forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, repent from sin, resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, why do we seem so timid and powerless in the face of these things around us? Is not our timidity a sign that we have resubmitted ourselves to sin and death, rather than, as our [Baptismal] vows [affirm, given our allegiance] to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in union with his living body, the church?

Put another way, if [in our Baptism, we renounced evil and claimed Christ, what is our calling now?] … Paul understood Baptism [to declare and enact] the very reality into which we have been initiated. (GBoD)

God’s free gift is already begun in us through Christ; and all we have to do is live out of God’s gracious promise.

An Invitation to the Table

This is the table of Christ, and of Christ’s body, the church.
Here we are formed as God’s people.
Here we are named as God’s heirs.
Here we are grafted to the vine of Christ.
Here we are empowered by the Spirit for service.

Come, not because you’ve made it
in our world or God’s realm.
Come, not because you’ve failed
yesterday or forever.
Come, because you have been enfolded into Christ,
and are God’s creative work in progress.
Come, because in Christ, there is no condemnation
and all are free as Christ is free.
Keep your eyes on Christ and your heart will follow.
Keep your face towards Christ
and your actions will proceed in the right direction.

Come share this meal in thanksgiving and honour and praise
for the God who needs no justification
to lavish unfathomable love and grace upon us
through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer,
and the Spirit who makes us holy.

Setting the Table

Grain is gathered from the field;
threshed and milled for flour.
We are formed from the grain of God’s harvest.
Flour is mixed with water to produce basic dough.
The water of baptism unites us.
Yeast is added to transform the mixture.
The vision of God’s realm draws us onwards.
Oil softens the dough and makes a new texture.
The Holy Spirit anoints us as the body of Christ.
A little salt improves the taste.
Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth.
The bread is kneaded and shaped, moulded and baked.
It is God who makes us a holy communion.
Grapes are harvested and crushed for juice.
You are the vine, we are the branches, O Christ.
Juice and skins are mixed with yeast for fermentation.
God’s reign is coming. God’s hope is here.
There is a time of waiting; then a time of pressing.
God’s new life presses forth through the sediment of our lives.
And finally, the feast is here!
Let us celebrate the feast of our life in God.

Based on an idea by Simei Monteiro & Lindsey Sanderson, “A Communion Meditation” in What Does the Lord Require? Compiled by Francis Brienen, Canterbury Press, 2000.

God's Easy Yoke!

Have you ever watched a toddler who has just learnt about the idea of not being allowed to do some things, and of having the capacity to do exactly what she or he is aware that he or she should not be doing (or at least what Mum or Dad says that she or he should not be doing). Sometimes it can be a game, as the child reaches towards the heater or the stove saying, “Burnie”, with a glint in her eye, and as soon as she knows she has Dad’s attention, the hand is withdrawn, and maybe there’s a scuttle away. Sometimes it’s a pure act of defiance: “You tell me I can’t do that Mum, but I am going to do just that!” And poor Mum ends up having rescue little Tommy from imminent danger. Paul is taking about neither of those situations.

In this section of Romans, Paul is taking about the situation where we have an idea of what God is calling us to, and want with all our hearts to achieve that goal, but simply because of ourselves, our human frailty, our completely human misunderstanding of what it takes to get it right, we are not able to achieve that illusive goal of the life to which God calls us: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

Human life is like that. We want to do good. We want to do the best. We want to do what is right. We may even want to perfect. But we cannot, we are not, and do not do what we really want to do. Because life is full of unexpected consequences; and we are not free. We are not free from the vagaries of mortal existence. We are not free from the realities of being physical beings. We are not free from our contexts. We are not free from the complexities of being beings who are not just alive, but who think and feel and want what we cannot achieve by ourselves because of precisely who we are—mortal beings.

As New Testament Scholar, Bill Loader, notes, Paul’s hearers were probably familiar with this idea: “It was alive in the intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world as an analysis of the human predicament and how people are not free.” The idea reached back as far as the ancient Greek playwrights. (http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpPentecost3.htm) Think of the story of Oedipus Rex. His parents, warned by an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, leave him to die on a hillside—an act that precipitates the very tragedy which they are afraid will happen. Human beings are not free. We think we know what we are doing. We think we are conscious of what we are doing; and we think we are in control of our lives, but we really aren’t. We do the best we can; and that’s all we can do. And that’s what Paul is on about: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

For Paul, the Law, God’s Law, plays a complex role for us as God’s creatures, as God’s people. It reminds us of the life to which God calls us; and it reminds us of how far short we fall in achieving that life on our own. As quickly as the Law tries to free us from ourselves, it binds us to our frailties. It is tragic; and maybe just a little bit comic too—the ultimate double-bind or Catch 22 situation.

And here, surely, we are hearing part of Paul’s very own story: “I tried so hard to live up to the Law, but it wasn’t until I discovered that that was futile, that I discovered the freedom I have been given in Christ. It wasn’t until I realised that I couldn’t do it, that I discovered I didn’t need to.” For Paul, God’s graciousness in Christ is freedom from this double-bind, this impossible puzzle. And this is the good news, this is the Gospel!

As we open ourselves in faith up to the story and promises of God, God’s gift of grace and mercy, God’s love and God’s utter forgiveness, as we simply make ourselves available to God, we move from the cycle of death and failure to the wonder of life and growth and freedom—freedom from sin and guilt and death; freedom to live hopefully and love freely, freedom from the effort of an impossible struggle for perfection grounded in fear. God’s love for us, when we accept it, reproduces in us, love for others; and that is the fulfilment of the Law. The acceptance of God’s love for us is the pathway to life in God, not trying harder and harder to obey a set of commandments.

In verse 24, Paul voices the profound question of human existence, of human hopelessness: “Who will rescue us from this roundabout of death? Who will help us get off this never-ending treadmill of guilt?” And in verse 25, he answers is own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

“I may have tried to serve God when I was busting a gut to follow the Law; and intellectually I might have understood what was required, but I was thoroughly incapable of achieving what I thought I understood. And that made me not a slave to the Law, but a slave to sin, a slave to guilt. And the Law becomes not an instrument of freedom, but a tool which enslaves me to the profound internal conflict of hopelessness and despair.”

These days, psychologically we know that it is not prohibition but positive reinforcement that changes people’s behaviour, changes people’s lives. We need someone to believe in us in order to be the people we are meant to be. And Paul’s profound insight is that God believes in us—God made us, God loves us and God believes in us! Shame and guilt and fear are banished in the face of this utterly unconditional love. God’s radical love offers us new life, new birth—all we have to do is trust God’s love, accept God’s forgiveness, live out of God’s graciousness. And God’s additional promise is that through that acceptance God’s love will be reproduced in us.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15) Who will rescue us from this roundabout of death? (v. 24) “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25) This is God’s easy yoke! And it is much, much lighter than the burden of our sin, shame, guilt and fear! Thanks be to God.

Embracing the Unknown God

Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going? We humans love these questions; and often we fill our lives with all kinds of activity trying to help us answer them. Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going?

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles today, Paul confronts these questions as he confronts a new culture—an influential culture; but one not wholly compatible with Paul’s Jewish roots or his profound Christian conversion; and also a culture not completely alien to the deep insights which Paul has come to Athens to share from his experience and understanding of the risen Christ.

Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going? These were questions that very much interested the people of ancient Athens: a people who prized learning; a people much engaged in exploring big questions in science and mathematics, philosophy and literature, arts and physical culture. They were a people who continually asked why, exploring themselves and their surroundings, searching for greater knowledge of humanity and our environment. Even in their religious beliefs, they were not content that they knew everything that there was to know. Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going?

So, Paul is depicted as entering into this enquiring culture: a Jew among Greeks, a Christian among worshippers of gods with other names, a public speaker amongst a city of thinkers. His Jewish rabbinical background serves him well. He is intent upon arguing his case, on discussing not just the finer points of theology, but the big picture. He is asking his listeners to dig deep into the big questions and not just skate across the service.

He argued with the Jews. He argued with the Greeks. He argued with the philosophers and the people in the market place. Not that that made him many enemies for the Athenians were a people used to that sort of behaviour and, in fact, quite encouraging of it. The Athenians prized new ideas and thoughts, discussion and debate. They were concerned with exploring the big questions: Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going?

Indeed, Paul is received well by the Athenian community. The picture of his reception is very favourable indeed, because, as the story goes, he is taken to the Areopagus to speak, to explain the strange, new teaching that he is offering.
The Areopagus is a small, barren, limestone hill, northwest of the Acropolis in Athens. Historically, the Areopagus was the place where the Athenian council had met to pronounce justice. The council, the most respected of Athenian institutions, had at one time performed the function of a senate. At the time of Paul’s visit and following the growth of democracy, the earlier powers of the council were greatly reduced. They did, however, still retain responsibility for the areas of religion, morals and homicide. Whether it was to this council which Paul spoke or not, we do not know. In the time of Paul, it was unlikely that the council actually met at the Areopagus, having moved to a place in the Agora, the marketplace. Nevertheless, the significance of the site to the story should not be missed. Paul is depicted addressing the Athenians on the site of their most respected council’s original home. This discussion is significant; and it is held in a very significant place.

Because of its use, the Areopagus was also renowned for the many incidents relating to the responsibilities of the Athenian council which had occurred over many hundreds of years. Perhaps it was historically true, perhaps just a legend or more likely a mixture of both, but one of the most famous stories about the Areopagus related to the shrines to “the unknown god” or “gods”.

There were a number of altars to the unknown god or gods in Athens. The story went that six hundred years before Paul ventured there, a terrible pestilence had fallen on the city which nothing seemed able to stop. A Cretan poet, Epimenides, had come forward with a plan. A flock of black and white sheep were let loose to run through the city from the Areopagus. Wherever each lay down it was sacrificed to the god whose shrine was nearest. If a sheep lay down without being in close vicinity to the shrine of a god, it was sacrificed to “the unknown god” or “gods”.

That story not only tells us a bit about the shrine “to the unknown god” but also about the importance which the Athenians placed upon their educated people, those who explored those big questions: Who are we? What are we on about? Where are we going? It was Epimenides, the poet, who had been credited with the plan for saving the city and it is Epimenides, to whom Paul appeals, when arguing that “the unknown god” was in fact the God of Christ.

For Paul, like any good preacher, begins his address with something which he thinks is important to the gathered assembly and appeals to the authority of people whom he knows his congregation respects. Since he is speaking to people who prized education and cultural achievements, Paul presents the claims of Christianity in an intellectual and cultural way in a reasoned manner.

Tactfully, he compliments the Athenians on being ‘very religious’. Then he refers to their own poets in making his main point. He notes a nearby altar with the inscription, “to an unknown god” and tells them that this God can be known, that this God is not far from each of them. He uses the words of Epimenides, the poet who brought those shrines into being:

This God whom you call the unknown god is, in fact, “the one in whom we live and move and have our being”. This is the God whose children we are.

Knowing who we are, knowing whose we are, knowing where we come from has a huge influence on our self-understandings, and not just on what we think about ourselves, but what we do arising out of who we are. But sometimes we get it the wrong way round. Sometimes we do a lot just trying to find out who we are; and in the process, we engage in a lot of activity and risk losing whose we were meant to be.

The God whom Paul proclaims, the God whom Paul understands to have come to us in Jesus is “the God in whom we live and move and have our being”. This God is the source of our identity and purpose. This God is the God whose children we are.

The importance of knowing who we are is particularly well-demonstrated for us in Australia by the struggles of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Europeans moving into this land stripped them of their land, their culture and their identity. We still witness helplessly the effects of that stripping, of that loss of a sense of who they were as a people; and that’s why things like an official apology to the stolen generations, and a re-writing of the preamble to the Constitution of the Uniting Church to include a recognition of First Peoples are so important. They address the question of identity, of who the people are and where they belong.

Christian people especially must understand the importance of these thing, because who we are has never been about what we do. It’s always been about what God has done in Jesus—about whose we are. In the disconnection of people and land, indigenous Australians lost that to which they belonged.

At the Areopagus, Paul is calling the Athenians to the God in whom they can discover themselves, not because of what they do or have done, but because of what God has done and who God is. This is “the God in whom we live and move and have our being”. This is the God who is the source of our identity and purpose. This is the God whose children we are.

Since arriving in Armidale, that is the message that I have been trying to share with you as a Congregation in order to ground our identity as the people of God in this place, not in what we do, but in whose we are and what God has done for us. I have tried to invite you to rest in God’s gift to us in order that together we might discover the freedom that our identity in Christ gives us. So, there have been many times when we have affirmed our baptismal identity—affirmed that we are incorporated into the body of Christ, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, by God’s grace. In our Elders’ meetings, we have made worship the important focus that it needs to be for the community of the Spirit. Worship is where we are formed as the people of God; and Elders sharing together in worship as key leaders in this Congregation is the most important thing we can do to remember, to remind ourselves whose we are and what God has done for us, in order that we might help this community to rest in our identity as the people of God. Worship here together is the most important thing we do together as the people of God in this place—as we turn our faces towards the God in whom, we live and move and have our being; as we orient ourselves, or rather as we allow God to orient us towards God, we are continually invited to discover the beloved children of God that we are; and out of that continual discovery to be enfolded into God’s mission in our world, not just through our activities as a church, but in our active participation as members of the body of Christ in the society around us. It is the freedom of knowing whose we are, of knowing who we are in God, of knowing what God has done, of remembering that God’s mission is God’s and accomplished in Christ, not ours and done by our own deeds, that will embody our identity in the God whose we are.

Activity is important, but not because of the activity, because of where it comes from. The work of the people of God must come from our acknowledgement of whose we are, of who we are in God; and that acknowledgement begins here, as we open ourselves to the God in whom we live and move and have our being, and invite that God to embrace us as beloved children; and as we hear the gracious words of that God again and again: “Your sins are forgiven.” “You are my people.” “I will not leave you alone.” “I have prepared a place for you.” “You are my beloved children.” “In me, you live and move and have your very being.”

Stone Upon Stone

A stone… to hurt… to shelter… to throw… to gather…
to wound… to sculpt… a weapon… a blessing… a stone…
A stone… to control… to protect… to divide… to gather…
a barrier… a bridge… a weapon… a foundation… a stone…
A stone… to build a dividing wall… to lay a roadway…
to shape an obstruction… to smooth a connection…
a weapon… a faith… a stone.
(Adapted from Seasons of the Spirit, Year A Easter 5, 22 May 2011.)

Stones… Human beings have done an awful lot with them: an awful lot for good and an awful lot for harm. So today in our readings, we have a mixture of stone imagery… Stephen, the first Christian martyr is stoned to death in the 7th chapter of Acts. In Psalm 31, God is our rock and refuge. In the first letter of Peter, the disciples of Christ are identified as “living stones” to be placed on the great living cornerstone, Jesus Christ, in order to build the people of God. And though the stones are not mentioned in the reading from the Gospel of John, the house of God is—and in that imagery stones are not far away. Stones to build… and stones that kill…

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

But we are a menagerie of a people… and we are very human… stones that build up… and stones that tear down…

When I was a child, my image of God’s house was something like one of those cartoon houses with the small front door and entry at the bottom and rooms which kept popping out all over the place on the floors above. It never toppled over although it always looked like it would. And there was always more room for more rooms. They could just pop out anyway, anytime, whenever one was needed for a new member of God’s family. I don’t remember ever believing that God actually lived in a real house just like that, but it seemed a good picture to have in my mind for the type of house God would have if God needed a real house like the one I lived in. God’s house wasn’t made of weatherboard or bricks obviously, but there was always room for all God’s children, whomever, whatever, and however they presented themselves.

God’s house, God’s oikia, God’s household, is made of stones… living stones… very human living stones and we are a ragtag collection of odd-shaped rocks… stones that fit easily… and stones that stick out in odd ways…

Have you ever built a stone wall? Or perhaps you’ve visited one of the great historical stone walls like Hadrian’s Wall in the UK. Stones are not bricks… They are not neatly shaped and ready to put into an orderly pattern. They come in all different shapes and sizes; and, if they need to be put together, the act of fitting them into one another is truly and art… stones that fit… and stones that need a bit of a trim to fit… stones that need a bit of shaping in order to contribute to the stability of the wall… or the house.

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

When I was fourteen, three friends and I decided that we would write a musical to be performed for our Sunday School Anniversary. The Anniversary was scheduled for October. We began our enterprise on a day late in the Christmas holidays, sometime in the previous January. It wasn’t long before we had decided that the musical would be about Stephen, the first Christian martyr. That story is contained in just two chapters in the book of Acts; and it is conveniently arranged into several short episodes which made it the perfect storyline for a musical of about 45 minutes. It was at our second meeting that we decided on a theme that began as our working title and eventually became the performance title for the musical: “In His Image”.

This title originally came out of our recognition that the story of Stephen’s death, the passage that is one of our lectionary readings for today, was very much a parallel story to the death of Jesus. In the story of Stephen’s stoning, he cries out in two very similar utterances to those which Luke also records Jesus crying out on the cross. In Luke 23, Jesus says, “Forgive them, Father! They don’t know what they are doing.” In Acts 7, Stephen cries out in a loud voice, “Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!” In Luke 23, Jesus commits his spirit into the hands of God. In Acts 7, Stephen asks Jesus to receive his spirit. Stephen, the first Christian martyr is depicted by Luke as being in Jesus’ image—a living stone in the shape of the great cornerstone. Stephen is well and truly a chip off the old block.

As we read and re-read the Biblical text of the story of Stephen and consulted commentaries and other resources, we came to see just how closely the life of Stephen recorded in Acts did reflect the life of Jesus: even more closely than we had first realised.

In Acts 6, Stephen is described as one “richly blessed by God and full of power” who “performed great miracles and wonders among the people”. Stephen is opposed by some Jews and ultimately brought before the High Priest’s Council where he delivers a long speech rehearsing the faithfulness of the ancestors of the Jews and finally accusing his inquisitors of failing to live up to this great tradition of faithfulness to God. It is this meeting which leads to Stephen’s condemnation to death: a death by one of the more horrible ancient means of the taking of life, stoning. There are very close parallels between the story of the life of Jesus and that of Stephen. Stephen is truly depicted as being in the image of Christ, a chip off the old block.

There was one more connection, however, which needed to be made before our title “In His Image” achieved its full potential as a succinct way of describing our approach to the story of Stephen. That connection is very aptly described in our Gospel reading for today, although for us it began in the text from which the original phrase “in the image” had been gleaned.

In the first creation story, in Genesis 1, the story of the creation of humanity is recorded thus:

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness... So God created humanity in God’s own image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them.” (Gen. 1:26a, 27)

It is our belief as Christians that Jesus fulfilled this vision of humanity in the image of God, being both perfectly human and perfectly God at one and the same time. It is a difficult concept to grasp. In fact, it defied the rationality of the Greek philosophy which the early Church attempted to employ in order to describe such a miraculous and mysterious event and it continues to defy our understandings of scientific rationality today. Yet this is what we believe: that in Jesus, God was so truly present for humanity that in recognising Jesus, we recognise God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded as saying “Whoever has seen me has seen God” (John 14:9).

Even more miraculous is the promise that we too can be reflections of the image of God; living stones being built on the one great cornerstone; chips off the original block; stones in the house of God. The Gospel of John records Jesus as saying, “I am telling you the truth: whoever believes in me will do what I do - yes, they will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). One of very early theologians put it this way: God became human in order that we might become divine.

But we are a ragtag collection of odd-shaped rocks—a real menagerie of members of the household of God. We are rocks that need shaping and fitting together. And that is God’s wonderful promise to us:

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

A stone… to hurt… to shelter… to throw… to gather…
to wound… to sculpt… a weapon… a blessing… a stone…
A stone… to control… to protect… to divide… to gather…
a barrier… a bridge… a weapon… a foundation… a stone…
A stone… to build a dividing wall… to lay a roadway…
to shape an obstruction… to smooth a connection…
a weapon… a faith… a stone.
(Adapted from Seasons of the Spirit, Year A Easter 5, 22 May 2011.)

“Father forgive us for we know not what we do…”

“Lord Jesus, receive our spirits…:”